Like many here, I am not blessed with the opportunity to view and handle originals. I have been able to study a few on display in seminars at a couple NMLRA National Rendezvous, but that is about it. I do have a pretty nice library consisting of Shumway publications and others dealing with specific makers, regions and schools. Those books are valuable assets but, when it comes to studying the architectural and decorative intricacies, the internet is, by far, my most valuable resource. There are tens of thousands of high resolution images of pieces from all schools and from all regions free for the downloading. Often, detailed descriptions are also included. I have no idea how many thousand images and descriptions I have in my digital library. They are sorted by state or region and sub-sorted by builder. There is also a section containing guns by many of our contemporary makers. In addition, there are folders dealing with specific features such as patch boxes, carving in various places, aging (natural and applied) and other subjects.
The resources are there and they are free of charge. The images can be blown up, cropped and manipulated in other ways to clearly show details. Are they as good as handling an original? No, but they are a heck of a lot more useful than the average picture in a book. You just need to take the initiative to build a library tailored to your interest.
