Classic Firearms

[capt14k]

The last North Korean SKS sold for $4,700 on Gunbroker. Auction Link is is gone. I find it being discussed on Maryland Shooters. I thought $2,500 was crazy when I saw them pop up on various AK Forums now and then. How foolish will the guy who paid $4,700 feel if in the next decade hoards of them are imported. The losing bidder will probably be very happy.

The difference today is there are less 20 somethings than there are 70 somethings in general and far less with disposal income. The rate things are going, there won't be many with disposable income anytime soon. I had a debate with a 20 something about how him and his friends will be there to buy them. I asked him though how many of him or his friends were married, had kids, and made over $100,000 a year? How many made over $50,000 a year? He went silent. My guess was none were married with kids and none made over $50,000 a year. Now it was not a knock on them, which I made clear. It was a knock on our current economic state in this country. Married with kids making less than $50,000 a year today doesn't leave much disposable income to buy milsurps.

Far too many of the jobs where years ago one could go to work, raise a family, buy a home, have disposable income, and retire are gone. The steel mill jobs, dupont, auto plant workers, etc have shipped overseas. Wall Street is a museum now with computers doing the work the runners who would become traders did. There are a few good paying trades and industries left, but many of the jobs being created today created the working poor. If Obama gets his way with TPP many more of the higher paying union and pharmaceutical jobs will disappear too. Unless things change quickly there will not be much disposable income left for anyone and in turn the value will drop on collectibles like Milsurps except for the rarest and best of them that the ultra rich will overpay for.

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[Junk Yard Dog]

Not everybody who has milsurps is a collector, there is another reason Americans might decide to own a firearm and one day soon we just might get to that point. I know more gun owners than I do collectors, in fact collectors are a tiny minority among people I know in day to day life. None of my close friends around here collect milsurps, some own them, but to them they are just guns, they hunt, or keep them for other reasons, but they could care less about the history so long as the gun works. One friend inherited his fathers considerable collection, easily a million dollar collection. He keeps them in a walk in vault, but he keeps them for sentimental reasons, they were his dad's, he knows little about the history, he never fires anything, he has private security for that so keeping guns for protection is not an issue. Because milsurps are still cheaper than commercial sporters we will probably see many younger shooters buying them for that reason, and not with any intent to collect them.

What economy? Scrap metal is so far down in the toilet we are past the water and into the pipe. Everybody is broke, nobody is yet destitute, at least not among my crew, but the kids coming along now will reap the benefits of the stupid mistakes their parents made electing incompetent idiots to positions of power. They will never know the country as it was during the boom years, they will never know job security, most will never know real prosperity. The thing we sometimes forget, collectors forget, is that what we collect are weapons, they have history but when it comes down to it they are still fully functional firearms. Canned food and shotguns, I forget who said that, but it refers to what holds value when the market dumps, or rather what climbs in value when the market falls. Nobody is going to pay anyone $4700 for a north Korean SKS ( $4700, holy shit!) but I think most things like Garands, M1 carbines, US M1903's, Mosin 91/30's and Mosin carbines, any Mauser, any normal priced SKS, all of these will hold value as firearms people would pay to own when times go from bad to worse, and they are not going to care what battle they were used in, or how rare they are.

[capt14k]

That's exactly what I said when it saw it sold for $4,700. There were 3 bidders north of $3k.


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[BenedictGomez]

it sold for $4,700. There were 3 bidders north of $3k.

To each his/her own, but that's insanity.

Most likely a serious SKS collector, (who's also well-heeled) who desperately wants one from each country.

[djbuck1]

If someone wants to wait and hope for the return of plentiful milsurps, that's their call, but I don't see it, for the reasons JYD has articulated.

I think that the storage issue is an incorrectly minimized factor, here, and the analogy to the "Nepal cache," is on point. If you haven't seen any of those weapons, go to IMA's website and have a look. NOTE: IMA is right up front about what they are selling.

The 1918 Dragoon that I recently posted is another example of this. Someone who knew what he was doing got hold of the rifle and saved it at the eleventh hour, but only after corrosion had substantially defaced the markings and removed some metal. Fortunately, rescue came before the integrity of the metal had been affected, but if you look at the trigger guard, that wasn't far away. Post script, yes, I have fired it, safely (obviously).

Having traveled some in both military and governmental capacities, I agree that many nations will not have troubled themselves much with the storage of milsurps, especially if they were/are Communist client states re-armed with semi-autos in the 1960s-70s. I doubt if they will give up even those arms as that particular Horn of Plenty was cut off in 1990.

As far as the reversal of executive orders goes, Mr. Trump is fast rendering himself unelectable. Even if he is elected, expecting government to undo already in place restrictions and encroachments on the citizenry is in the realm of highly unlikely. Once they take, you don't get back. Having worked in that sphere for years and at a fairly high level, believe me when I tell you that there are really very few differences between the two major parties. The retention of power-- not the implementation of principles-- is their top priority. A sorry state of affairs, but there it is.

There are still some weapons that I would like to have, but I know that finding them and having the cash to acquire them will be a very different proposition going forward. But when I do find them, I'm buying if there is a way to produce the cash at that moment.

[capt14k]

Why is Trump unelectable? Because the liberal media says so? What did he really say?

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[MosinGunner1102]

Back to the whole Classic Firearms discussion, am I gonna end up with a good rifle or is classic really all that bad?

[Junk Yard Dog]

You are going to end up with a rifle, no matter what condition it is in it will still be a milsurp, still a piece of history. If you keep your expectations low you will avoid disappointment, and do not listen to their advertising hype. Choice is rapidly vanishing were this rifle is concerned.

[MosinGunner1102]

You are going to end up with a rifle, no matter what condition it is in it will still be a milsurp, still a piece of history. If you keep your expectations low you will avoid disappointment, and do not listen to their advertising hype. Choice is rapidly vanishing were this rifle is concerned.

Well i would prefer not to end up with a plain Hex receiver, I really want a 1920's era rifle and that is what i expect.

[Deadheadmatt]

Back to the whole Classic Firearms discussion, am I gonna end up with a good rifle or is classic really all that bad?

What did the ad say about potential cracks? I seem to remember that being an issue with the Finnish Mosins.

Matt

[Junk Yard Dog]

Cracks can happen with any 70-100 year old rifle, these things have been used in war, stored indifferently at times, and may have parts made under wartime conditions when standards for wood used were lowered to speed up production. If you are hunting for a very specific type of rifle I would not look for it there, I would look for it on Gunbroker. I collected these rifles by the year and arsenal, I often targeted a specific year, or arsenal that I needed to fill a slot in the collection. Gunbroker was good for that, there were some dealers on there who would hand select a specific year for me. You might put in a request on the boards buy/sell forum in case someone has the year you want. Dealing with individuals ( of good reputation) allows you to ask for and receive very detailed information on the exact rifle you will be getting. Classic like most retail sellers takes one of the top of the pile, the pile will be of rifles that have similar characteristics, like all hex receivers, or all laminated stocks, but they will not have time to dump 50 rifles on the table to select the exact one you request. Never buy any milsurp with the expectation of perfection, that's something reserved for new made commercial sporters. You will find cracks in wood, you may find missing or broken small parts, the bore might look like a coal mine at midnight, some eastern European sounding name may be scratched into the stock. This is normal in milsurp collecting once you get away from the Soviet refurbs. Once upon a time when I was expecting the arrival of a "new" milsurp I would set out a bucket of diesel fuel, a box of cleaning brushes, a whole bag of rags, several pairs of butt inspection gloves, the commercial size tub of Kotton Klenser for the stock, and the entire afternoon for the cleaning session and old clothing saved for the massive mess I was going to make. In the days before the Soviet refurb a block of grease with a rifle in the middle was what you received, dead bugs stuck to it, rat shit also, and the grease tended to stink. Oh yea, only Uncle Sam uses cosmoline, all the other stuff would come in that nasty cheap grease.

[steelbuttplate]

Classic will run out, and then things may change and more large and small batches get imported. The real deals are in the small private collections that are being liquidated cheap, a lot of the younger generation think these "old crappy bolt actions"are junk, when they are better made than most new rifles. I'm seeing more non-refurbs, no import mark, or ones sold in the '70's with the grease still in them, than I have seen in the last 10 yrs. I've said a dozen times this is the last one I'm buying, then more unique rarities appear
It's a buyers market for a while longer, then I dunno. The economy, the elections, lots of factors to consider The price ain't going down, and they will always be excellent for bartering in a depression, as long as you have ammo to go with them.

[Longcolt44]

Classic is not the only one with 91/30s. Give SOG a call and see if they have any more 1920s dates left? We just got six in for the shop.

[BenedictGomez]

While the golden age of milsup is over, I cant take such a draconian view of the future, as I learned in a former life that it's extremely difficult to predict the future. And it's about 10x harder when politics and geo-political issues are at play, as they are here. While we've seen doors recently close (Ukraine, etc..), it's plausible new doors could open.

Frankly, IMO, the biggest threat to the industry is at the stroke of Barack Obama's pen sometime between November 9th 2016, and January 19th 2017.

I fully expect Obama to do......something.... anti-2A during that time-frame, potentially something big.

It's the perfect timing, especially given Hillary Clinton is likely going to be the next president. We've already seen Obama ban the import of the most frequently used firearm in mass shootings and inner city drive-bys, that of course being the M1 Garand. I think ammo is the easiest play, liberals love to drive up the cost of things they dislike, and banning milsup ammo importation is a great way to make shooting sports more expensive for most Americans. It would be VERY simple for them to ban Tula, Wolf, Bear, and all the very affordable Russian ammo under the guise of "sanctions" too. My 2¢, I've been saying this for several years now, the consensus on other gun boards is pretty much everyone thinks I'll be wrong on this, and they dont see what I speak of here as a serious threat. Hopefully they're right.

[capt14k]

I'm am getting depressed over multiple people buying into the MSM BS. This is exactly what the Liberals and MSM want. They know all it will take is 61% of whites to vote. Last election 57% voted. Trump's key to victory is the working man. The guys who don't vote because they say my vote doesn't matter. Don't buy into the lies. It is far from over. If we want any chance at a Silver Age of Misurps or to keep America from becoming NY, CT, NJ, CA, etc then Hillary must not win.

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[djbuck1]

Getting back to the thread topic . . .

I see that Classic is giving away a Tikka M39. Supposedly they "found" a few in the "last shipment" (and this is really the last shipment-- honestly!).

I think that what you need to do is to give them your e-mail addy, though perhaps more is required.

They're being cagey about how many they have (their spokesman said about 20, but then immediately changed that downward). Nothing was said about condition though of course they showed a beautiful rifle in the vid, and these should be unissued or near to that from the few that I've seen.

I'll also be curious to see how much they ask. In fairness, these do command a very high price due to supply and demand. I consider myself fortunate to have one already.

Ah, Classic. They're always on the stretch, one way or another.

[Junk Yard Dog]

One only has to look at the size of Finland's army to realize that the numbers of M39's originally made will not come close to Soviet Mosin production. Add in war and attrition over time then the number will be smaller yet. Tack on Bubba's activities 25 years ago when the M39 was just another $45 Mosin and the number drops more. That still leaves us with a good pile until we remember that there are millions of collectors who want one and not all M39's were sold to importers in the USA. Classic like the rest of the dealers will have a small amount on hand, they will hold some back as is industry practice, the chance to own any M39 is rapidly diminishing. At this point it doesn't matter who you buy it from, whatever is broken on it can be fixed most of the time, if you want one for the collection then now is your chance.

[Darryl]

Stay on topic ....... please .

Politics is only tolerated (and very little) if discussing 2 Amendment issues.
There are plenty of "political forums" out there if you are so inclined.

There are a lot of us that come here to "get away" from that crap.

[mproko]

Since it was brought up in this thread...what does everyone think of the value of millsurps going forward? I'm 29 years old. Do you all believe this stuff will still be valuable when I'm older? Let's say retirement age (if social security still exists then) I worry there aren't enough people in my age group into this stuff to keep demand and prices high. I was at a gun auction recently and there were a lot of guys around my age trying to get a garand or a carbine which I found encouraging. Sometimes I wonder if investment wise I should be buying old Nintendo games or something.

[Junk Yard Dog]

29 and thinking there will still be social security for you at age 67, or 72, or whatever it might be then, good luck. I touched on this before, weapons are always worth something, I don't know if people will still care about the history in 40-50 years, but they will likely need weapons and be willing to pay for them, or barter for them, whatever the case may be. With all my filthy eating habits and cigars I will likely be safety dead by then and you kids will have to deal with whatever the coming reality might be.