This is a subject I feel comfortable commenting upon. I was born in 1947 and have been collecting firearms since 1959. Remember, this was just after WWII and there was absolutely no stigma about gun collecting, even for us 12-year-olds.
I'll start with a story, and it is true. We kids in Steelton used to congregate on Bethlehem Steel's scrap-steel dump. The company successfully bid on thousands of tons of battlefield scrap, and in it were countless German and American bayonets and helmets, piled in 40-foot-high scrap heaps, which, risking teatanus and deep wounds, we would climb and canvass. We only took the unbent bayonets and the not-too-badly dented helmets. Sometimes a real crisp one would surface. There were also loads of Browning .30 and .50 machine guns. Again, we were seeking unbent barrels and receivers that worked (none were torched). I was too little to carry a .50 BMG, so my garage was loaded with .30's. In those days a .30 would fetch a 6-pack of Coca-Cola...the small bottles. Yes, we learned to rebuild them and make them work. Many of our creations were registered in the November 1968 BATF amnesty period and are working today. Incidentally, if the compamy cops caught you they scolded you and drove you home to your parents. That was it. Just business as usual in the 1950's in my neighborhood.
That led to dealings later on with Sam Cummings at Interarms in Alexandria, Virginia. He owned most of the warehouses around the Strand, now a glitzy, upscale shopping and restaurant area. Interarms offered a 25% discount if you had an account and bought 3 or more items at a time. Yes, I met Sam several times. You should have seen his Luger collection in the main office. But the real contact was an armorer who worked in the warehouse. It was my dad's idea to buy him a carton of Kool cigarettes one day, and from that time on I had a friend and a direct contact in the warehouse when the crates were opened. What a time. Those crates often had extra goodies in them that did not appear on the manifest. The warehouse was a great place to hang out. Christmas 365 days a year. To cut to the chase, these trips paid the tuition for the first two years of college.
My junior and senior year was subsidized mainly by selling MI and .45 Colt parts bought directly from Uncle Sam by the ton. At Letterkenny, they weighed your truck going in and again when you exited and charged you by the pound/ton for the difference in total weight. My buddy and I set up at the old Hagerstown gun show and often at the old Allentown show at the motel. The money was good and the work fun. We figured that an M1 hammer cost us 1 cent. Our price was $3.50 and we beat the competition by $1.50. Not bad for two youngsters.
Any extra loot was divided among beer, good looking girls, and guns, not necessarily in that order. Some I still have to this day...I kept one girl and many guns.
I've sold off one large collection and have accumulated another one during the past 20 years. I would say, all in all, yes, it has been better than the stock market or other paper investments. One of the reasons is that is primarily a cash business. Another reason is that you can circumvent the broker by becoming one yourself. The trick has been directly stated by others on this stream. Be a selective buyer. Spend your time before you spend your money. Learn, study, then make a purchase or two, if you are so inclined.
Never buy junk. Contrary to what antique hucksters tell you, today's junk is tomorrow's junk. Junk is junk. Look things over closely. If anything bothers you, walk away. The flaw will never go away but it will increasingly bother you.
Kentucky rifle collecting was late in my second wave of collecting. Compared to other areas of gun collecting there's a lot of bad specimens out there... heavily and poorly restored...wrong locks, funky extensions, married components, flat-out misrepresentation, and bunko artistry at its worst. Be forewarned, lots of these guns are hanging on smiling hucksters' sales racks as we speak. That's why they are there and not already in the better collections. The stuff you see at shows is often lacking in quality and/or grossly overpriced. The really good stuff gets sold to specialized collectors by phone call; they never make it to a gun show table. Don't get me wrong, counterfeiting and creative "enhancement" of guns is not limited to Kentuckys. Colt and Luger collectors, especially, can relate similar horror stories. But the percentage of bad specimens out there in the longrifle spectrum is greater.
You men who have said that the key is prudent buying are right on the money. You make your money when you buy, now when you sell. The sales price is essentially fixed by the marketplace. The variance is in what you choose to put into the piece in the first place. That's where you make it or get made. Auctions are also shaky. They are good places for the informed to dispose of dirty pieces without having their name attached to the junk. Be careful.
Best bets. Be patient. Gain some detailed knowledge. Buy an occasional piece from acquaintances when they choose to peel one or two off. Be prepared to pay a fair sum for quality material. Enjoy it and don't expect to turn around and sell it for a big profit anytime soon. Another caution: old guns...even the good ones...are not always easy to sell. Lots of guys might admire a piece and even really desire to have it. But price tags in the many thousands of dollars eliminate most potential buyers. Moreover, most serious collectors don't want to put $10,000 into a $10,000 gun. They like a bargain, too. Do you fault them? That's why keen purchasing is the key.
Two things I learned early on often help guide me. #1--You can't own them all. #2 Paying retail for a wall full of old rifles is about as promising in a financial sense as taking that amount of money to a slot machine parlor and feeding a $100 machine. Neither is going to be recommended by finance majors. Dealers often use the 2 for 1 ratio. Buy for $1 and sell for $2. In case you never thought about it, that is rather standard. Some of the nicer $35,000 guns I've seen were bought for $3500...a flat 10% of the retail value. These buyers not only sleep at night but brag about the "killing" to their friends. If their consicence is clear, so be it. They don't appear to be riddled with guilt, and given the chance, would I do it? If you quote that price and offer it to me for that, yes, without equivocation. Bottom line...if you profit from the gun business it will usually be due to your understanding and application of basic business practices, not luck, fate, or chance. For me, the key has been lots of movement and a quick return on outlaid cash. I've been known to own a gun for less than 24 hours if I can turn a quick double-digit profit and immediately reinvest the cash. The gun business is a business. Frankly, when I set out to generate some fast cash, I do not fiddle at all with Kentuckies. There's more action in crisp military arms...lots more. I have a few Kentuckies because I like them, not because I expect to get rich off of them.
Another grim point. The pool of gun-loving Americans is dwindling. It pains me to say this, but you rarely find young people at gun shows, and never find them with money, unless they are a drug dealer looking for a Tec-9. As a percentage, fewer and fewer youngsters are taking up hunting and collecting. That means a smaller pool of future gun investors. Not good news for those of us with lots of stuff. So there's the shark pool. Swim at your own risk.
