M1 Carbine: White Collar Defender

Hopefully, we are all familiar with  Rosie the Riviter. 
Well, she had some white-collar brothers and sisters too.
 
Consider this: What do the following 4 items have in common?

IBM AS-400

Underwood Typewriter

Rock-Ola Jukebox

M1 Carbine

That's right!  The 4th item was made by the same companies that made the others.  Back in World War II, the U.S. badly needed a weapon that was "more" than an M1911 pistol, but more portable than an M1 Garand or M1903 Springfield --  A defensive weapon for troops whose primary job was something other than carrying an infantry rifle.

Top:  M1 Garand, Middle Left: M1 Carbine, Middle Right: M1911, Bottom: M1903

 
The light & handy little M1 Carbine was designed at Winchester, but they could not be churned out fast enough to issue to all the radio operators, artillerymen, MPs, and supply-chain troops who needed them.   Although most M1 Carbines were made by the Inland division of General Motors Company, at least a dozen other companies produced M1 Carbines or their components.  I.B.M., Rock-Ola, Underwood and National Postal Meter are among the business-machines manufacturers who participated.

I doubt we'll ever again see that level of broad cooperation and "pulling together" the U.S.A. experienced at that time.  In fact, to illustrate the pride companies took in their support of the unified effort, I leave you with this ad I ran across some years ago:

Click HERE for larger image

Rosie, meet Emily.

Collection Tracking Software

If you need to keep detailed records of your collection for insurance purposes, or whatever, software can really help.   Sure you could create an excel spreadsheet, or keep everything in a text file, but a dedicated software package on a database is super helpful for recalling specifics.

I evaluated many software packages, but three in particular stood out, and I finally settled one one.  Here's a review of each in ascending order:

• BurnSoft MyGunCollection  - This was OK, runs on Windows only.  It had an area to track ammunition as well as firearms, and decent reporting.  It even has a boundbook (if you need to meet ATF regs, but since the program has not been updated since 2009, I doubt it still passes ATF muster).   If you do not pay the registration fee, the program locks after 30 days.
• MyGunDB - I found this one attractive for several reasons.  It runs on AdobeAir, so it is cross platform compatible (Mac, PC, whatever runs AIR).  The author is an OIF veteran, and is active on Rimfire Central forums, and the CMP forums.  Rumor has it that the Civilian Marksmanship Program will be selling a branded version of this software.   Like BurnSoft's, it has an ammo inventory too, and adds holsters and accessories inventories.  In my opinion, the reporting was not as strong as BurnSoft's.  MyGunDB encrypts and password protects the DB itself, so you could put it safely on something like Dropbox so that its available on any computer with internet access.  The price is right if you have fewer than 10 guns: FREE.  For $40, it'll remove this record limit.  The biggest draw to me was also its biggest drawback: cross-platform is great, but AdobeAir seems to want to update every time I launch anything on it, its UI's are a bit clunky, and well, its Adobe.
• I ended up paying for NM GunCollector .  It is Java-based so its cross-platform compatible, and although it has the typical clunky java UI, the platform is much more stable (updates to Java happen less than twice a year nowadays).   The DB is encrypted and passworded, so I can put both the app and the db "in a cloud" and access it anytime. The reporting is superior to all, except there is no boundbook (I don't need it).  What makes this one superior to all is that it is extremely flexible.  In fact they just call themselves "NM Collector" because you can create all manner of templates:  stamp collections, recipes, whatever.  It's super simple to modify some of the fields within the GunCollector portion to fit your needs.  I'm using it to inventory ammunition too.  I used their knives template and added/changed some field names, and finally renamed the table "Blades".   Now I can enter a bayonet, and in the "Fits:" field, pull rifles that are in the GunCollector table.   You can use the software fully enabled for 30 days, after which it turns off some features (like some reports, sales/purchase records, etc).  But $20 will unlock all that again for life.  You can even purchase it on a thumbdrive if you want to carry it around with you, but there are clear instructions how to install it on your own thumbdrive.

So, there you have it.   Hopefully you can find the right method for yourself to keep track of your  gun collection's details: serial numbers, dates of purchase, photo's etc.   And call me paranoid, but if you have record of arms you sold, that might come in handy if the police ever come knocking regarding a crime-scene gun traced back to you (heaven forbid).

UPDATE:  In Sept 2012, I received the most recent CMP Sales newsletter and both NMCollector and MyGunDB have CMP editions available. See the following URLs:

http://www.cmp.nmcollectorsoftware.com/activate/

http://cmp.mygundb.com