Tom's interest in antiques originated as a 14 year old kid with a metal detector. Raised in northwest Arkansas, Tom was an active student of Civil War campaigns as a young man, but his interest increased in the trans-Mississippi theater while spending his Summer vacations relic hunting around the Prairie Grove, Arkansas battlefield. Now a resident of Southern California, Tom's interests include firearms, images, dug relics and a variety of other items from both sides of the conflict. Tom is a serious student of the war's campaigns and its soldiers, and lends his expertise in excavated items and Confederate conversion muskets to the WCCWC.