First a Daisy pump BB gun at Christmas when I was 6 1/2. When I turned 8, Dad gave me an old H&R Topper .410 full choke. It was a neat gun, very well made. There was a recess in the forearm which fitted the trigger guard so the gun could be folded in half for convenient transport.
When I was 10, I was graduated to a Fox & Sterlingworth 20 ga. SxS with auto ejectors, and the stock had been shortened to fit my Mom. Such an improvement for wingshooting doves! I went on probably 20 hunts with that Topper, and fired it maybe 50 times at doves, and probably killed only five. When I switched to the Fox, I started getting 8 to 10 doves per hunt with 2 to 3 boxes of shells fired per hunt.
When I was 14, my Dad took me along with him on a hunt to a private game preserve which was at that time owned by Southern Railroad, and they had racks of shotguns for guests to use. I had my Fox with me, but asked if I could try the Remington 870 12 ga. they had. I fell in love with it, and for my 18th birthday, Dad gave me one.
However, my first real purchase of a gun had happened two years earlier. I had a friend who was over 21 purchase a Dan Wesson .357 6" from a pawn shop. I made the mistake of going in with Henry, and the day after the sale, the pawn shop owner called Dad and told him what had happened. Dad confiscated the gun from me, and I didn't get it back until I was 19.
I learned a little from this; be sneakier!
I spotted a Walther PP Sport .22LR that I liked at the same pawn shop a few weeks later. This time, I gave the $ to my friend and told him what to get, and stayed at home while he did the deal. That was a sweet shooter, and I've never seen one since. It was in the factory box with an extra mag that had a finger rest. It looked like a cross between a PPK and a P-38. It was built on the PPK frame, but had a 5" barrel with adjustable target sights. Two bricks of ammo went through that gun in two days' time.
If I still had ever gun I'd ever owned, my collection would be somewhere approaching 300.....c'est la vie. Live and learn.