eeting that fellow and experiencing his collection and all just sounds better and better. 

The closest thing to that in my experience happened when I was invited to an outdoor writers' hunt at the YO ranch in Texas. I think I mentioned this before but we spent an evening at the home of one of the three owners on a tour of the family's gun collection. The beautiful home was built with a concrete bunker in the basement sporting the vault door from a long-deceased bank from that state's cowboy past. We were served pizza as we wandered through the displays. One section of the vault held the guns of Texas Rangers surrounded by old newspaper clippings and photos of their owners and their exploits. Walking in through the vault door you faced the business end of a glistening Gatling Gun sitting on its wheels. I guess the vault could double as a safe room...