I recently read this term on the internet, pertaining to firearms and militaria collectors who represent a very small portion of the buying market.
As a whole, I guess most of us who collect military surplus rifles and pistols are a "niche" group, given the fact that most shooters who buy stuff
like refurb Mosin 91/30's, K98's etc. do so just to shoot them, and most of the rarer stuff like say, 50-70 Trapdoors and rare Finn Mosins, original
condition German and Japanese weapons go to "collectors".
But I was just curious if anyone was in one of the really small groups who buy stuff that not many collectors look at. For example, I recently got really
interested in the repro percussion BP revolvers, so much so that now I find myself even looking for "rare variants" of the repros, which seems wierd
to some. I just recently bought a Uberti .44 "Navy" made in 1969 just because it had the old "Navy Arms, Ridgefield NJ" stamp on it, and it
was from the first years Uberti started making BP revolvers, when they only made the brass frame "CSA Navy" revolvers. Most people who shoot BP guns
could care less when or where they were made, so I would consider people who look for variants and low producion BP repros as a "niche" group.
I also collect BP cartridge rifles, like the Werndl, Vetterli, Kropatschek, etc.
within my niche.
