Miriam Tucker: No ammunition for the firearms will be sold at December event
By John Tredrea, Special Writer
LAMBERTVILLE — Lambertville officials and the city firm, Rago Arts and Auction, want area residents to know that an upcoming auction of antique firearms Rago plans to hold is legally compliant and safe.
No ammunition for the firearms will be sold, Miriam Tucker, of Rago, said Monday.
”Representatives of Rago Arts and Auction came before us, at our request, at the July 19 City Council meeting,” Mayor David Del Vecchio said Monday. “We want the public to know that it’s antique firearms and nothing else that will be sold at this auction.”
”We understand that people get concerned when they hear that firearms will be sold,” Ms. Tucker said. She said the auction of about 20 antique firearms, which will be held the weekend of Dec. 6, is in full compliance with state and federal laws.
”None of the firearms up for auction take conventional ammunition, and we’re not selling ammunition for any of them,” she said.
Ms. Tucker said Rago Arts and Auction, at 333 N. Main St., Lambertville, “is the largest and leading auction house in New Jersey. We auction $30 million worth of items annually.”
She said the firearms that will be auctioned off the weekend of Dec. 6 would be put on display at Rago a week ahead of time. She said firearms of this type often are of interest to those who participate in Revolutionary War or Civil War reenactments.
She said the firearms are from a consignment from a local collector. One of the guns is a Pennsylvania Long Rifle, made about 1830 by Peter Moll, of Hellerstown, Pennsylvania.
He was the fourth generation of his family to make firearms, she said. “The firearm of his that we’ll have up for auction has a full-length curly maple stock, an octagonal barrel and is marked with his name,” she noted, adding that the current estimate of the rifle’s value is between $3,000 and $5,000.

