Some nostaglia about gun prices

to the original poster:

well........... truthfully, their selling for the same price they always have... think about inflation.

you could buy a 64 mustang for $2500... the average american made 5,000 a year...

my grandparents bought their house for $15,000 around that same time... ON A 30 YEAR NOTE..

a brand new mustang costs what.. 35,000 today? and the average house goes for 100-120K on average?

just like everyone has the misconception that gold prices are RISING RISING RISING RISING........

their NOT......... their staying the same.....

it just takes more dollars to buy the same amount of gold than it did 6 weeks ago... or 6 years ago...

when currency goes down, it takes more of it to buy the same item..

blue jeans were $20 in the 80's now their more like 60 for the same brand...
it's not like cotton is any harder to grow, and it doesn't take any more time to grow it, no more time to make it into jeans, it's just that it costs more to make it so more to buy it..

if you bought an ounce of gold when it was $280 an ounce, now it's 1700, if you sold it, you WOULD NOT be making $1420 profit..... you'd be breaking even, you just have more dollar bills to equal the same value..

so if you bought a gun for $450 30 years ago, and they sell brand new for $550 30 years later, THEY WENT WAYYYYYYY DOWN IN PRICE...

if you bought it for $450 new 30 years ago and sale for a USED gun is $550 30 years later.... you're basically selling the gun for what would have been about $100 30 years ago... you're NOT making 100 profit... you're losing your ass...
there's some perspective for you...
 
SWglockman - MY point was that, for some of my guns, the prices have NOT increased as much as one would have thought from when I bought a few of them over 20 years ago..

Prices today are really not too bad in certain segments, same with ammo - there was a time over 20 years ago when ammo cost more than today - and that was at the 20 year ago salaries!

In some aspects with guns and ammo, today really is the good ol' days
 
here..

http://sovereignspeculator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/dxy-chart-1980-20111.gif


this shows what i'm talking about..

the USD went up and up and up and up until 1980, so things were dirt cheap...

then it declined like crazy... there was an artificially inflated bubble much like what we experienced a few years ago ( it happens once a decade, we just FORGET that when we're in the middle of a war and a bunch of other crap)

then around Y2K the bubble raised again and raised and everyone thought we were on top of the world up until the "dot com" businesses busted and sent us back down.....

then it really hasn't recovered much... bush was president and sent us to war, economic crisis did it's thing and it's been down hill since then...

and it -will not- go back up for another several years...and if it does, it will never top the previous bubble thanks to the federal reserve and lack of a gold standard.

and we will always be at war because we are an military industrial complex.. we make money by being at war. that's just how it is..

so.. yeah... gun prices will go up... so will everything else... indefinitely, until the entire system crashes, or at some point it will cost $300,000 for a loaf of bread. at that point, they'll just start over and say "ok 100,000 dollars is a dollar now, so you don't have to carry a trashbag full of money to go to the store" that's what some of the asian countries do. when it gets too ridiculous they just "re-print the money.. and they understand the current value.
 
SWglockman - MY point was that, for some of my guns, the prices have NOT increased as much as one would have thought from when I bought a few of them over 20 years ago..

Prices today are really not too bad in certain segments, same with ammo - there was a time over 20 years ago when ammo cost more than today - and that was at the 20 year ago salaries!

In some aspects with guns and ammo, today really is the good ol' days
__________________
"The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory.” - Aldo Gucci

------------


oh.............. LOL

then yeah... i agree! guns are a good investment....
<---shutting up now
 
MY point was that, for some of my guns, the prices have NOT increased as much as one would have thought from when I bought a few of them over 20 years ago.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if many models are actually cheaper today, in 'real' dollars (i.e. adjusted for inflation). A design that's been manufactured for that many years has paid off the initial investment in development and capital costs. It's effectively cheaper to produce.
 
Depends what guns you buy. Twenty years ago M1 Carbines were $175. I bought a few, wish I'd bought more.

If you buy guns with no collector interest, like Mossberg 500s, you can't expect much appreciation. Oh, by the way, how much interest are you getting on your savings account these days?

Guns are an amazing deal when viewed as hobby equipment. Sure a Mossberg you bought for $150 and can sell now for $175 doesn't provide much return, but what percentage are you going to get back on a ten year old pair of skis?
 
Oh, by the way, how much interest are you getting on your savings account these days?
Click to expand...
13.25%.....well....kinda..that rate expired last March.
Today the rate is @ .1%.
Long story short - the high rate was something I was locked in @ for 29 years.

In some aspects with guns and ammo, today really is the good ol' days
Click to expand...
I believe I mentioned something along that line ~ 11 years ago.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34878&highlight=ketchup&page=1

;)
 
In Australia we pay $700 for a weatherby vanguard,$1300 for a Tikka hunter and $1600 for a Browning x bolt.Man i wish i could go on a gun buying holiday to the USA coz compared to us you guys get off cheap.I just payed $55 for 50 new unfired remington cases and i bet you guys could get custom Nosler brass for cheaper than that.
 
Aussie Clive said:
I just payed $55 for 50 new unfired remington cases and i bet you guys could get custom Nosler brass for cheaper than that.
Click to expand...

Multiply that by two and I can buy a gun for that....:p

oneounceload said:
The point of all of this is to show that gun prices really haven't gone up too much in the last 25-30 years
Click to expand...

I believe that, overall; guns are cheaper now than they ever have been. I paid $275 for a used Ruger Model 77 in .308win 25 years ago, adjust for today's money, and I could buy a new one for the same price.
 
Ok, ready to be sick?

1949 (Shooters Bible), suggested retail prices;

Daisy Red Ryder BB gun $4.95

Colt Government .45 ACP or .38 Super pistol, $65.00.

Winchester 70 Bolt Action Rifle $106.00

Remington 721A (Long action), Bolt action Rifle $79.95

Yes, I know gas and wages were cheap. But it seems that most everything was still manufactured... HERE IN THE USA.:rolleyes:
 
Read 'em and weep.......

magads2.jpg


Oldmagazineads.jpg
 
I saw an old ad for SIGs awhile back, from the 80s, and was amazed to see the MSRP was only about 150-200 less than it is now.

Wages were considerably lower back then too, understand.
 
I bought my first new firearm in, I think, 1970 or 1971, a Browning Hi-Power. At the time they came in a zippered case, no box. At least I don't remember any box. It cost about $100. I do remember very well having a lot of trouble paying for it. I think it was on layaway for three months. I bought it at a little sporting goods store (hunting and fishing stuff) in Morgantown, West Virginia, where I was in school. I don't remember noticing another gun in the store because that was the only thing I was interested in. I had previously owned a very used BHP also.
 
WANT A LCR 22LR Here is the calculator I use.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
Click to expand...

Sir, i believe your calculator is a bit skewed, in 1972ad i bought a new Colt SAA revolver 4 3/4" barrel 2nd gen. .45 Colt for $140.00, today you can not touch a 2nd. gen. for TEN (10) times that amount, my Colt Python that same year cost me about $275.00, also, today TEN times that amount

1972ad $140.00 Has the same buying power as: $758.35 in 2011ad ????
 
WANT A LCR 22LR Here is the calculator I use.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
Click to expand...
Sir, i believe your calculator is a bit skewed, in 1972ad i bought a new Colt SAA revolver 4 3/4" barrel 2nd gen. .45 Colt for $140.00, today you can not touch a 2nd. gen. for TEN (10) times that amount, my Colt Python that same year cost me about $275.00, also, today TEN times that amount

1972ad $140.00 Has the same buying power as: $758.35 in 2011ad ????
Click to expand...

The calculator in the link ONLY calculates the effects of inflation.

It does not add in any change in collector value that may have happened to an individual model of gun, such as the Python, which has gained value in addition to inflation.
 
Depends on how badly you need one at the time :)

Perhaps it is just me but I have never purchased a gun with the intent to sell it. I love them but at the end of the day they are only tools.

There was one time where I would have gladly swapped one of my 'precious body parts' for a single bullet.

My main point being is that there is alot of things to consider when placing the value of something that could either collect dust and bust a few clay pigeons or save your life.
 
I did some investigation into gun prices, about ten years ago. I had a half-dozen Gun Digests and Consumer Price Index info. Some guns, especially Rugers, cost about the same now as they did in the '50s. Others, especially Colts, are dramatically more expensive than they used to be; the Italian peacemakers and Philippine 1911s cost about the same as real Colts did in the '50s.
I bought a used but unfired Detonics Combat Master in 1999 for about $500, which is real terms was about half what it would have cost me when it was made in 1980. I thought it was a gun that I'd never be able to afford, and if the prices has kept up with some of its contemporaries (it cost more than a Colt Gold Cup, in the day), I still couldn't afford it.
 
First new handgun I ever bought was in 1989, through a family friend and kitchen table FFL, it was my S&W 686-3, 6-inch, .357 Magnum and it was $310, most of which I had saved from my paper route.

Not sure what a new 686 goes for right now, but if I somehow lost mine, I would much rather replace it with another 686 (no dash or dash 1,2 or 3) and I look at them all the time on the used market and feel that $600 would certainly bring one home without too much effort and $500 might be pulled off with the right amount of haggling on the right day at the right time. And the next guy could also drop $700 on one.

I don't believe $499 or less could bring home a decent 686-3 or earlier in any condition that I would find similar to the one that I own and love... unless the seller was down on his luck or ignorant to the market. I also don't believe that most average gun dealers could get more than $750 for even a minty one (outside of NIB) unless his customer base was lazy and not at all shrewd about buying guns.
 
Another one worth sharing perhaps...

My Grandfather bought his life's one & only handgun in West Virginia, it was a S&W Hand Ejector M&P Model of 1905, Fourth Change, .38 Special, 6-inch barrel, nickel plated. He bought it used... without the original issued factory wood stocks. Instead, it wore genuine mother of pearl grips. The serial number being 357xxx was sent off to Roy Jinks for the S&W factory letter and he told me that it was shipped new by Smith & Wesson to a Hardware store in Huntington, WV in 1921.

Grandpa paid $35 for this two year old revolver with the pearl grips in 1923 and gave it to me as a High School graduation gift in the summer of 1990. He owned it for 67 years and I've had it now for 21 years. It'll be a hundred years old in another 10 years. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top