Ernest Hemingway with his Griffin & Howe .30-06 in Africa. This is very much on the “bespoke” end of the pricing spectrum. As time has passed, Ernest Hemingway may not be quite as beloved an author as he once was, but you could argue that over his career in the first half of the 20th century, no other American writer had a greater impact on the world of words. A lot of those words were about guns—guns used by the protagonists in his stories, by soldiers, by gangsters, by adventurers, and by simple hunters. Unlike many mainstream authors of today, Hemingway’s writing about firearms always rang true because Hemingway himself was a true firearms enthusiast who owned many guns and had been familiarized with them from a very young age. Decades spent chasing adventures in war zones and hunting fields made sure that he stayed familiar with them his entire life.Given the size of Hemingway’s collection and the cost of the many fine firearms he had, it would be impossible for anyone but the richest shooters to replicate it closely. But if you want to build a shooting collection similar to Big Papa’s, it’s actually quite doable, and you don’t have to have that much money to start out.Armed authors at TFB: Hemingway's .577 Nitro Rifle Being Auctioned Hunter S. Thompson Shooting At His Neighbor Well Heeled: RIA Premier Firearms Auction #88 – Winchester 1895 And More Winston Churchill's Role in The Standard NATO Ammo Broke!If you’re broke, you won’t have the opportunity to own most of the guns that Hemingway did, but you can start where he started—with a single-shot 20-gauge shotgun.Hemingway biographers generally agree that Hemingway was barely more than a toddler when he was taught to use firearms. They say the first gun that he could actually call his own was an affordable 20-gauge single-shot shotgun that he received for his 10th birthday, from his grandfather Anson Hemingway. And, uh, that’s all we know. This old Iver Johnson Champion in 20 gauge could be exactly what Hemingway had at age 10. If not the same gun, it’s built along the same lines as what he would have owned, with a big drop in the stock and a long barrel with a full choke. [Select Fire Weaponry/Gunbroker] Given that Hemingway’s 10th birthday was in mid-1909, we could make some guesses as to what shotgun he was given. The Iver Johnson Champion was on the market then, as were a few H&R single-shots, including the Model 1900 and Model 1908, as well as the Bay State shotguns that H&R manufactured. Stevens made an inexpensive single-shot then, and so did Crescent Arms. Some of these old single-shots are still surprisingly usable, although you need to shoot any aged firearm with care and proper loads. [NE Guns and Parts/Gunbroker] If I were buying something that I might imagine a young Hemingway owning, I’d look for something that was relatively common and you can still find parts and repair instructions for—especially an Iver Johnson or H&R—and call it as close as I could get. You can find old single-shots like this for under $100 at online auctions, and in my experience, they’re practically free on the second-hand local market. Woke!If you can stretch your budget past a couple of hundred bucks, you can actually get your hands on some very good Hemingway-approved firearms. Taking a look through the national listings for Cabela’s Gun Library, I spied a made-in-1922 Winchester Model 12 in 12 gauge for only $299 - that would be perfectly matched to Hemingway’s era, and he was known for owning several of these over the years. By the time you click that hyperlink above, that Model 12 might be long-gone, but Cabela’s always has some in its system, as do all the online auction sites. Your local gun dealer almost certainly sees them regularly too, and you’ll always find them at a gun show. A good Model 12 is always worth buying anyway, but all the better if you like the Hemingway tie-in! [Cabela’s] Of course, the Model 12 stands up on its own; the best reason to buy one is that it’s a fine shotgun, not because Hemingway owned them (although the reason he owned them is because they were so good, so it’s kind of a full-circle thing). Many Winchester Model 12s were given such Fudd-friendly features as thick rubber buttpads and adjustable chokes. I don’t know if Hemingway liked that stuff, but some of that is useful and also detracts from collectibility, bringing the price down. [Reliable Gun] Hemingway was known to have 12-gauge Model 12s (he even brought one to Africa and loaded it with birdshot instead of SSG when chasing a wounded leopard, which seems … unwise). In my observation, you can typically find 16-gauge versions of the gun at lower prices, but they’re far more expensive to shoot. But then, you aren’t likely to take this to the goose blind anyway. Bespoke!Of course, Hemingway was known to have many, many fine firearms over his lifetime—particularly classy double-barrels from Winchester, Browning and Euro manufacturers. But many of them still had a plain finish; he didn’t go for geegaws in the field.He also had fine custom rifles, particularly for his African safari hunting. While he might have mucked around a duck pond with a workingman’s shotgun, he went after big game with high-end rifles, including a Westley-Richards double in .577 Nitro Express, a couple of Mannlicher-Schoenauer Model 1903 carbines in 6.5×54mm and a Griffin & Howe .30-06 built on a Springfield action. A .30-06 Mauser sporter job on the Griffin & Howe website, just waiting for someone to pop buy with $21k. [Griffin & Howe] If you want, you can buy that Griffin & Howe today—or at least, something quite similar. The Griffin & Howe website currently lists a .30-06 built on a Mauser action, built back in 1936. Who knows, Hemingway may have even handled this gun in the Abercrombie & Fitch showroom, where Griffin & Howe were the in-house rifle builders.But you’d better be flush with cash if you want this piece; the listed price is $21,675. For that, you’re getting a rifle ”fitted with the traditional Griffin & Howe accoutrement’s, such as a Lyman peep sight, ramped front sight, barrel band sling swivel and finally the Griffin & Howe side rail scope mount.” There’s a lot more to see if you check out the listing here.