Immediately following the Winchester Arms Collectors Association Annual Show in Cody, Wyoming this weekend, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Cody Firearms Museum will be hosting a firearms symposium that boasts an impressive cadre of presenters from the firearms collecting world. The first day (Monday, July 17th 2017) is open to the public with free admission. The second day is reserved for firearms museum professionals.

The public portion includes ten sessions of educational lecture for the firearms enthusiast and professional alike. Presenters include the NRA Museums Division, the Autry Museum, Springfield NHS, Smithsonian, the Royal Armouries [sic], and yes, the Cody Firearms Museum – custodians of the original Winchester factory collection (including the prototypes … those beautiful, beautiful prototypes). Also present will be the Institute of Military Technology staff including yours truly. It will be my intent to present a follow-up post to this blog with a run-down of the symposium’s highlights. Those who are considering attending, however, should waste no time in making a reservation with Assistant Curator Danny Michael by email or phone.

A flyer of the Cody symposium is shown below:

The second portion of the symposium (Tuesday, July 18th, 2017) is specific to (and restricted to) firearms museums and includes topics such as the perception of firearms, addressing the press, live-fire considerations, legal issues, conservation, accessibility, and many others. Per the Robert W. Woodruff Curator of the Cody Firearms Museum, Ashley Hlebinsky:

Museums with firearm collections face unique challenges and interpretive questions. This symposium brings together authorities in the field to begin creating practical guidelines for museums with firearms.

More information about the symposium can be found on the Buffalo Bill Historical Center of the West’s symposium website or their registration page.