Ivey to debut longrifle book at Asheboro library

Asheboro attorney and antique collector William Ivey will debut his new book North Carolina Schools of Longrifles 1765-1865 with a talk, slide show and signing at 7 p.m. Monday, February 21, at the Asheboro library.

The event, sponsored by the Friends of the Library, is free and the public is invited.

Ivey collects North Carolina furniture, pottery and textiles, but his favorite art object is the longrifle. “I am interested in the North Carolina longrifle as an art form with its added historical significance that should be studied, collected and preserved,” he says.

The authoritative, 392-page book – a 27-year labor of love for Ivey – depicts 213 rifles in over 1,200 photographs by Trinity photographer Kenneth Orr. It differentiates the rifles by schools, or characteristics that place them in a common location.

For example, Ivey notes that most rifles made in the Salem area are decorated with an engraved eagle on the patch box, an ornamental compartment on the stock where oil and tallow were stored.

Ivey approaches the guns from their artistic aspect, but he says his book also will appeal to anyone interested in history, long guns or decorative arts of the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries. For more information about the book, visit www.northcarolinalongrifles.com.