Guns as investments?

If you can afford it, buy pre-1986 NFA auto weapons. I will not be surprised if in 10-15 years an M16 is selling for over $50k, as an example.

Understand that these have a limited supply. None will be manufactured again that you can buy after the 1986 ban. As demand increases, so will the price. Factor in the possibility of some of the machine guns having parts break over time (if used heavily), then that reduces the supply, furthermore increasing the value.

This is the only way I would ever invest in firearms if I had the extra cash.
 
In terms of investing in NFA full auto guns, what would happen to the values on the off chance that the regulations were lifted to allow for new production full auto guns to be owned by civilians? Would the prices for pre-86 full auto guns drop as a result of new supply becoming available or do they have other intrinsic value beyond scarcity?
 
Stash $10,000 in my mattress?

Or

Buy $10,000 worth of guns?

I chose the guns, but my daughter may prefer to find the $10,000 in the mattress!

Buying guns is not investing, just saving!

P.S. It is way more fun to play with your savings when it is in the form of a gun, rather than moldy paper hiding in your mattress!:D
 
Stash $10,000 in my mattress?
Or
Buy $10,000 worth of guns?
Click to expand...

Or, buy $9,999 worth of gold/silver. Less paper trail and red tape buying and selling gold/silver than $10,000 worth of guns.
 
Well, Biff, the bottom line investment-wise is that investing in guns requires patience, secure storage facilities, dealing with a distinct lack of liquidity, luck, and confidence that the legal environment will not change in such a way that your "portfolio" can't be sold or otherwise transferred.
Now I do love guns and I have even owned one or two. I think owning guns because you like the guns is absolutely splendid. As an investment, meaning something you hope to buy and then later sell at a real profit, there are better and safer choices. In terms of a profit big enough to materially matter towards something like retirement, they are a rather poor choice. The logistics of storing them, let alone the increase in price v. increase in value issue, points towards other choices in providing for your personal GDR.
 
Guns are sort of like a savings account... I agree with that. I may record the price I paid for a particular firearm, but it really doesn't matter as they are worth what they're worth (or perhaps what you can get for them in a reasonable amount of time like 30-days) when you sell them.

Honestly since I am not in the gun business, I consider the money spent on a firearm pretty much flushed. This is the attitude that FFL dealers love.
 
Most guns simply are NOT good investments from a purely monetary sense. In order to be good investments, their value has to increase enough to at least match the rate of inflation. If you bought a gun for $200 in 1980 and sell it for $200 today, you're losing a LOT of money, because $200 in 1980 dollars is worth about $575 in 2014 dollars.

Edit, just for comparison: IIRC investments are generally expected to average a return of about 8% per year over the long term. An initial $200 investment at 8% annually becomes over $2700 after 34 years.

Probably the only guns that I think are guaranteed to go up significantly in price are NFA full auto guns. But in that case, you're gambling on maintaining the status quo for the NFA. If the NFA is repealed or full auto guns are banned entirely then you've sunk a lot of money into something that will become almost (or totally) worthless overnight.
 
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I think they are a great place to put disposable income. Think about it. Most disposable income goes into something that is worth little, except the memories. Most of my sold guns were sold for more than I paid for them and shot as much as I wanted.
 
Or, buy $9,999 worth of gold/silver. Less paper trail and red tape buying and selling gold/silver than $10,000 worth of guns.
Click to expand...

Hey, you gold/silver owners, do you actually possess the chunks of metal or just own it on paper or what? What specific investment? ETF, foreign, domestic, what - how does that work? Is paper just as safe as actually possessing the metal?
 
I've thought about this a lot.

They are a unique investment. Not just 'monetary' but peace of mind , sense of freedom, and buying something today that may not exist tomorrow.

1) Peace of mind. I buy guns, frankly, because I can. Probably a handful of nations where you can buy 95% of desirable firearms for less than 1 weeks' pay for the average person. AR, AK, revolver, semi-auto handgun, pump shotgun, you name it, and it's probably available and affordable. I get a huge satisfaction with the purchase alone, a sense of freedom. Priceless. That's a whole lot more rewarding than buying golf clubs, a new water heater, new car tires, or a bank CD.

2) Better than most things you can buy or hobbies in which to invest. I will preface this by saying I once worked as a stock broker, had my series 7 and other financial and insurance licenses and was very experienced in the industry. My clientele were >$1 million in assets. I've seen very wealthy people lose EVERYTHING (not on my advice, by the way). One client turned an empire into a sports car (went from $33,000,000 to $500,000 in a few months in 2001-2002). Poor diversification. So, you could put your money in the stock market, and risk losing it all. I view that markets as a shell game, where the rich get rich, and the rest of us get the table scraps. About every few years, or at least every decade, the market climbs, and then collapses. People lose entire life savings. No thank you. Your bank gives you about 1%. Paying off loans is smart, but super boring (necessary evil of life I suppose), earning you the interest rate of paying the loan. Best to remain as debt free as possible.

Every hobby has expenses. And unless you buy used at garage sales, you're going to drop a few hundred to a few thousand on any hobbies equipment (skis, bowling, archery, computers, travel, biking, motorcycles, cameras, watch collecting, etc.). Most other hobbies equipment becomes worthless or devalues significantly after purchasing. Average guns at least generally hold their value.

Wild swings in guns/magazines/ammo mean that you can time it and buy on the dip quite easily if you pay attention. Right now, guns prices are low and it's time to buy. Ammo is high, so time to sell.

3) Buying a ban-able item. Today you can buy something that anti-gunner want to ban. How many of us would love to go back in time to buy something that is not available today due to laws/regulations etc? Enough said.

4) Survival items. Great sense of security having a safe full of guns and ammo! If SHTF, their value will be more than money.

You could speculate on magazines and ammo for instance. Right and even during Sandy Hook, the first few hours, I loaded upon AK mags at $5 each, and several spam cans of AK and Mosin ammo for real cheap. I seriously considered, but didn't dropping $10,000 into magazines and ammo. Over the next couple months, with a little work, I could have doubled my money or perhaps tripled it. I simply didn't have time to invest... but someone that did have some time and cash, could EASILY double their investment ...

At the end of the day, let's assume that your speculation on an 'investment' (after all, all investments are speculations) goes worthless. At least with guns you have a useful, tangible item.
1) Home - a place to live.
2) Property - something to use/farm, etc.
3) Money - well, it's useless paper.
4) Gold/silver/copper - holds no practical use. If you bought at the highs, you would have lost your behind on these in the last few years.
5) Sporting goods - eh,
6) Cars, motorcycles, etc. These nearly always go to zero. Useful, very.


I suppose as a traditional investment, you'd have to be willing to sell your guns and ammo, at market highs. Generally that's when you may need them. I am not inclined to do that, so they may be poor investments for me... there's the emotional or psychological point.
 
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To answer Unlicensed Dremel :

If you don't physically hold your precious metals, you don't really own it, as far as I'm concerned. Too much fraud out there for me.
 
As far as guns go, even though in the OP, it was mentioned that they seem to hold their value, that would make them a poor value. You want your investments to increase in value, especially with the current state of the US dollar which is losing value every day.

High end guns (and I mean HIGH), like fine art, will increase in value, but those guns tend to be one of a kind and out of the reach of 99% of the rest of us, so stick with good financial investments which have doubled or tripled recently.
 
As far as gold, unless you have it in your hands, I read that the amount spoken for in gold 'firms' far exceeds the amount they actually have. It's a scam.

Owing gold is:

1. Some of the end of the world (if someone will take it to save you from the zombies).

2. Collectible coins you own because you want them as a hobby.

I've seen folks trying to unload their John Jesse Earp commemorative Winchester 94 or Big John Cowboy Special Edition F-150 and be shocked to find out there's no premium.

Same at the coin show where I saw a poor guy trying to unload modern silver dollars - he got metal price. Except for a few special cases, that was all they were worth.

Invest in tulips?
 
Investment...is the story I tell my wife when she catches me buying new guns. I think she has started to catch on and asked "don't you have to actually sell it to have any value". :) I think I only sold 3 in over 40 years of collecting.
 
There are secure gold storage vaults in places like Austria and, IIRC, Singapore, where you can store your physical gold.
 
That's going to do you a lot of good if you need it. Let's be frank - if we get into a scenario where you need gold for some apocalypse - the Austrians and dude in Singapore have some gold. You don't.

However, we are moving off track from guns as investments.

Return to that or we are done.
 
Back to guns, as investment and to keep those Austrian zombies from our gold:

Buy the best condition you can afford.
Avoid Bubbawerke examples like the plague.
Avoid faddish guns except for short term gains.
Look for consistent desirability.
Valuable collections are built by knowledgeable collectors spending considerable amounts of money and time, over decades.
Just one "investment" gun per year, over 30 or 40 years, can be a significant asset at sale time, or to pass on for another 40 years of appreciation.
Accessories, such as bayonets and magazines, are value-added most of the time.
Your own budget will tell what your per item cost will be. You can start with $200, and go up from there, if that's where you are.
 
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