Ah, my friends,
To address some of the many questions;
v188,
Yes indeed, it was a typewriter. It occured on a cold evening in Jan. 1977.
The bottom does show more info. I left the address in on top because we moved from there about 20 odd years ago, and the place burnt to the ground about 15 years ago. Anyone want to send something to that adress would get an empty lot out in the hinterlands of eastern Long Island.
Nick,
I really have a feeling the guy never went far in the ATF. He did fool me, looked like he was 16 years old, kept calling up and wanting to bring over stuff from "his grandfathers attic", old Lugers, Colt woodsman pistols from the 30's, etc.. I had made a comment when they were leaving that he might want to bone up on his firearm identification, being in that line of work. One of the agents quipped "he will have plenty of time for that while sweeping the floors around the office".
Now, being older, I olny have representitives of the IRS over for brunch

Brian,
Right after New Years, 1977
D.C. Chris,
Well, at the time I had just gotten married, was making $92 a week, 21 years old and scared sh*tless!
I had a couple of buddies on the county police force who advised me to just "leave it alone" it was not woth the bull that they could throw into the courtroom.
Needless to say, if it happened now, you would be reading about it on the front page of a national newspaper!
Oh, to be young, clueless and stupid again

LIONHART,
BINGO! For months after that, I was seeing black helocopters at night, talking in code on my phone and wrapping my head in tinfoil while sleeping !
Sgt.
Yeah, I think things were a lot loser then, kind of easy going.
I hope it takes a bit more to mount an opperation like this now, but who knows... Our tax dollars at work in 77' were easy to spend.
Z3BigDaddy'
Back to being a stupid kid in 1977, I offered them coffee! My wife asks if anyone was hungry ( cookies, cake and coffee? !!). Can you believe it??!!
I must say, they were all very proffessional ( thinking back, they were probably trying to figure out how to explain this mess away!) refusing any beverage or food. I can remember that I kept putting my hands up after the initial bust in, and they kept saying "put your hands down, it's okay". Something about a bunch of guys with guns out in your house makes your hands stay in plain sight.
And there it is.
Again, things would be mighty different today, on all respects.
Best, Z