Paper hulls?

Most of the shells shown there are pre World War II.

And those values are what someone wants to sell them for commercially, NOT what someone is willing to pay you if you have a bunch of old shells laying around.

Most vendors/resellers would give you less than $1 a shell for loose vintage shells.

Of course you could go onto Ebay or one of the other sites and try selling them yourself.

After you managed to get your $3 a shell, you'd have to subtract the fees charged to sell them and other miscellaneous costs.
 
You guys seem to be thinking I've got them. I've got a handful of junk like they had, but he's the one sitting on the full boxes of fifties vintage stuff.

I have a box of nearly identical ones, box included, but that box is mixed red and green, and like I said before, they make great Christmas decorations.

I'm trying to keep him from shooting them. I was curious whether the years in the garage would have made a mess out of the powder, and I'm still not sure. Next time I see him I'm gonna once again suggest that he set them aside and not use them.
 
His call !!!

I'm trying to keep him from shooting them.
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Not sure how successful you will be and all you can do is "suggest" that it a waste of his time but it's still his time, decision and shells. As listed before, I don't see any safety issues. I've shot this junk before and now, just cut them up and pitch the. I've never had any full boxes and if I did, I'd trade or sell them to a collector. ..... :rolleyes:

Be Safe ??
 
Eventually everything will be "collectible."
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Mike I couldn't have said it better myself.

So many clowns out there who say "oh don't shoot that gun! It's got KUHLEKTURS VAWLYEW!!!" :mad:

Guys guns were meant to be fired. Shooting some old paper hulled shotshells from the 60's won't make any of the moneybags collectors wet their pleated pants. Their climate controlled safe and secure vintage shotguns will be just fine as well.

I personally consider gun collectors to have robbed entire generations of shooters from enjoying classic firearms. It doesn't matter. As long as the old geezers have another gun all for THEM that does absolutely nothing but sit inside a cold dark safe for it's entire life until they croak, only for the next geezer to come by and buy them up for HIS (his! all his!!) safe until HE croaks!! But it's for posterity, isn't it? Let's steal the opportunity for all of these guns to be fired at the range in fun, for people to enjoy them for what they are instead of just reading about them. Let's forgo all that and just lock them up in a safe.

But I digress.
 
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I saw a perfect example just a few days ago.

My contractor stopped by with another of his handguns, in the original box.

It was a CDM .22 LR in, as I said, the box. Like this one: http://www.gunauction.com/buy/8576283

He figured that it might be worth something because it was in the box. It was also fairly old at this point, approaching 50 years. I THINK they were made in the early 1970s, and look as if they were patterned after a Rohm revolver.

As you can see from the auction I linked above, it's not worth squat.

Maybe in another 300 years it might finally pull ahead of its original price as pegged to inflation...
 
A lot of collector's items actually drop in value when the people old enough to have nostalgia for those items start to die off. To their children and grand children, those items are merely curiosities from the past with no emotional connection to their youth.
 
Yep. just look at how prices of pre WW2 cars has tanked. The same thing will happen in 20 years to today's million dollar 60's muscle cars.
 
Yup...$3.00 per each times 25 in a box = $75.00 per box. Shoot them up, what's $75.00 anyway. If one is concerned about online fees and shipping charges, Craigs List has no listing fees and you can specify in-person pick-up. So, go ahead and shoot them.
 
From the 50's, just shoot them ...

as far a reloading, you best find the smaller diameter REM 157 primers, which haven't been made since the 70's.

Mid-80's i took a peck fruit basket of paper shells out to the farm and blew them away, had about a dozen went blewp .
 
"Yup...$3.00 per each times 25 in a box = $75.00 per box. Shoot them up, what's $75.00 anyway. If one is concerned about online fees and shipping charges, Craigs List has no listing fees and you can specify in-person pick-up. So, go ahead and shoot them."

You're assuming many things in that statement, and all of them are what I call PERFECT assumptions (that is, everything will come together perfectly and $$$$$!!!!! Right. That's not how it works 99.99999999% of the time.)

1. That you'll find someone on Craig's List who is interested in buying "collector" shotshells.

2. That they will be interested in ALL of the shotshells (otherwise, see no. 4).

3. That they would be willing to give you $3 a shell (which, remember, is the price on a COLLECTOR site aimed AT collectors).

4. That you'll actually be able to sell off all of the shells within a reasonable period of time... say, 10 years.

That's a damned lot of assumptions, and you've got absolutely nothing to back up those assumptions other than a simple, and flawed, speculative formula -- If old paper hull shot shell, then $$$$$$!!!!!

A South Park fan would call that the "underpants" formula from the episode where gnomes steal underwear based on their business formula of 1, collect underpants; 2, ???; 3, Profit!

I've been collecting cartridges, including shot shells, for the better part of 40 years. It's not at all uncommon to go to gun shows and see many dealers with loose paper and plastic shells on their tables, most of which are priced at 25 CENTS or less.

Often, modern plastic shells are priced far higher than the old paper hulls because, well, plastic is assumed to be still functional.

Maybe you're missing a perfect business opportunity? Go to a gun show, buy up a bunch of cheap paper hull shot shells, and then sell them for $3 a pop on Craigslist...

I'll say it again...

Just because something is somewhat old doesn't mean that it's an instant antique or that it has value (real or imagined) to someone else.

To think otherwise is unrealistic and, well, silly.
 
If you put 1960's paper shotshells on Craig's List and they do not sell, you can do one of two things...give them away to someone who thinks that they will appreciate in value over the years, or put them on a shelf. A Craig's List listing costs nothing. Well, you could shoot them but it begs the question: Why? I saw some 1920's paper shells shot off in the fifties and almost all were hang-fires...with the emphasis on "hang". Several hung to the point where they were thought to be duds. They were about thirty years old before being shot. The 1960 shells are now fifty-six or so years old. Therefore, they likely are not a good choice (not legal for migratory birds the least of the concern) for anything but leaving on the shelf. Would any reasonable person chance a miss on doves, rabbits, or trap etc. or the poorer performance via paper wads? They are of little value as shotgun fodder at this point whereas if one can get over the childish (and silly) desire to see if they still go bang, letting them sit somewhere until they do fetch a reasonable price seems somehow smarter to me (what are fired paper shotshells worth?). It will cost nothing to leave them on a shelf. By the way, I do not watch South Park...it is a children's show.
 
You can also study alchemy and change the lead shot in the shells to gold.

THEN they would be worth keeping around.

"you can do one of two things...give them away to someone who thinks that they will appreciate in value over the years, or put them on a shelf."

No, there's a third option. Use them for what they're intended to be -- shot shells -- not objects of hope and expectation that they will someday, in your lifetime, be something that they likely will never be.

But, all this makes me wonder...

Since you're SO very sure that these things are going to be a future store of retirement-sized wealth...

Why haven't you offered to buy them from Brian?
 
Hey, Mike,I don't have them, but since you collect, would you spend a few bucks and shipping for these full boxes? Probably not, I guess, a person would have to be a little whacked. I'm sure that gene would be happy to share.

I have to say, it's kinda hard to o
Imagine why someone would fire the things. Felt wads, soft shot, no liners, etc...

I value my hunting, I'm not taking this stuff after quail. Why would I go out and use them on clay, when they aren't at all as good as the Wal-Mart case goods?

But, I'm not sure how this thing is still going. I'm going to put my red and green paper hulls up for Christmas again. They're pretty.
 
I see. I have a partial box of sixties era .44 magnum. It's a funny one. Box price is handwritten on the bottom, so is the single price.
 
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