Golden Age of Shotgunning

The Golden Age of Shotgunning appears as a historical label for many of the classic firearms displayed in the Gun Room at Turpmtine. Rather than explaining the period’s dates or history, the scene makes the term tangible through the makers represented in Charlie Croker’s collection and the elaborate setting in which their guns are shown.

The Golden Age in the Gun Room

The reference occurs during a Friday-evening dinner presided over by Charlie Croker in the Gun Room, the showpiece of Turpmtine’s new Gun House. The room’s walls held ranks of shotguns in burled tupelo racks. Among them were pieces associated with the Golden Age of Shotgunning: Dicksons, Bosses, Purdys, Berettas, and L. C. Smiths. The list gives the period a material presence, conveyed through a collection of named makers rather than a historical account.

The guns were set within a room designed for display. Ronald Vine had devised the burled tupelo table, while a vast Georgia-limestone hearth and the gun racks helped make the Gun Room the visual focus of the dinner. In that carefully staged setting, the classic shotguns belong both to a tradition of firearms and to Croker’s presentation of Turpmtine.

Meaning and Limits of the Reference

The passage calls the period the so-called Golden Age of Shotgunning, marking it as a recognized label without specifying when it began or ended. Its emphasis is on the collection: the named makers, the many guns lining all four walls, and their place among the room’s display pieces. The reference therefore establishes the period chiefly through the prestige and variety of the firearms Croker has assembled; it does not provide enough information to assign the term a precise chronology or broader historical definition.