Page Index Toggle Pages: [1] 2  Send TopicPrint
Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) GUN VALUES (Read 13779 times)
Ballard6
Full Member
***
Offline



Posts: 177
Location: CORINTH
Joined: Apr 5th, 2008
GUN VALUES
May 17th, 2016 at 11:21am
Print Post  
I would like to get a consensus regarding present and future  value and the next generation's interest in Schuetzen single shots.  Looks like the younger generation is more interested in modern military firearms or something that will go " BOOM, BOOM ". Also, gun show attendance appears to be on the decline. What say ye ?
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Zack T
Senior Forum Member
****
Offline



Posts: 354
Joined: Apr 9th, 2010
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #1 - May 17th, 2016 at 12:04pm
Print Post  
My observation as someone still actively working to grow my collection is that I am paying 30% less at least for similar pieces. Sharps sporting rifles have taken even bigger hits. I bought a gun the other day at auction for 20% of its 2007 selling price at the same auction house. I think things are cyclical certainly but I think the old single shot market is in a progressive decline that has no end.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
JLouis
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 10625
Joined: Apr 8th, 2009
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #2 - May 17th, 2016 at 3:17pm
Print Post  
I would tend to agree with the declining prices based on a lack of interest and the cost for a young man or women to get into the sport of Schuetzen and or collecting. I think the attraction to the Black rifles is they can be had fairly cheap and the means to create what one wants without the aid of a gunsmith is extremly attractive.

JLouis
  

" It Is Better To Now Have Been A Has Been Than A Never Was Or A Wanna Be "
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
George Babits
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 1106
Joined: Sep 27th, 2012
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #3 - May 17th, 2016 at 9:17pm
Print Post  
I think any perceived decline in prices of single shots is related more to the crappy ecconomy than to anything else.  Given the choice between beans and rifles, most of us would rather have food on the table.   You can see the exact same trends in other "collectable" markets.

George
Salmon, Idaho
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
uscra112
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 4079
Location: Switzerland of Ohio
Joined: May 7th, 2007
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #4 - May 17th, 2016 at 9:36pm
Print Post  
George Babits wrote on May 17th, 2016 at 9:17pm:
I think any perceived decline in prices of single shots is related more to the crappy ecconomy than to anything else.  Given the choice between beans and rifles, most of us would rather have food on the table.   You can see the exact same trends in other "collectable" markets.

George
Salmon, Idaho


/\ /\ /\     What he said.    Either that or it's because I've personally slowed down my acquisition on accounta I don't have an place to put any more.
  

<div class=
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Rebel
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 4292
Location: Rockets and Race Cars
Joined: Mar 9th, 2015
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #5 - May 17th, 2016 at 9:51pm
Print Post  
I'd be happy to help you store some Phil
Aaron

ps, really, a nice position to be in!
  

WARNING: This post may contain material offensive to those who lack wit, humor, common sense and supporting factual or anecdotal evidence. Let's Go Sonny!
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
tim_s
Oldtimer
*****
Offline



Posts: 817
Location: 13066
Joined: Oct 11th, 2006
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #6 - May 17th, 2016 at 10:02pm
Print Post  
George Babits wrote on May 17th, 2016 at 9:17pm:
I think any perceived decline in prices of single shots is related more to the crappy ecconomy than to anything else.  Given the choice between beans and rifles, most of us would rather have food on the table.   You can see the exact same trends in other "collectable" markets.

George
Salmon, Idaho


You might want to take a hard look at the collectable car and motorcycle market. Far bigger in every way and prices are higher in every desirable area.
  

“ I don’t have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you”
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Zack T
Senior Forum Member
****
Offline



Posts: 354
Joined: Apr 9th, 2010
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #7 - May 17th, 2016 at 10:48pm
Print Post  
I think the economy plays a roll but if I had bought a Pope Schuetzen rifle 10 years ago and needed to sell it today I would probably be losing money. if I bought an MP5 or a Barrett .50cal I would be doubling or tripling my money. 9-10 years ago people were knifing each other in the streets for sharps sporting rifles. I saw dog meacham conversions go for 4-5k+ today you can't get half of that for the same gun. There have been a couple nice collections go at auction in the last year or two. I could have picked up a nice 6 1/2 Ballard or a nice Texas shipped sharps heavy buffalo gun for less money than a wiz bang semi custom longrange rifle from one of the "tactical specialists". I fear the days of guns as investment items are coming to a close. So everyone who built their collections in the 50s and bought cased Schoyens for $50 give me a call before it is too late !! Your kids will just pawn them to buy iPads when you die ! That Ballard we recently saw getting thrown into a garbage can is just the start.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Smoke
Oldtimer
*****
Offline



Posts: 710
Location: San Diego
Joined: Feb 24th, 2013
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #8 - May 18th, 2016 at 1:25am
Print Post  
I chalk it up to what I think of as the John Wayne vs. G.I. Joe divide.  As a Boomer, I grew up watching movies about WWII and the West - both of which were historical events to me - and playing "cowboys and indians" soldier or Dan'l Boone.  (Didn't mind playing an indian sometimes but no one would be a Nazi).

My interest in history, and historical firearms, comes largely from that entertainment, much like my appreciation for classical music has its roots in the Warner Brother's "Looney Tunes" cartoons that populated Saturday morning TV.

My son grew up after the vast majority of westerns had left TV and the movie theaters, and what he and his friends saw on television and at theaters was contemporary to their own lives: Mork & Mindy, the insipidity of The Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family.  All shows about current life.  Not exactly the kind of entertainment that instills a sense of one's own history or leads to an appreciation of and desire to own antiques (be they guns or furniture).

Toss in the following generation, who seem to think that anything more than a year or two old is ancient and who seem to live for the next i-Gadget release, and the market for antiques is dead.

You'd think the above would leave one completely depressed.  Being a student of history (like most of you, I suspect), I know that the guys who came back from the The Great War were largely done with lever actions and wanted bolt action rifles.  Following WWII they took a lot of nice old singe shots and "modernized" them into varmit rifles.

History runs in cycles and, as the children of the people who lived through and fought WWI & WWII,  we came along and re-discovered the original value of the old stuff.

Now we're getting old (or are already old) and that cycle is on the downswing.  But the value in the rifles we collect is only extrinsically in their history.  They also have an intrinsic value based on the quality workmanship that went into their creation and their usefulness as tools.  Those attributes will survive as long as the guns do and they will find new life when a new generation follows our journey of rediscovery.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
BP
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 8039
Location: Westside
Joined: Aug 27th, 2006
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #9 - May 18th, 2016 at 2:33am
Print Post  
Homo-duplex, tool maker, tool user, and tool modifier, often abandons an old design for something that is perceived to be better adapted to current needs.
True, a few individuals who still retain the knowledge and have time to spare occasionally use a bow drill to start a fire, knap flint to produce a cutting edge, twist plant fibers to produce cordage, or use animals to work a plot of ground.
But if time is short, it is the modern “tool” that most hands will grasp first.
  

There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation, and the rest who have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
Proud Noodlehead
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
40_Rod
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline


Extremism in the persuit
of accuracy is not a
vice

Posts: 4285
Location: Knoxville, TN
Joined: Apr 20th, 2004
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #10 - May 18th, 2016 at 8:34am
Print Post  
Prices rise and fall with fashion having said that some of the reason for the declining prices is that all the shooting sports is experiencing declining numbers. Less people interested means declining prices law of supply and demand. 
I have always felt that single shots are something that you come to a little later in life. It requires a sense of history and a curiosity to see if you can stand up to shooters of the past. Younger shooters want to do everything fast and they haven’t acquired an appreciation of history. Those are things that will come a little later. Let them learn on ARs one day when they are in their 40’s somebody will wax then on the range with an old single shot and some will become curious.

40 Rod
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
BP
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 8039
Location: Westside
Joined: Aug 27th, 2006
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #11 - May 18th, 2016 at 2:53pm
Print Post  
40 Rod,

You noted that all the shooting sports are experiencing declining numbers.
I've recently observed fewer people using established shooting ranges, but with a large increase in numbers now shooting at gravel pits (and other areas) on locally available public lands.
Is there a true decline in overall participation?
Or is it instead a population shift from the far more formal, rule bound (and more costly) established shooting programs, to a much more relaxed and informal style of shooting where the participants bring whatever they want to shoot, and shoot it the way they actually want to?
And they are having a hell of a lot of fun!
I haven't observed any Schuetzen single shots being used at the gravel pits, though I have seen almost everything else imaginable.
And since there aren't any pre-cast concrete benches at the gravel pits (though you do occasionally see the concrete Ecology blocks), I have grave doubts about anyone "out there" ever being exposed to expensive Schuetzen rifles.
  

There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading, the few who learn by observation, and the rest who have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
Proud Noodlehead
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
LONG RANGE
Senior Forum Member
****
Offline



Posts: 414
Location: CHERRY VALLEY, CA
Joined: Oct 3rd, 2013
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #12 - May 18th, 2016 at 5:05pm
Print Post  
I have been interested in guns all my life. I am 81 years old and I have seen interest in them change from one type to another many times. Like many of you I grew up with Hoppy, Gene & Roy as well as several other western heroes. I was fascinated with those Colts & Winchesters. In the early 1960s you could buy them far prices that you wouldn't believe if I printed them. The prices of those guns sky rocketed following the popularity of the many western shows on TV. They got another boost with the advent of cowboy action shooting. But recently I have seen their prices fail. It isn't difficult to figure out why. The men who loved those old guns, like me, all have white hair. Cowboy action shooting, like BPCS is on the decline and the younger guys like the black guns, as has been pointed out. The prices for either those class of guns will not come back. Remember a shooting sport called pistol silhouette shooting? Shooters were paying $1000 for pistols to compete with. I would not like to try to sell one of those pistols today. A good friend told me something over forty years ago. He was much older than me and had a huge collection of guns. He told me, " I have seen prices rise and fall on guns but you never know when or which gun it will be". Don't buy as an investment at this time. Who knows what the near future will bring. My two cents.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Bill Lawrence
Frequent Elocutionist
*****
Offline



Posts: 1037
Joined: Mar 17th, 2014
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #13 - May 18th, 2016 at 5:59pm
Print Post  
As a semi-retired professional personal property appraiser who specializes in collectible antique and vintage firearms, here's my 5 cents worth.

In any field, based primarily on condition, quality, originality, rarity, desirability, and provenance, I loosely divide all the stuff into these categories: "good" (upper 50 %), "better" (upper 25%), "best" (upper 10 %) and "masterpiece" (upper 1 % or less).

If a client MUST collect for investment, the rules are simple.  First, never buy anything that rates less than "good" and only buy "good" when nothing better is reasonably available.  If you pay a fair price to begin with, only "best" material will likely hold its value and only "masterpieces" can be expected to appreciably if often slowly gain.  Third, if you don't have DEEP pockets, don't bother.  Last, regardless of cost or potential, don't buy anything you won't always enjoy.

Bill Lawrence
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Ballard6
Full Member
***
Offline



Posts: 177
Location: CORINTH
Joined: Apr 5th, 2008
Re: GUN VALUES
Reply #14 - May 18th, 2016 at 6:23pm
Print Post  
Fellows    Thank for everyone's input. The consensus appears to be what I thought---interest in these  works of craftsmanship is waning and values follow this. At my age I have often thought about what should happen to my collection if none of my 5 grandsons is interested. Maybe donated to a museum. These rifles have been a source of much enjoyment both in admiring and in collecting them, getting all the necessary shooting kits and literature back with each gun over a 50 year period. Let's hope the younger generation learns to respect and appreciate these guns for what they are---- a significant part of American firearms history .
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: [1] 2 
Send TopicPrint