I have such a shotgun. It is a well used Damascus steel hammer less double barreled 12 ga. shotgun. It was my great great grandfather’s. The only time it might ever be used again would be with hand loads. The breech lock is very worn and without some tinkering nobody would attempt to fire it.
I also have a model 1873 Springfield 45-70 trapdoor rifle that belonged to my great great grandfather on my grandmother’s side of the family. Complete with the bayonet. I just bought and installed a new firing pin in it. It was given to my father when he was 3 years old (in 1928). It was manufactured in 1882. The barrel is over 30” long, I have one of the black powder cartridges last used in it, it has a 500 grain lead bullet in it.
Those are what you call keepsakes. I removed the Springfield rifle from over the fireplace in my father’s home after he died. It had been mounted securely to the brick with the 2 ft. bayonet fixed for 50 years. I do intend to fire it, with carefully made hand loads. Honestly it is in pretty good shape. Right now it is hard to find components for reloading it, but I have a good friend who reloads that caliber for much newer and stronger rifles of that caliber who has plenty. His father and my father were close friends. We all hunted and fished together when I was growing up. Our families came to this county about the same time, my family came here in 1889. His father and my father were both WWII vets. Some say my father is the last WWII vet that was living in this county.
Have read there are about 325,000 WWII vets still living, out of 16 million who fought in that war. Roughly 2% still survive, my father died recently at 95.
The youngest WW 2 veterans are around 94 years old now. My dad was a WW 2 veteran and passed away at 90 in 2014.