Current prices are difficult to judge as too many variables come into play i.e. the item, sale year, dwindling buyer base – buyers too old, change of popular media, rising anti-gun culture, and all the other points made here, but don’t forget the causes within our own community.
Add factors like the failure of the original long rifle organizations to recognize their professed mission and develop marketing plans to promote the historic value of the long rifle (beyond its membership). Example – look at how the American decoy collectors turned a $5.00 piece of wood into a $50,000. folk art collectible. Those collectors worked at getting that result back in the sixties. Most every waterside state in America now has a public decoy museum-we have 3 in Maryland. Where are the American long rifle museums?
Why did icons like Joe Kindig, Jr, Henry Kauffman, and William Renwick not join the KRA, along with museum curators and historians - shouldn’t they have been more enticed?
And don't forget the years of Tefft forgeries and other nefarious dealer activity that turned Herman Dean, Renwick, and hundreds of others against the market for very early guns.
Until 1971 and the famous Historic Society York Show no one credible group was putting on exhibitions to the public. The KRA was just formed, but they called it an exclusive club and never invited the general public into their shows, so they never put on any public exhibitions. There was a long stretch from that York show until 2009 and (forgive me) my exhibit at the Berks County, Reading show – the first sizeable exhibit of long rifles in almost 15 years. Apparently, the American Society of Arms Collectors was never much for public exhibitions, leaving only commercial gun shows as the source for the public’s appreciation of the long rifle.
But if you think the market is still OK, look at the current Rock Island auction results. What appeared to be a decent Haga-attributed rifle went for $17,000. I picked this rifle because this period and particular style of rifle has very much in common with every other Haga attribution sold in recent years. Ten years ago, one very similar sold for $55,000. at the Baltimore Show. Flayderman sold one for $35,000. and another for $27,000. from his catalog, I sold one for $44,000. about the same time. Then there is the Simon Miller rifle, another of his basic designs that just sold for $4,250., three have sold in the previous five-six years - one for $12,000., 14,000, and 15,000.
Then look at the Winchester 76 Centennial which sold for $200,000.+ – nothing against the collectors, but where is the hand-made, early craftsmanship of great historic value? Was it simply that Winchester and Colt were better promoted in an age of mass communication? Historic importance should equal value, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with America’s first firearms.
I agree that the Sirkin sale hurt the market, as will any sale with too many goodies at one time, but it was certainly not the catalyst for the downtrend in prices. The downward trend seems more complicated to me.
Patrick Hornberger
