Guns as an Investment- Again

[blue32]

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[tark]

Four of them are N.E.W.s. I started buying them back in 2007 when you could get them for around $150.

Gunny, I have a N.E.W. Mosin dated 1915 on the barrel. I'm told they are all dated 1915. It is stamped S A in a rectangle. OK the Finn's had their hands on it at some point.

What puzzles me is the 31" barrel and no hand guard. Doesn't look like it ever had one. The blueing wear on the barrel matches the rest of the gun. Is this normal? Did some Mosin's lack hand guards?

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Gunny, I have a N.E.W. Mosin dated 1915 on the barrel. I'm told they are all dated 1915. It is stamped S A in a rectangle. OK the Finn's had their hands on it at some point.

What puzzles me is the 31" barrel and no hand guard. Doesn't look like it ever had one. The blueing wear on the barrel matches the rest of the gun. Is this normal? Did some Mosin's lack hand guards?

New England Westinghouse marked all their rifles with the 1915r date. The font was changed a few times.
They all were made with handguards. The handguard has two small metal tabs on each end that fit under the barrel bands at the wood line. The handguards are thin and were discarded when broken.
When the Russians canceled the contract and refused to pay for the rifles, the US Government bought them from N.E.W. And Remington. Some of these rifles were brought to Russia by US troops that went there with aid. The rifles were left in Russia. The Finns captured some and pressed them into service. My Remington M19 is Finn marked and in a Finn stock.

 

[Sniper66]

Collecting guns is a hobby and rarely a money maker. I've bought a few at estate auctions and made a few bucks selling them, but quickly reinvest on guns that lose money. But here's the deal. Let's say I buy a gun for $500, take care of it, shoot it a lot and eventually decide I want something else. So I sell it at a "loss" for $350-$400. That means I had a ton of fun, learned what works for me and what doesn't, and all it cost me was $100-$150. To me that is cheap entertainment....really cheap. Yesterday I took my wife to dinner and a movie...cost me $110. My gun hobby is a really good deal, but my stock investments pay for it.

 

[guyfromohio]

Collecting guns is a hobby and rarely a money maker. I've bought a few at estate auctions and made a few bucks selling them, but quickly reinvest on guns that lose money. But here's the deal. Let's say I buy a gun for $500, take care of it, shoot it a lot and eventually decide I want something else. So I sell it at a "loss" for $350-$400. That means I had a ton of fun, learned what works for me and what doesn't, and all it cost me was $100-$150. To me that is cheap entertainment....really cheap. Yesterday I took my wife to dinner and a movie...cost me $110. My gun hobby is a really good deal, but my stock investments pay for it.

That’s where I am too. My FIL has a Belgian Browning A5 that he covets because it’s valuable. He won’t shoot it and when he lets you hold it, you might as well be at the Louvre admiring a DaVinci. However, I can’t remember the last time I spent less than at least 150% of its street value on a new shotgun. To your point, for a gun to go up in value by $50-$200 over 20-30 years is hard to justify. I’ve tipped that on a great dinner and bar tab. Now if you're in the business of making money and you buy low, selling high with enough volume...that’s a different conversation.

Where my collection investment will really come in handy is when I can barter them for food, goods, and services once the apocalypse begins. But as my 12 year-old reminds me....I’ll probably be in the first batch that goes.

 

[fpgt72]

New England Westinghouse marked all their rifles with the 1915r date. The font was changed a few times.
They all were made with handguards. The handguard has two small metal tabs on each end that fit under the barrel bands at the wood line. The handguards are thin and were discarded when broken.
When the Russians canceled the contract and refused to pay for the rifles, the US Government bought them from N.E.W. And Remington. Some of these rifles were brought to Russia by US troops that went there with aid. The rifles were left in Russia. The Finns captured some and pressed them into service. My Remington M19 is Finn marked and in a Finn stock.

Now don't be telling people that....bubba thinks that all mosins are the same and only good for tomato stakes and so they can play gunsmith.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I just made a profit on a Mosin 91/30.
A few years back I bought Three U-FIX-EM 91/30s from Century Arms. I bought the guns for parts and hoped that I would end up with one rifle. The three rifles came to a total of $105. When they arrived one had a cracked stock and two were missing the trigger pivot pin. I had an extra stock and I bought tow trigger pins for $3. I ended up with $36 in each rifle.
I just sold one of them for $200 to a friend that has been wanting one. That's a $164 profit.

 

[FlSwampRat]

As I inferred in a post on another thread, my guns are, to me, things I like to shoot.
They are not art that I sit back and admire, they are things I use. In the truest sense of collectible or "investment" value, each round down the barrel lowers the resale value. Just as each time a particular comic book is read its value drops, firing my bangenmachers would lose me money.
Besides, an investment is only worth something if you sell it and I have no intention of selling any of my guns.

 

[tark]

Thanks for the info, Gunny!

 

[kozak6]

Firearms are difficult as as an investment. Sure, you can make a couple hundred bucks here and there, and that's great. And if you can make a few grand off a crate of Mosins, that's really great.

But you're not going to retire off that.

If we're talking real money, it might as well just be any other high dollar antique or collectible that you have to store and maintain, probably aren't going to want to use, and may have difficulty extracting the full value of in a timely manner later in the future.