LOUISVILLE — Weapons aficionados will have to wait another year to see a vast assortment of arms put together by a local collector.

The Owsley Brown Frazier Historical Arms Museum is now scheduled to open in spring 2004 in downtown Louisville, giving organizers more time to develop the exhibits.

It also allows more time to raise money to help Mr. Frazier, a local philanthropist and retired vice chairman of Brown-Forman Corp., pay the estimated $30 million cost of renovating and equipping the museum, officials said.

Museum officials will also have more time to refine an arrangement with the Royal Armouries of England, which will provide ancient weaponry to the Frazier museum.

The museum has an unusual theme, with a new staff and collaboration between an American and European museum, museum curator Walter Karcheski Jr. said. “The end result (of the delay) will be a much better project.”

“Everyone is happy” with the delay, said Guy Wilson, master, or staff chief, of the British Armouries. “It gives us more time to think, for research” and to develop the exhibits.

The museum will exhibit hundreds of pieces from Mr. Frazier's arms collection, including President Theodore Roosevelt's “Big Stick,” the famous rifle he carried on an African expedition.

Other pieces are expected to include an 1866 Winchester carbine presented to “Buffalo Bill” Cody and guns owned by Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

The museum also will display British and European armor and weapons from the 11th century, courtesy of the Royal Armouries.

Mr. Frazier bought the four-story building that will house the collection last year. Much of the required interior demolition is done, but work has slowed now, Mr. Karcheski said.

The museum will have about 100,000 square feet of space. Nearly half of that will be for exhibits, with the rest used for offices, classrooms, a 150-seat auditorium, storage and shop space, a museum store, and a cafe, Mr. Karcheski said.

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