I think the cause of the middle east was lost when the Byzantines startet falling back. But I have heard many times since I was young that they will get it all back. You listened, then you took your pizza or bakalava home.
My neighbor was a police captain when I was a youngster, and our fair city would engage in gun buy backs. The overwhelming majority of weapons brought in were garbage level pistols and abused and mutilated hunting weapons. They were melted. But regularly an older person would bring in something that would blow minds - presentation colts engraved in the case, Lugers, PPks, Bolo Mausers with the shoulder stock, etc. They would occasionally put the most spectacular one in the paper, along with the story of how they had to be melted down.
Several years later that Mauser looked great.
