Tim Prince
Contact
College Hill Arsenal Civil War Antiques
Nashville, TN
tim@collegehillarsenal.com
Featured Appraisal
General James Longstreet's Captured Shotgun, ca. 1850
Biography
Tim Prince has been actively engaged in the field of antique arms for more than three decades. Initially entering the field as a collector, he eventually became a part-time, and finally full-time dealer in collectible arms. Tim graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1989 with a BS in communications and spent two decades in the music, touring with national level country music acts as an audio engineer, production manager, and tour manager. During this time, he took advantage of the constant travel around the country to seek out and acquire historic arms for his collection. Like many collectors, he began frequenting various antique arms shows to buy, sell and trade with other collectors. As these activities began to take up more and more of his time, in 2005 he established College Hill Arsenal Antiques, a web-based antique and collectible arms retail website, specializing in the American Civil War and related military items. In 2010 this became his full-time business.
In addition to buying and selling, Tim has continued to research the history and use of arms, particularly during the Civil War period. Tim was part of a team of five authors and researchers who wrote The English Connection: Arms, Material and Support Furnished to the Confederate States of America by Great Britain, which was published in 2014. This has become the standard reference on the subject of arms and equipment purchased by the south from England during the Civil War. In conjunction with some of the authors from that project, Tim researched, wrote, and contributed much of the photography to Confederate & Southern Agent Marked Shotguns, which was published in 2017. This work has also become the standard reference on the subject.
Over the years, Tim has authored and co-authored dozens of articles about Civil War era arms for publications ranging from the Journal of the Society of American Bayonet Collectors to North-South Trader’s Civil War. For a number of years, he wrote “Inspection, Arms!,” a monthly column about Civil War military small arms for Civil War News. Now, Tim is a regular contributor to a bimonthly publication called Military Antique Collector.
Because of Tim’s knowledge of current pricing and market trends in the field of collectible arms, he has consulted on major price guides in the field. He materially expanded and repriced the firearms sections in the Civil War Collector's Price Guide — 12th Edition (2010) as well as the 19th century American military, Confederate, and Civil War-period arms for the Blue Book of Antique American Firearms & Values — 2nd Edition (2019).
Tim is a board member of the American Society of Arms Collectors, a member of The Company of Military Historians and a former board member of the Society of American Bayonet Collectors. He is also a life member of the Ohio Valley Military Society, the Tennessee Military Collectors Association, the Alabama Military Collectors Association.
Presently, Tim serves as a consulting senior specialist in the field of Arms, Armor & Militaria for Cowan’s Auctions, a Freeman’s | Hindman company.
Articles by this Author
article
Update: Civil War Letters Find a Permanent Home
After one ROADSHOW guest named Chris got his Civil War letters appraised at the May 2022 Nashville ROADSHOW event, appraiser Tim Prince helped Chris find a permanent home for the letters in the Tennessee State Archive and Library.
Recent Appraisals
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US Model 1881 Trapdoor Forager Shotgun
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1852 Commodore Morris's Naval Officer Sword
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Civil War Austrian-made Musket
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