Current Amoskeag auction

[capt14k]

The Zettlemoyer Auction in PA was going on at the same time as Amoskeag on Saturday, but it was a timed auction that started at 9am and had staggered end times. Unfortunately I thought it started at 10am, or I would have picked up the matching Banner Mauser for $1k. I won some Enfields I am going to pick up today including a Jungle Carbine for $400. Below is the proxibid link to the Jungle Carbine, you can click the main auction to see prices for other items which were low across the board, and premium was only 15%.

https://www.proxibid.com/Royal-Ordn...carbine-br/lotInformation/59968359&rfpb=0#Top

A couple others I can think of besides the $400 SMLES were Single Rune for $1700 and in the wrap MAS-36 for $750.

 

[mauser99]

I will say one more time... to those who seek ye shall find... The ones who sit and cry will not . Its that easy...

 

[mrfarb]

I got a rifle out of Amoskaeg. I think the price was reasonable, about what I’ve paid before for similar stuff. There aren’t vary many deals anymore but oddball stuff can still be had reasonable.


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[R.W. Parker]

Do any of you remember when Cold War Soviet block stuff was rare ????

I remember it very well, like when 7,62x39mm ammo was a buck a round, and the only way you could get your hands on an SKS was to wrangle a Vietnam bring-back from a vet...

I also remember the "grey-market" Yugo (Serbian) 59/66s, and the big money one of those would bring. Chicom 10-pocket SKS chest pouches were selling for over $100. Soon afterward, Red China turned on the tap, the Warsaw Pact nations followed suit, and the bottom fell out of a lot of that stuff. For awhile, Barq's Root Beer had a promo -- free Warsaw Pact surplus if you drank enough of their root beer! Remember that?

If you held onto the right stuff though, you came out okay. The Steyr-Seacaucaus AKMs started at a grand in '81 or '82, and wouldn't move for that price (Steyr must've looked at what Valmets were selling for, and took a shot). Jobbers got stuck, and began to drop the price. The bottom was around $450, and if you got in at that price you did very well indeed.

If you held an East German Karabiner "S" or a North Korean Type 63 SKS, you were sitting on pure gold (and still are!) If you got into a Chinese SVD at $2000-$2500, you'd never get hurt. Some of the guys around Bragg even picked up Soviet rifles for that price (and some still are!).

For that matter, who ever thought they'd see import-marked Chicom SKS rifles bring a grand?

Richie

 

[ncreptile]

Anyone parking money in firearms or any collectible is a fool. Prices took off due to free money. Nothing in the history of the world has gone straight up. Bubbles form and burst.

If anything return on firearms is severely lagging behind sportscards. The prices of sportscards is absolute insanity to me. Everything I have posted has sold within 24hrs buy it now, and the buyers have all been new sportscard stores. They are buying even more outside eBay. I'm just hoping I can sell sportscards fast enough to catch the current high, because when the stock market crashes, so will everything else. The firearms I will still enjoy regardless of their value.

Edit: Mosin prices are insane, and I can only attribute it to misinformed noobs who don't realize how common they are. Keep seeing 91/30 refurbs selling for $400-$500, or double what they were 2 years ago. On Monday I will have some Hungarian 91/30 available for $2k, or the same price I sold to dealers over 2 years ago. Hungarians will have discrete import marks unlike the Century Billboards.

Someone who bought a crate of 91/30s for $1000 back in 2013 could get $8000 for it today. There were a couple folks on gunboards back in 2014 talking about how "these people paying 150 now are in for a bad surprise when this bubble burts", and of course there was no bubble and now we are at $350-400 for those same rifles. Sometimes when stuff goes up in value it's simply supply and demand. What 91/30s are being imported now are too few to quench the growing thirst/demand and the quality of those being imported now is quite less compared to years past.

For me the idea of "the milsurp bubble" is kin to The Battle of Los Angeles, it's only dangerous in the damage the idea itself can cause but there is no actual bubble. Just my personal opinion. I will agree on enjoying milsurps regardless of their value.

 

[capt14k]

I'd have to disagree. Someone who bought a crate of 91/30s for $1000 can now sell that crate for $8000. That's just over a span of 8-10 years.
A couple people(out of not wanting to get into a dirty argument, I will not name them) were talking about a bubble back as early as 2012 in reference to 91/30s.. I believe the first thread on gunboards I read about "the milsurp bubble" was in 2013 or 2014 when people were paying $150 for 91/30s which HAD been going for sub $100 before that. They talked about how "these people paying 150 for these junk refurb rifles are in for a rude awakening when the bubble bursts." The problem is they talked about the bubble with glee.. almost like it was some propaganda they were pushing in hopes it would eventually happen. Thankfully that bubble never materialized. Sometimes when stuff goes up in value it's simply supply and demand. What 91/30s are being imported now are too few to quench the growing thirst/demand and the quality of those being imported now is quite crappy compared to years past... Horrible pitting/rust, often a pinned rear sight marked for 300 yards due to it being from Ukraine.

You are an extremely smart individual but our ideas on the milsurp market are on opposite ends of the road. One thing we can agree on though is enjoying the firearms regardless of their value.

Yes I have been saying about bubble bursting for at least 4 years, because I experienced it first hand with sportscards, housing, 1950s cars, dot com, and more. Housing I also said the bubble was going to burst starting in 2004, because I saw my father go through it in 1990. Also because I lost almost everything I made in stock market due to dot com crash. Only reason I didn't lose it all was because I bought a SUV and Rolex. In 2008 when housing crashed I was well positioned, for the most part. With firearms I have always bought to not lose money, and admittedly I am extra cautious. All the years I moved and stored hundreds of wax cases and bankers boxes full of cards, has helped remind me how quick things can turn.

Century and PW imported 1500 91/30, 3000 SKS, and 5,000 Carcano each last year from Limex. The 3,000 91/30 certainly did not seem like enough to satisfy kid's desire for them. The Tipo-2 that PSA has are also from Limex.

I know Limex has a lot more Carcanos. Absolut would likely know how many 91/30 they are sitting on, if any. He wasn't kidding when he said they have hundreds of thousands of Firearms.

 

[ncreptile]

Baseball cards are not constantly being threatened to be taken away however.
There's never that fear of "If I don't buy now, I may miss out."

Again I feel like pushing the "bubble is gonna burst" thing is creating a battle of los Angeles situation. Of course it'll benefit a few people who are betting against the market, but it'll harm/destroy the hobby if it ever did happen.


As far as the imports go. The number of carcanos imported was 30k or 40k.. I believe it's 40k but I honestly did not pay much attention to them when I found out how many were being imported.


Will just agree to disagree.

 

[Intruder196]

It has been said that parking money in this hobby is foolish. Yet I don't feel like a fool. A year or two ago I found a Mosin Nagant M38 carbine in a LGS for $225. Later I finally took it to the range and discovered it couldn't hit anything at 100 yards. So off to gunbroker it went with a lower-than-I-paid-for-it start bid. It went for double what I had in it. That's just one example of several. I can think of several other deals I found at LGS that I still have that will fetch a lot more than I have in them. I'm contemplating selling a Romanian SAR-2 5.45x39 AK74 clone (paid $289 for it back in the day) and a byf43 K98. I know both will fetch more than I have in them.

 

[M1903A3]

It has been said that parking money in this hobby is foolish. Yet I don't feel like a fool. A year or two ago I found a Mosin Nagant M38 carbine in a LGS for $225. Later I finally took it to the range and discovered it couldn't hit anything at 100 yards. So off to gunbroker it went with a lower-than-I-paid-for-it start bid. It went for double what I had in it. That's just one example of several. I can think of several other deals I found at LGS that I still have that will fetch a lot more than I have in them. I'm contemplating selling a Romanian SAR-2 5.45x39 AK74 clone (paid $289 for it back in the day) and a byf43 K98. I know both will fetch more than I have in them.

Yeah I don’t know that it’s foolish especially if it’s extra spending money that you’re using and NOT striving for a predictable return. Of course most things will go up, but I couldn’t guess how much or in what time frame. Several years back I sold a Remington-Rand M1911A1 slide for more than I paid for the entire Franken-pistol. But I bought that gun to shoot, not as a matching collectible piece. An unintentional good return.


Sent from my top secret official Bunker of the Order of the Def’s Hed.

 

[capt14k]

Baseball cards are not constantly being threatened to be taken away however.
There's never that fear of "If I don't buy now, I may miss out."

Again I feel like pushing the "bubble is gonna burst" thing is creating a battle of los Angeles situation. Of course it'll benefit a few people who are betting against the market, but it'll harm/destroy the hobby if it ever did happen.


As far as the imports go. The number of carcanos imported was 30k or 40k.. I believe it's 40k but I honestly did not pay much attention to them when I found out how many were being imported.


Will just agree to disagree.

40k was the number Limex had in stock.. I only saw the two imports of 5,000 each. It's pubic record.

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[capt14k]

It has been said that parking money in this hobby is foolish. Yet I don't feel like a fool. A year or two ago I found a Mosin Nagant M38 carbine in a LGS for $225. Later I finally took it to the range and discovered it couldn't hit anything at 100 yards. So off to gunbroker it went with a lower-than-I-paid-for-it start bid. It went for double what I had in it. That's just one example of several. I can think of several other deals I found at LGS that I still have that will fetch a lot more than I have in them. I'm contemplating selling a Romanian SAR-2 5.45x39 AK74 clone (paid $289 for it back in the day) and a byf43 K98. I know both will fetch more than I have in them.

That isn't an example of parking money. That is flipping. When I say parking money I mean from an investment perspective. For example you pull money out of stocks and you park it in gold, or to be extra safe a money market, though gold maybe better with the current dollar. If Europe ever got their shite together we would be in trouble.

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[bigwagon]

That isn't an example of parking money. That is flipping. When I say parking money I mean from an investment perspective. For example you pull money out of stocks and you park it in gold, or to be extra safe a money market, though gold maybe better with the current dollar. If Europe ever got their shite together we would be in trouble.

I've flipped my share over guns over the years for some very good short term gains (similar to day trading stocks I guess) but I also have a lot of equity/value "parked" in the rest of my collection. Don't consider this so much as an investment in the tradition term, but more of a hard asset that is part of a diversified portfolio that includes cash, stocks, real estate and other assets.

 

[stuckus]

Lets avoid any "guns are not a good investment" talk. I need to keep my conscience clear when I tell my wife how wise my gun purchases are!

 

[Absolut]

40k was the number Limex had in stock.. I only saw the two imports of 5,000 each. It's pubic record.

Nearly all gone though. Only has a few singular crates left where the rare makes and years are in, Italian collector put them aside on behalf of them (at least per beginning of this year when I was there last time). Remember he told me he flipped those very quickly. Must had went somewhere else then.

 

[capt14k]

Nearly all gone though. Only has a few singular crates left where the rare makes and years are in, Italian collector put them aside on behalf of them (at least per beginning of this year when I was there last time). Remember he told me he flipped those very quickly. Must had went somewhere else then.

I noticed there are a bunch of Carcano for sale on European sites now too. Also vz52 and vz52/57

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[M1903A3]

Maybe I’m different and maybe not but I don’t look at or handle any of my collectible firearms and think about how much I paid or what it’s worth, I think about it for WHAT IT IS. I’ve probably overpaid on some and underpaid on others, but my own sliding scale of “worth” or “value” only applied at the time I bought it, and was tempered by WHAT the gun was and how much I was interested in that.

Every rifle has a story to tell, and not the carnival barker sales story either. THAT is what I’m interested in, and that is a large part of “value” to me. Thus, some day when I’m gone and my son has to decide what to do with all my junk, someone else (him included!) will have to decide what they do or don’t want and why, and for how much.

ME selling my SS Contract rifle would price it higher than someone who doesn’t care about that angle. My son might price it lower if he doesn’t know or care about that. A buyer might be willing to bid it up big time in an auction if he knows what it is and wants it.

My point is that value in firearms can be pretty subjective. My investment value would be put at a much higher figure by me than by an appraiser because I’ve bought what I like!!


Sent from my top secret official Bunker of the Order of the Def’s Hed.

 

[Intruder196]

That isn't an example of parking money. That is flipping. When I say parking money I mean from an investment perspective. For example you pull money out of stocks and you park it in gold, or to be extra safe a money market, though gold maybe better with the current dollar. If Europe ever got their shite together we would be in trouble.

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We may have different definitions of "parking" vs "flipping". To me flipping is buying something at below market value with intent to resell elsewhere for a higher price. That I don't do. I bought the previously mentioned Mosin M38 carbine because I did not have one in the collection. After I discovered it couldn't hit anything at 100 yds, it had to go.

 

[capt14k]

We may have different definitions of "parking" vs "flipping". To me flipping is buying something at below market value with intent to resell elsewhere for a higher price. That I don't do. I bought the previously mentioned Mosin M38 carbine because I did not have one in the collection. After I discovered it couldn't hit anything at 100 yds, it had to go.

Flipping wasn't meant as a negative comment.

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