Original longrifle prices

[Jim Kibler]

For those who have been involved in collecting for a while, how do current prices compare to those from say 20 years ago?  Does this vary with desirability?  Have high-end longrifles held their value better?  Where do you see prices heading in the future?

Jim

[Eric Kettenburg]

Oh boy.     

[JTR]

I'd say less. In some cases considerably less.
Look at the Beck that Al just bought; less than 20 years ago that would have been more like 45K, maybe more.
In the long run, I see these great old guns dropping more, mainly for lack of interest in younger generations.
Sad, but probably true, although I hope it doesn't go that route.
John

[sbowman]

What John said, the caveat being that an exceptional piece may bring a exhorberant amount if an individual or a museum just "has to have it". That goes for most old guns today, not just muzzleloaders. The only class of firearm I've seen continually rise in price is legally transferable machineguns(Yes, I play with those too though not so much anymore, ammunition getting pricy)-LOL

Steve

[Avlrc]

I have only been collecting American Longrifles for 20 years, & they are a lot better deals today. Inflation has not hit them yet, LOL.  You should buy it because you love it, not for an investment.  You need to love American History to appreciate the American Longrifle.  IMO, it's not something that most of the younger generation is interested in or even taught.  I doubt you sell any of your collection to them, well, not for what you paid. Hopefully, I am wrong frequently I am. 

[Jdbeck]

A friend of mine runs a consulting company in Houston for museums. We had a long conversation on antiques firearms. It seems museums are taking a step away from firearms, the collectors are aging out, and new collectors are not entering the market. Him being in the business for years he's advised me to hold off on purchasing originals as there will be an influx of available pieces In the next 10years with less of a market to purchase them. However, I’m impatient and steady looking!

Obviously cultures can change, and interest can come back and regain prices- I would imagine the antique market ebbs and flows like all markets.

[TDM]

Agree, at least for the short term I believe values are headed down. But 10-20-30 years from now could be a Renaissance. Doubt I’ll be around to see it.

[Eric Kettenburg]

JMHO but I think the pieces that will have value and will hold value as time keeps on keepin on will be the pieces that have not been molested.  And that is an exceptionally small pool.  Speaking for myself, I have no interest in a wood sliver with some metal bits that is now 75% contemporary.

[Brent English]

I bought a decent 1/2 stock British sporting rifle at Friendship for $1200 40 years ago. Sold it here a few months ago for $1500.  I think the average American longrifle would be about the same story. Agree with the other comments already posted.

[Avlrc]

I wonder if some of the devaluation is due to the Internet auctions.  I used to collect Winchesters, and  sometimes it took me years to find a specific variation of a model I liked. I would go to gun shops, newspaper ads, & auctions.  You might find it in Shotgun News. But now you can get on the internet and find any variation you want in 5 minutes.  I'm not saying it is that easy to find the antique longrifle you want, but there are long rifle auctions on the internet every few weeks.  It better be a killer to bring the big bucks.  But the unmolested ones, as Erics says, are the rare birds.

[120RIR]

Even based on my limited time in this collecting field (about 5 whopping years), I think market values have dropped and I suspect that trend will continue for a while longer.  How low will they go and how long will the trend continue is anyone's guess and that's all it can be...a guess.  There are so many components that go into "value" in this context, but I would contend that discussing some of the root causes here would more than nibble at politics, so I'll just let that slide.  Suffice to say, if you're looking at long rifles as a good monetary investment, you'd do better to just throw darts at the stock prices in those long columns in the Wall Street Journal.  It's also not just long rifles.  Take a look at antique furniture.  It's a cliche but a good one: If it's brown, it's down.  Why?  Probably many of the same market forces affecting long rifle values.  However, if you collect these rifles because, like me, you are fascinated by the subject matter and they're not part of an ill-advised retirement plan, then the future is probably very bright for really nice examples at increasingly affordable prices.   

[Avlrc]

The good thing is, it is a buyers' market, the bad thing is, I already spent all my money, 

[Fullstock longrifle]

The Sirskin (Sp?) auction seems to have started the decline in Kentucky Rifle sales and values. Most of those once great rifles had been heavily restored. I drove to Maine to preview the auction and was amazed at the number of rifles that had been worked on, hard. One rifle that sold for over $60,000.00 (if memory serves me right) was nothing more than a butt stock. After that debacle the prices for longrifles plummeted. It’s come back some, but mainly for quality untouched guns. But quality will always maintain its value. The money and collectors are still out there, Poulin’s just got $65,000.00 for a Bowie knife, that says a lot about antique weapon collectors. The bottom line is, never pay retail for heavily restored guns, unfortunately they’re a bad investment now and always will be.

[rich pierce]

Speaking only to the low end, from limited experience. I’ve over-paid for several of my few low end original guns in a very modest collection. But I figure, what would it cost me to have this built by a contemporary master? What would it cost me to build it? Can I learn from having this an original in hand?  I’m seeing originals on the low end go for 2/3 what it would cost to have a master builder replicate. And their work would have no historical value to me. It wasn’t “there”.

One could argue, these old guns aren’t “shooters” so you’re comparing apples and oranges, but I can’t shoot all the guns I’ve made and kept, regularly, and am better off shooting one rifle and one fowler anyway. So, when some original pops up in auction that excites me, and I can get it for a couple thousand dollars, I’ll give it a try now and then.

[Daniel Coats]

I've been doing this for more than 40 years so I'll take a stab at answering. I think there's an emotional side that hasn't been mentioned yet. Take the movie line from Jeremiah Johnson "He was looking for a Hawken gun, .50 caliber or better. He settled for a .30, but @!*%, it was a genuine Hawken... you couldn't go no better." This helped spark a craze for any gun with the name Hawken from the early 1970's to this day.

I used to have a man and woman that walked their dog by my shop every day. The man was interested but the woman refused to even touch a gun let alone one being made by hand. Carried a tanned elk robe across my shoulder at work one time some liked it and others would recoil in horror and move as far away as possible. Both examples of pure emotional response based on some unknown factor. Same applies to guns of any kind by some individual people.

I think overall current prices are higher than they were 20 years ago but people still react emotionally when they place value on them either high or low. A modern gunsmith once told me when I was bragging about my rifles. "There's only 2 kinds of muzzleloaders the first kind is only worth about a dollar and the second kind is worth nothing at all."

I think high end rifles hold their value better and are usually more desirable. Throw in an emotional attachment to a famous person real or fictional and the sky is the limit on price.

I think the future of these guns while obviously unknown will still have an emotional component to it. I see a disturbing trend towards erasing our heritage and pride in how our country was created. More reactions like what I experienced with that elk robe on my shoulder  than kids wearing coonskin caps everyday like I did. 

For me I will continue to enjoy the hunt for more of these kind of rifles the only limit is my critical eye and expensive taste! 

[debnal]

I would agree with Frank. I think the Sirkin sale was a watershed event for antique longrifle collecting. Try to get pieces that are in "untouched" condition. These are getting harder to find as collectors mess with their guns. I have three guns that are in that condition. I leave the original dust on them. Not even an oily rag.
Al

[debnal]

One more thing about prices. The Medad Hills COS musket in Poulins auction. I bought that gun from England for 6K 15 years ago. I traded in for more 10 years ago. Now at auction it brought 40K plus fees, taxes and shipping, about 50K. Good guns still bring good prices.
A;

[Seth Isaacson]

I never see the really nice examples dropping off a cliff and likely climbing in value when we hit the tricentennial depending on the situation in the country and the world at that time. They will always have plenty of demand as there is almost certainly always going to be plenty of affluent antique gun collectors as there have been for as long as firearms have been around. Those are the guys that drive the prices up on a lot of stuff bidding against each other, and the high end stuff from otherwise "weak categories" seem to just be going up and up even though lower condition examples are basically given away.

There isn't as much in pop culture these days driving interest in antique firearms in general compared to 20th century and current firearms that are more likely to be able to be shot. When most of the collectors on here were growing up, there were a lot of cowboy and frontier movies and tv series; today, not so much. Instead right now we have a lot of movies on more recent conflicts and a fair number of veterans of those conflicts. Culture drives interest in particular kinds of guns. "Tactical" stuff is all the rage. I'm guessing some of the newer western type stuff has generated more interest in some of the classic pieces from those eras. Maybe the new Napoleon biopic will get some more interest in flintlocks.

[AZshot]

Longrifles are going the way of 95% of the other American antiques, down.  If you watch Antiques Roadshow on TV, they commonly re-do a show from 15 or 20 years ago, showing the item and it's appraisal at that time.  Then they show the updated appraisal, today.  In most cases the item is down by 20-50%.  That can be for a $20,000 artwork, or a $400 colonial mug...almost all are down. 

I went to an estate sale a couple months ago, the guy was a bigtime early American Pewter collector.  Chargers, tankards, whale oil lamps abounded.  They were selling most items for $7 a piece.  SEVEN dollars.  Sure, it was an estate sale, they had to sell it all in one day.  I bought 10 items, and came home to research the going rate.  Most were about $30-50 in value. 

Great gain you say?  But not for the original owner - I also found his purchase ledger records, each item carefully documented.  Most items he'd bought back in the 60s and 70s and most for at least $150.  Some were $300 or more.  ALL of these sold for under $50, most for $7.  His estate was in the hole by the tune of thousands or 10s of thousands of dollars for his lifetime Pewter collection.  He paid enought to have bought a house back then, the market today paid enough to buy a cheap bicycle.

[Jdbeck]

The other factor missing on price comparison is the inflation the US dollar is worth 1/7 of its value from the 1970’s. So the loss in value is 7 times greater than the face value….

[Fullstock longrifle]

I’m not sure how to attach a link to this site, but it’s easy enough to find in Google. This article is from June and according to the article, antiques are coming back in fashion with Millennials and prices are rising again. I guess only time will tell.

[Hlbly]

Buy it because you like it. You can’t take that money with you when you go.

[DaveM]

Like most things, demand will go up and down. But I am sure there will always be interest becase these are unique and historical. There are also simply more and more people - and many are researching their heritage. Future potential collectors!

[Buck]

The  Sirkin Collection, John and I have repeatedly called that debacle the kiss of death. A good example of the downward trend are the auction results of Louie Parker’s collection. All great guns, most were untouched with a few that were lightly restored and only two brought the big dollars. The good guns will most definitely sell better, but the days of the $50k to $100k rifles are gone.

Buck

[Bob Roller]

I bought a decent 1/2 stock British sporting rifle at Friendship for $1200 40 years ago. Sold it here a few months ago for $1500.  I think the average American longrifle would be about the same story. Agree with the other comments already posted.

A high end gun that gained only $300 in 40 years? Willing seller + willing buyer will determine the cost/value of any commodity whether it be guns,cars,vintage aircraft.Some  relics have reached the absurd such as a car once belonging to an actor sold for $20,000,000 + a $2,000,000 buyers fee.I think this was in 2018.Barnum was right!
Bob Roller