Laurence A. Cooley was born in Washington, D.C. at The Columbia Hospital for Women on May 22nd, 1936. Early in life he exhibited interest in things of beauty; He began collecting butterflies and moths when only five.
He grew up in Arlington, Virginia graduating from Washington and Lee High School in 1954. Between then and March 1966 he began work at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He attended George Washington University, served two years in the Navy on the U.S.S. Soley (DD-707), and finally received his BS and MS degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla, Missouri.
At NRL, he first worked to characterize fast fracture in ship steels and pressure vessels. Later he was assigned to help with understanding what was the controlling crack growth rate factor in low-cycle fatigue of Titanium alloys. He retired in May 1994.
His gun collecting philosophy, from which he never varied, was established in June 1964 when he bought a beautiful (with burl from butt to nose cap) Remington Zouave Rifle from Charles Crisfield of Star Route, Cedar, Michigan. The gun was from a collection which Crisfield purchased from an old Native American woman who lived in Saginaw. Her husband, who at the time was a river boat gambler, started the collection in 1920. He died of cancer and the woman needed to sell the collection.
How did this collection influence Mr. Cooley’s buying preferences for over 55 years? Simply this: Every gun in the collection was excellent to factory new. The impression it made on the buying preferences of one young collector never perished. He hopes the new owners will appreciate these guns as much as he has.
