| THOMPSON COLLECTORS
ASSOCIATION A year ago I had an opportunity to visit the new NRA museum in Fairfax, Virginia, which is called the National Firearms Museum. The museum is wonderful and I would recommend visiting the museum anytime that you are in the area. This museum is rare in that it displays as much as 70 percent of its collection at any one time. Most museums are lucky to show 20 percent and often don't or won't show their firearms collections. The only thing that I found wrong in the museum was its display and presentation of General John T. Thompson. They had most of the information correct about him and the Thompson Submachine gun, but they had a West Hurley semiautomatic Model of 1927 displayed. This to me was like having Henry Ford pictured as the namesake for the VW bug. After talking with the curator, Doug Wickland, he stated that the museum did not have a correct TSMG to put in the case. So I decided to correct that problem. With the help of Craig Jordan's magic fingers and parts donated buy B. Sutton Coffman, Jim Warren and myself we created a model of a Model of 1921A, Colt era Thompson for the museum. Craig assembled, engraved and blued the model to perfection. Thanks for all the help Craig, Sutton and Jim. The Thompson was presented to the museum at the 12th Annual Firearms Collectors Leadership Conference in Dallas, Texas this last October. Within three days of the Thompson being presented the arm was on display in the museum. Every Thompson collector should take pride in having this piece representing our cause in this fine museum. |
