That's a pretty neat trade

[Adam]

North Carolina sheriff swaps Bonnie and Clyde-era ‘Tommy Guns’ for new arms

A North Carolina sheriff has pulled off a deal that should make everyone but the bad guys happy.

When two vintage Thompson fully automatic submachine guns -- better known as “Tommy Guns”-- were discovered collecting dust in the Forsyth County armory, Sheriff William Schatzman immediately realized their value. They weren't worth anything in the hands of his officers, but to a collector, it was like a law enforcement version of "Antiques Roadshow."

“We recently moved to a new facility, and we noticed what we had in our inventory during that process,” Schatzman told FoxNews.com. “It’s just like when you move to a new house. You start inventory and discover these things.

“We said, ‘What are they worth?’ When we found out we started to see if we could make a trade,” Schatzman said.

The Sheriff’s Department soon discovered that the pair of vintage guns, made in 1928 and donated by the RJ Reynolds tobacco company decades ago, could fetch $30,000 apiece. Since Schatzman runs a police department and not a museum, he pursued a trade in a firearms police supplier, ultimately netting 88 Bushmaster rifles for the old-time gangster guns.

“We came up with an idea to see if we could trade them in,” Schatzman told FoxNews.com. “We were able to get equipment we needed at no expense to the taxpayer and that’s a good thing.”

Pretty cool. A neat bit of history is preserved and he saved the taxpayers a bunch of money.

[Frostbit]

Where I grew up the local PD used to have a confiscated firearms sale every other year to save money. They had to stop from pressure to "not put guns back into the hands of criminals".