Listening to the rain, and reading all of the informative posts. Thought I should introduce myself. I started with a Daisy 179, in the velvet cased NRA centennial edition at age 10. Two years later, my thumb now Herculean, I showed my Dad an ad for the Sheridan Bluestreak, and one wound up a great birthday gift when I turned 12… bought from a place called, “The Gunrunner”. I replaced 2 springs in the 179, and it was plum worn out, but the Sheridan never blinked. Bought a .22 Benjamin pump pistol, but sold it so I could get an HW70. Traded that HW70 towards my Beeman P1 in .20 cal. Years later picked up a Sheridan pump pistol in .177, and a Crosman co2 dpms ar15 . A few years ago I found a mint 179 Centennial to replace mine on eBay. It sits on the mantle (much to my wife’s chagrin). At work one day, a coworker said, “you like guns, right?” “Yeah…”. Long story short he had a beautiful HW55 from his uncle’s estate for sale so I bought it. I just found another mint HW70, in the original packaging to replace the one I traded off years ago… I think I’m done buying- but they’ve been fun for decades, and what I have will last until I’m gone, and long after. Thanks to all of you for supporting the fun of airgunning.
Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you have a couple real classics; the HW 55 in particular is a great favorite of mine.
For what it's worth, there really are rather few places that have big local airgun communities. Which highlights the real value of this and similar forums.