Bill DeShivs
New member
It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't like todays ridiculously inflated prices.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You know you're too young when you read these ads:
- Thread starter 4V50 Gary
- Start date
I remember when centerfire hunting ammo was a few dollars a box, versus today's few dollars per round...
AR-15's were "newfangled space guns" that were never seen in the hunting fields.
Paper companies still let you run deer dogs on the land they leased to you.
Single-shot NEF 12ga shotgun was an appropriate and expected gift for your 5th birthday.
Teachers and principles would spank you when you acted out.
You kept your hunting gun in the principles office so you could rabbit hunt in the fields behind the school after classes let out.
You made gun racks in wood shop.
Car phones were for rich people (what's a cell phone?)...
You called the Zenith repairman when your TV quit working.
AR-15's were "newfangled space guns" that were never seen in the hunting fields.
Paper companies still let you run deer dogs on the land they leased to you.
Single-shot NEF 12ga shotgun was an appropriate and expected gift for your 5th birthday.
Teachers and principles would spank you when you acted out.
You kept your hunting gun in the principles office so you could rabbit hunt in the fields behind the school after classes let out.
You made gun racks in wood shop.
Car phones were for rich people (what's a cell phone?)...
You called the Zenith repairman when your TV quit working.
I think it was about 1973 a friend of mine bought an old Japanese rifle that was in sad shape. If memory serves me he bought it for $5. He brought it to school with him along with a box of ammo. (Try that now-a-days) The Principal kept the ammo in his office, but we got to clean up the rifle and refinish the stock in shop class. When finished a week or so later, we rode the bus home with the uncased rifle in tow, and headed out to the timber to shoot it. Couldn’t hit an oak tree at 25 yards with it, but we didn’t care, it was fun. I’ll have to ask him if he still has that rifle.
I even bought one of those .22 SMLEs, I think long about 1964 or 1965. I don't remember if I thought it was expensive or not but I certainly didn't have a lot of money floating around. While they were still available through the mail, I also bought an FN-1949 in .30-06 and two more Lee-Enfields. The FN was expensive, even then. Ammunition was particularly expensive for anything, I thought, relative to what it was now.
The .22 Lee-Enfield was made in 1914 and looked to be that old, too. Some surplus guns could be had "select", same as now. I don't remember any other surplus .22s but there must have been some. I do recall seeing a lot of .22 Mossbergs in a store at one time but otherwise I never saw any surplus rifles in a department store. Potomac Arms used to be one of my regular Saturday morning stops until they closed a few years ago and they generally had a lot of surplus things. They still had dewats, too. The last one I saw there was a Madsen light machine gun.
Looking back at the advertisments in magazines in the early 1960s, you note the availability of a lot of what are now fairly rare guns sold as surplus, even including Lugers and .45 automatics, as well as some other more unusual military pistols. What you didn't see, however, were the ones being sold now or very recently, like Mosin-Nagants, SKS carbines, any kind of AK, or Makarovs. At the time, they weren't surplus yet, I suppose.
Surplus firearms come in waves. At one time Krags and Single Action Army revolvers were sold as surplus.
I think at my current discretionary spending level, I'd find an FN 1949 to be expensive at 1960 prices, which sold for just about one week's pay that my father was earning.
The .22 Lee-Enfield was made in 1914 and looked to be that old, too. Some surplus guns could be had "select", same as now. I don't remember any other surplus .22s but there must have been some. I do recall seeing a lot of .22 Mossbergs in a store at one time but otherwise I never saw any surplus rifles in a department store. Potomac Arms used to be one of my regular Saturday morning stops until they closed a few years ago and they generally had a lot of surplus things. They still had dewats, too. The last one I saw there was a Madsen light machine gun.
Looking back at the advertisments in magazines in the early 1960s, you note the availability of a lot of what are now fairly rare guns sold as surplus, even including Lugers and .45 automatics, as well as some other more unusual military pistols. What you didn't see, however, were the ones being sold now or very recently, like Mosin-Nagants, SKS carbines, any kind of AK, or Makarovs. At the time, they weren't surplus yet, I suppose.
Surplus firearms come in waves. At one time Krags and Single Action Army revolvers were sold as surplus.
I think at my current discretionary spending level, I'd find an FN 1949 to be expensive at 1960 prices, which sold for just about one week's pay that my father was earning.
Mike Irwin
Staff
We drool over the prices in the Sears and Monkey Ward catalogs now, but when you run the run prices through an inflation calculator, you'll see that a lot of them are not the bargains we perceive them to be.
Some definitely are, but others? No.
Some definitely are, but others? No.
What you say is true. The prices of things do not go up evenly all the way round, nor for that matter, do incomes. Prices of surplus firearms, in this case, are closely related to both the supply that is available at any given moment as well as what happens to be in fashion to have. The supply of surplus (and second hand) firearms is not inexhaustible, yet I keep wondering where many of them went, if some of the production numbers are to be believed. Then again, the population of the country has just about doubled in my lifetime, so maybe that enters into it.
I wonder if my father would have agreed with that. I'm not at all sure there was anything simpler or better about it.
We had a draft. The so-called Cold War was in full swing, between Korea and Vietnam. We had recessions. We had major labor strikes. There was a polio epidemic. Schools were overcrowded. There were no interstate highways until late in the period. Stores were closed on Sundays. There was fair trade pricing. Detroit was discontinuing some long time brands. Pop music was ruining our kids. Yeah, it was a simple time.
We had a draft. The so-called Cold War was in full swing, between Korea and Vietnam. We had recessions. We had major labor strikes. There was a polio epidemic. Schools were overcrowded. There were no interstate highways until late in the period. Stores were closed on Sundays. There was fair trade pricing. Detroit was discontinuing some long time brands. Pop music was ruining our kids. Yeah, it was a simple time.
Mike Irwin
Staff
Let's not forget that until about 1950 antibiotics weren't readily and widely available, so infections that we beat in a couple of days now killed a lot of people back then.
The 1918 flu epidemic killed at least 50 million people world wide, at least according to Wikipedia and that's the low estimate. WWI caused only about 9 million deaths. However WWII caused the death of from 50 to 70 million people, the larger number partly caused by the large numbers of civilian deaths.
Yes, things were simple then and we still have too many people--or so some would have you believe.
Yes, things were simple then and we still have too many people--or so some would have you believe.
larryf1952
New member
Reading all of these comments reminds me of the often used rant used by the antigunners today...they complain that gun crime and terrorism is largely caused by the "too easy" access to firearms. But, like many here have said, one could walk into any hardware or department store 50 years ago and buy a gun off the rack, and take it home on the bus, with rarely an eyebrow being raised. There were no form 4473's, no FBI background checks, no Brady Bills, no waiting periods. Guns were 100 times more easily accessible in those days. Yet, very few people were ever killed by lunatics at college campuses or gangbangers in a drive by. For me, this proves that guns are not the problem, it is our society and our degradation of morals that is the problem.
But, back to the topic at hand...as a kid in the early '60's, I used to read the ads in the back of the outdoor magazines like Field & Stream, advertising surplus Lugers for $50, shipped straight to your house. I wish that I could've bought a dozen of them back then.
But, back to the topic at hand...as a kid in the early '60's, I used to read the ads in the back of the outdoor magazines like Field & Stream, advertising surplus Lugers for $50, shipped straight to your house. I wish that I could've bought a dozen of them back then.
I recall a sign I saw in a Farrell's ice cream parlor years ago. It said:
"THESE are the Good Old Days."
Much of the problem of youth crime-juvenile deliquency to use the old term-is due to the high rate of illegtimacy.
Regarding relative purchasing power, remember that back in the '40s and '50s they government took a much smaller bite of paychecks.
"THESE are the Good Old Days."
Much of the problem of youth crime-juvenile deliquency to use the old term-is due to the high rate of illegtimacy.
Regarding relative purchasing power, remember that back in the '40s and '50s they government took a much smaller bite of paychecks.
Much less out of your paycheck////maybe. Do you remember Regan's comment on why he entered politics? He said if he made more than 3 movies a year the government took 90% of anything he made???
I saw the tax rates from back in the 50's. If you made over $200K in a year, yep, the marginal federal income tax rate was in fact 90%.
That is why the truly wealthy had all their asses and income in corporate trusts...congress knew where the $$$$butter came from for their campaigns, and wrote the tax laws so the super wealthy did not pay any income tax. They just paid good lawyers and made political contrabutions instead.
I saw the tax rates from back in the 50's. If you made over $200K in a year, yep, the marginal federal income tax rate was in fact 90%.
That is why the truly wealthy had all their asses and income in corporate trusts...congress knew where the $$$$butter came from for their campaigns, and wrote the tax laws so the super wealthy did not pay any income tax. They just paid good lawyers and made political contrabutions instead.
You are correct; the income tax rates on the high-income folks (and nice folks they are) was very, very high in the 1940s and 1950s. That's how we paid for the war. However, regarding "easy access to guns," I have to disagree. True, in some places they seems to be easier to obtain but I believe there are more guns in circulation now than there used to be. Whether or not they're easier to get seems to be irrelevant, rather like drugs (more of which are illegal now). I know it doesn't seem to make sense. And how many people did you know in the 1940s or 1950s who had more than one car?
I remember the "barrels" of guns, forgot about that one..Bought my 8mm Mauser Model k-98 from Sears I think...Steel butt plate on it...Got a case of surplus ammo, with speed load clips, most of them went off but I did have ONE thet the firing pin penetrated the primer, that was different....First Day I had it put 80 rounds downrange. The next day I was puttin ICE on the shoulder..lol
kilimanjaro
New member
I was saving my yard money to get a Luger for $29.95 when the 1968 ban on mail order sales was passed. The local gun shop wouldn't consider a transfer, so that plan was nixed. Didn't get one for 30 years.
My dad made decent money, but didn't make $10,000 a year until 1967. With mom working, they pulled in about $16,000 a year. That paid for a mortgage on a little house, all the food we could eat, two used cars, clothing, furniture, all of it.
My dad made decent money, but didn't make $10,000 a year until 1967. With mom working, they pulled in about $16,000 a year. That paid for a mortgage on a little house, all the food we could eat, two used cars, clothing, furniture, all of it.