| Norway had rather restrictive gun laws in the 60's and 70's compared to other countries. These days the restrictive laws Norway then enforced actually seem rather liberal compared to most European countries. Nevertheless, with some items collecting in Norway tends to be very difficult. The details might be somewhat inaccurate, but the following provides a general picture of gun collecting in Norway today: Rifles and other long-guns older than 1884 are completely unregulated. You may have as many as you like. The same goes for pistols and revolvers older than 1871. Shotguns were not licensed in Norway until some ten years ago and I must admit to not knowing if you now should get a license for your older shotgun. For guns newer than the above mentioned, one needs a license from the police unless "due to design or condition should not be regarded as a firearm". You've heard about the guy selling elastic band by the meter? There has been some discussion in regards to this over the years! As non-collector one has to "prove" a need for the gun - as a target shooter, hunter or whatever - just about anything except self defence! You'd never get a legal gun for self defence in Norway - no way - only the bad guys should have guns for firing at people! As a non-collector you can have only one gun of each kind and you will have to "prove" a continous need for every one. As a collector things are a lot easier, except that you probably never will be allowed to fire your guns... Within your approved field of collection, you can have more or less as many licensed guns as you'd like - when you are approved as a collector, that is. There are no really fixed rules in regards to who will be approved, but you should have a minimum of five guns within your field before applying. If you are planning to collect WW2 vintage, that can be fairly tricky. You cannot buy the five guns needed for being approved before you have been approved..... Fully automatic guns are (almost) a great big "NO" in Norway to day - even for serious collectors with specialised collections within the field. There are some possible exceprions, but they are just about purely theoretical in practice. Storage is getting to be an important issue here in Norway and regulations are being enforced on the public (Interestingly, similar regulations do not apply to the Army, The Army can have unattended depots with fully automatic firearms in the middle of nowhere secured with a padlock - and that is ok). We, the public, should have all licensed pistols and revolvers locked away in an approved secure arms cabinet. We may have as many as four rifles in wall hangers if securely locked to a rack, - from then on it is the arms cabinet for the long-guns as well. If you have more than 25 licensed guns, you need an approved secure gun room. And, depending on what you have there, you might also have a secure arms cabinet in the gun room as a double safety. The alarm company I'm hooked up to, guarantees maximum 20 min before they are here if the alarm goes off. Even with the best of tools and knowledge of how the room was built, I doubt anybody can break into my gun room in less than one hour - I believe my collection should be fairly safe. I'm making a bit of fun of the regulations here, although really I find them to be rather sensible. The silly thing is that ex-Army personnel have ten-thousands of fully automatic rifles in their homes with no regulations for security at all, and that army depots with guns and ammunition are being burgled "all the time". |
| I started collecting in the mid 60’s, but due to children, travelling and workload, my collecting was not very active from the late 70’s to the late 90’s. The collection was locked in the mid 70’s, and my second wife actually had only seen parts of it before the turn of the century. Crime rates are regretfully soaring in our remote corner of the World as well and the bulk of the collection is now locked away in a fire proof and steel enforced room where theft is improbable. It is a pity the World is going this way and it was bloody expencive building the room! |
| I really have two collections. The first is the "serious" collection covering small-arms and blades used in the Norwegian Army and Navy from early 1700's-WW2, much of it described in this site. The other is "my kitchen collection" of Norwegian or Norwegian used civilian specialities (tennstempel rifles, different patents etc.), locally handcrafted guns and semi-misfits. I just love getting my hand on something that never should have been made. These should show a serious effort in making the gun, but it does not matter if the parts come from a number of older guns or if it is too complicated to ever have worked properly. The important thing is that it was not from the want of trying and that it was done in Norway! As of now, this part of my collection really consists only of a few long-guns, but there is room for many more.... I also have some really great international "collectors items" in the "kitchen collection" - like a civilian wheel lock rifle from the late 1500's/early 1600's, a truly magnificent early flintlock jaeger rifle for about 1700 and an early Winchester 1866; - all of these could go in a swap, however. |
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| 1700's barrel and trigger guard, the lock is an original percussion lock from the middle of the 1800's, a fairly well made birch wood stock with a somewhat poor effort in carving a hogs head. The gun is probably of fairly late date and was more or less outdated when it was made. I would guess it was assembled around the 1860's or possibly even the 1870's in Setesdalen in Southern Norway. |
| A truly beautiful and well made, light weight, muzzle loader for round bullets and shot-gun pellets that probably has been converted to percussion from flint lock. It is clean and in next to perfect condition. The barrel indicates the late 1700's, so it might be from any time between this and the mid 1800's. When I bought it, I was told that it was from Østerdalen in Norway. |
| My collections |
| My military arms collection |
| Gun collecting in Norway and the law |
| About gun collecting in general |
| Most gun collectors (or collectors of just about anything else, for that matter) start out with a few items they more or less got hold of by chance. Eventually one builds up expertice within the field and starts’ specialising in one or two lines really of interest. Here in Norway there are a number of collectors of Norwegian military arms. Hardly any of us have a really great collection, compared to the collectors with extreme specialisation. For instance, there are people collecting Norwegian Naval pistols from 1700-1850 who are able to show a line of 20 different fabulously fine pistols in a field where there is no, or next to no, documentation. I've seen only three of these pistol models on the market over the almost forty years I have been collecting. This is an extremely impressive collection and due to the fact that it covers 150 years, there is at least some variation between the models. Other collectors may be specialised in Norwegian kammerladere and have some 40-70 of the different models and variations. There are several specialized kammerlader collectors i Norway. The more you know within a field, the more interesting the field gets. I still find that a kammerlader is more or less just a kammerlader. Stick to the models with major differences, and forget trying to find the complete line - but, admittedly, - I do get impressed! This applies all over the world. There are not all that many Colt percussion models, but there are a load of people specialising in just this with an enormous variety of different versions - or Mauser C96 pistols or strangely marked K98 or.... Personally, I prefer the collection of a more historical line where one sees the historical, technical, financial and political development of a country or a manufacturer. This kind of collection will hardly ever be as impressive for the "know a good deal" collector as the truly specialised collection, but gives a lot more variation and a lot more excitement, from my point of view. One important thing - gun collecting takes up space. A lot of guns demands a lot of space. A lot of guns also make a house very tempting to break into and stolen guns on the market make the public very willing to accept banning gun collection altogether. This has more or less happened in Denmark and Sweden. Make sure it is not your fault that it happens where you live. |
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| Larsen in Drammen, Norway made this civilian breech loader, probably in the 1860's. The trigger guard acts as main spring for the hammer, which seems inspired by the Dansih "ringhane". Larsen was one of Norway's most creative gunsmiths in the late 1800's. |
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| The long-arms on the picture is the core of my military long-gun collection. One of the guns on the picture is cheating a little. The long flintlock musket with brass bands (#11 from the left) is actually the Swedish M1815 - the original for the Norwegian copies M1825 & M1929 - I have not been able to get the "real thing" yet. The rest of the rifles and muskets show a fairly complete line covering more than 200 years of small-arms history. Starting from the left with the 1711 skiløper rifler and ending at the right with the 1930 KJ. |
| Due to political circumstances in the second half of the 1800's (an undesired union with Sweden), Norway built up one of the worlds most advanced armed forces of that time. The average gun model was produced in "vast quantities" (please remember, we are a very small country), sufficient for arming the whole army and was replaced at intervals of only 10-20 years. This is part of the reason for Norwegian military arms often being in fantasticly good condition, as well for the wide availability of experimental models and the variety in the approved models. Norwegian guns from the 1800's really are great fun! We had repeating arms while the English still were converting Enfield percussions to Sniders. My main interest since the late 60's has been small-arms used by the Norwegian military forces. As there still is little risk of Norwegian fakes, the three most important things when obtaining a new gun from my point of view are still condition, condition and condition. A large collection demands a lot of space. I thereforw decided early on that I should not include experimental models in my collection (I had a wonderful M1860 falling block conversion I still miss). I also decided that I only would go for models with fairly significant differences. Most of the infantry muskets from the 1700's are pretty much alike - I settled for the biggest and the blackest - the M1774. With a couple of exceptions, I've pretty much completed my long-gun collection and most of my purchases and swaps of long-guns now are only to get a model in better condition. I still have great holes in my pistol collection, especially in the Norwegian army's flintlock pistols, and my collection of edged weapons is virtually non-existing except for bayonets. Can you help me? I've got a fair selection of things I can use in a swap. Take a look at my stop'n'swap and see if anything is of interest to you. Sorry, I don't sell for cash. |