There is not always any rhyme or reason to prices of collectables. Most of the guns I am looking for seem to be bringing more now than they did in the recent past. I've been looking for a nice Remington 581 bolt action .22 from the 1980's. I compare them to the 500 series bolt guns made from the '40's to the early '60's. Not as well made but good accurate sporters. The one I was watching last week on GB sold for over $500. Thought they were over priced at $300. Been trying to sell a nice antique wood phone booth for a while. They were bringing over $2000 several years ago. Can't get $1250 today . I've seen a couple of modified Stevens 417 Walnut Hill's sell for close to $1000 recently which is high in my opinion for a gun that is not original. I buy what I like. Sell guns occasionally to make room and get money for something different. Worst I have ever done is to get a little less than I paid. Usually make a little. Sometimes make a lot. You will never sell a gun and get nothing for it. I consider it an investment as well as a hobby but if my family has to sell at a loss when I am gone they will at least be a lot better off than if my hobby was golf or women.

LONG RANGE wrote on May 18^th, 2016 at 5:05pm:


If you've still got hair of any color, I'm envious. But truer words were never spoken, and any veteran dealer in collectable guns will confirm this sad fact--their "best customers" are now liquidating (or trying to), not buying. 

But while the men who loved old guns may have white hair (or none at all, like me), the men who once loved antique fishing tackle are apparently all, save for a few stragglers, DEAD, based on recent auction results; the bottom hasn't only fallen out, but a sink-hole has opened beneath the bottom.

I started going to Gun Shows in 1976, and quickly got interested in single shot rifles because they were classy looking.  Being a print junkie, I quickly accumulated all the books I could find about them.  About 1981, I found a few back issues of  American Single Shot Rifle News and joined up.

Back then, a starving student or beginner in the workplace, if he was persistent and did his research, could acquire single shot rifles in shootable, or at least rebuildable, condition.  I had a ceiling of $250, which I rarely exceeded, and this got me a goodly number of varmint rifle conversions, grey rats, refinished "originals," and other low end specimens of all major designs.  And parts for same.

Somewhere in the late 80's--early 90's the atmosphere started changing.  The shows run by the gun collectors' associations began to be edged out by show promoters, whose business was to sell tables, not show guns.  There were more and more of these extravaganzas scheduled, diluting the incidence of good stuff further.  The table holders, who formerly talked about guns, began increasingly to talk about money and investments, and, ultimately, about how dead the show was because they hadn't sold anything.  (A look at their prices would always show why, but out of politeness, I never pointed it out.)

I do see the tables with "Uppers" and "Lowers" and black rifles mobbed by the younger generation, but I see them look at the good old stuff too.  The sad fact is that they were priced out of all sane limits by a bunch of hustlers who were determined to retire in Florida on the proceeds from the used gun racket.  I'd frequently see a gun in "NRA Disgusting" condition at the same price a Price Guide listed for the same one in Mint condition.  Now the Internet auction sites fire the pecuniary hopes and dreams of these purveyors of "rare" and "vintage" firearms.

I really don't see this situation as a deplorable decline in investment value.  I see it as a bubble whose time to burst has long since passed. It dragged out a long time as inflation degraded the value of money, but hopefully it's ready to pop.  And afterwards, maybe some youngster with six months' savings in his pocket will see a beat-up old Highwall amid the Picatinny Railed table offerings, note that the price isn't insanely out of line with them, say, "Hey, this is kind of cool," buy it, and start the process again.

I agree totally with the advice given earlier about not donating any gun to a museum but I would extend that to not donating anything to a museum. My interest covers my things besides guns. I have a small collection of old telephones , bridals, bits and law enforcement badges although I have sold a large part of the collection a few years ago, too soon I might add. Several years ago my wife and I were in the Los Angeles County Museum. I was talking to a guard and I asked him about guns they have and why don't they display them? He said they had a huge collection of guns in the basement but would only display some if they were part of a larger theme such as life in early California. Some years later we were in a Los Olivos, California museum looking at tens of thousands of dollars worth of saddles and tack. The curator pointed out saddles that were worth over a 100k. I asked him if he ever got out from behind his desk and put any leather preservative on them? He looked daggers thru me. Leather is of course organic and will rot if not properly cared for but the truth is, they just don't care. A man who was in my crew at the phone company before we retired told me recently that he had donated his old phone collection to the San Bernardino County Museum. He was pleased with that until I told him I had been on E-Bay recently and some old Western Electric dials were selling for over $700. Not the phone, just the dial. As has been pointed old oak phones don't bring what they did in the 80s or 90s. The reason of course is that it is not what Grandma had. She had a Happy Days phone made in the 50s. I had an oak phone in my garage for several years and most younger people didn't even know what it was. I gave it to my daughter who has it in her kitchen just as a display piece. I can't stress this advice too strongly. If you have a nice gun collection and children who could care less about, sell them before you get too old and decide to check out. I have out lived many of the men I use to shoot with and I often tried to help the widow sell them and invariably a kid or uncle or some other person who didn't know jack about guns would swoop in and take charge. Disaster usually followed. Sell them before you go.

Hopefully your grandchidren will take a serious intrest but I can only see that happening if thier parents also do. It would trully be a blessing to be able to pass them on and I wish you the best.

JLouis

Ballard, I remember those scrap drives as well. Sadly I learned a few years ago that it was just a propaganda idea dreamed up by the government to get people involved in the war effort. I remember the huge pile of scrap metal piled up in front of the high school and how many old toys were in the pile. The toys were made of cast iron of unknown alloy and of no use to a steel mill but the government took all of it anyway. I watched a TV show a few ago in which they covered the rationing and the metal collection. They went on to say the metal was stored until the end of the war and then taken out to sea and dumped. One Saturday I was walking by the pile and couldn't resist a WWI Doughboy helmet, I grabbed it and ran. I kept it for several years but I have no idea were it got off to.