In my younger days I spent a lot of time buying and selling firearms. A friend and I would even rent a table at the gunshow and spend weekends talking and swapping guns. I usually lost money because I often paid too much for one of my eclectic interests, and had to sell cheap because I lost interest in the gun and needed the money for some new gun project. I was too poor to afford many real antiques or collector's items. I accumulated a lot of modern production single shots and lever guns.
I learned that even very expensive hunting and sporting rifles such as Griffen & Howe Springfieds were not a very good investment a few years ago and very few of us were able to recover the investment in rebarreld and accurized hunting and varmint rifles. I think the current Black Rifle and plastic gun fad will fade. So I submit for your consideration the investment future of my current interest--vintage Marlins and Winchester of the type many of us use for cast bullets.
I recently decided I wanted a 25-35 lever gun. Japanese Winchesters are with modern safeties and metric screws sell for far too much money, in my opinion. and new Marlins have more redundant safeties and quality control problem. As I reported on an earlier post I bought a 100 year old Mod 94 I very shootable condition for about the same money as the new Japanese Winchester costs.
Confidence in the value of dollars or stocks with the current pack of vultures running this country is deluded, and I have not found anything I consider to be a safe investment. I never was interested in antiques as an investment, but years ago one of my clients was a nationally known antique dealer. I studied his catalogue and saw many pictures of beautiful antique firearms. All too pricey for my modest means. I asked him about his interest in guns and learned that he wouldn't know how to load a gun, but he knew all about vintage gunmakers and values of all types if antique firearms, just as he knew everything there is to know about fine art and furniture.
The other day in talking to antique gun dealers I remembered that there apparently is a market for guns which has no interest in shooting, the 2nd Amendment or any of the things we associate with firearms. I was struck with a blinding flash of the obvious--vintage firearms may be a very good investment at least in part because there is a demand for them among people who have money and whose interest is completely detached from the popularity of shooting.
You boys who have been looking for a way to persuade your wife to let you buy more guns owe me a big thanks for this idea.
Steve k
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