The Money Shot Investment

摘要

A snarling white jaguar guards the door of the wood-paneled Austrian atelier of Peter Hofer, one of the world's last super-high-end gunmak-ers. Now stuffed, the cat was a casualty of the sort of exotic hunting expedition for which Hofer creates unique firearms.rnYou don't buy a Hofer to plink beer cans. His clients include Persian Gulf princes and Russian oligarchs for whom a couple hundred thousand dollars is a reasonable price for an exclusive toy. Many of his creations seem too exquisite for actual use. Hofer wears white gloves to reduce corrosion from perspiration when he presents the Hummingbird, a side-by-side double rifle chambered for tiny .17 caliber rounds. Forty gold-and-enamel birds flit against a lush backdrop of engraved-steel wildflowers. The gleaming walnut burl stock was sculpted from an 800-year-old Turkish tree. It's weight: 0.9 kilograms, about the heft of a ripe pineapple.