One question I used to hear a lot was "So, what's my gun worth?"
For some guns, that's a fairly easy answer... kind of. Used Glock 17s and Bangor Punta-era Smith Model 10s change hands often enough on the used market that "the going rate" is easy to establish; if you can find someone willing to pay it, then that's what your gun is worth.
The trick is when the weapon in question is not so common; nobody likes to hear "Well, buddy, I can't rightly tell you." It pained me to have to tell a customer that his Japanese "Type I" rifle wasn't listed in any of the standard value guides, nor could I recollect having seen one for sale in real life; in the end, the spot value of the gun was determined by finding a number for which he was willing to part with the gun, and that my boss was willing to pay. In turn, the gun was worth more to me than it was to my boss, and so I purchased it from him. And so on down the road...
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Lately, the Carcano/Arisakas have started popping up fairly frequently. There's one for $250 here in Connecticut and an externally like new (arsenal refinished?) Beretta over in Rhode Island for $300.
Presumably the Manchurians (they got almost all of the Italian rifles) opened up the back room in one of their armories and found something marketable.
The Beretta has about a collectors VG, shooters G bore and I've been thinking about it, but the Springfield Mass show is coming up, and I have to save my pesos for...
Speaking of Jap stuff, you know what I haven't seen in a while? The 7.7 rimmed and 6.5 machine gun ammo in the brass Hotchkiss style feed strips, with the funky stiffened canvas sleeves. The Chinese cranked out a zillion rounds of the stuff in the 1950's on captured Japanese machinery.
The 7.7 rimmed is TOAB for anyone but collectors, but the 6.5 was so common I was shooting it in my carbine.
Still thinking of going over to Rhode Island for that Beretta.
Yup, I've seen three or four over the last couple years. Still pretty rare, though...
Like rarer Latin American Mausers that are suddenly popping up like mushrooms, I think this is a result of the Greatest Generation liquidating gun collections.
My local shop had some old WWII rifles. He said they were "Italian Army Mausers, never fired, dropped once." But I am a practical kind of shooter, and didn't need one so I left them alone.
Nat
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