Sounds to me like trying to make an investment tool. Too many factors for any accuracy. Local sales, internet auction sales of high end auctioneers, internet sales? Plus too many different collecting interests.
Dan 🤠

 

A fellow on here actually had that. Called the Stockmarket of guns. The website is no longer available.

 

That was a good site, I used It a lot

 

What do you mean? This place is my s&p index

 

I’d include some of the following:

Russian capture K98
Refurb Mosin m91/30
MAS 36 Refurb
Chinese SKS
Russian SKS
…I could go on.

The above guns are easier to fix a “going rate” for because in general they were imported in large quantities and in consistently good condition and are readily available and readily available in as-imported condition.

That said, the gun market is so large, varied, and subject to local variation that it’s not too useful to track, as far as I can tell. If I don’t plan to buy another refurb MAS 36, I don’t need to know that the going rate is about $700… it tells me little when I’m really interested in a 6” blued Python made in 1966, or a Luger with 1920 property markings and original non-chipped wooden grips. Those guns are harder to fix a precise dollar amount on.

 

Bring back Chinese SKS with capture papers..

 

No, I didn't think of this as being an investment tool - that would be difficult and I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking of firearms as for pleasure rather than investment.

It's just that I remember when you could buy SKS's or CZ-52's all day long for under $100 anywhere. $350 would get you the best AK short of a Polytech Legend, and a high grade all-matching Swedish m/96 was under $200. I look at all that now and wonder, even with inflation, whether the hobby is growing and demand increasing? That was the idea - to have a fun metric comprised of a wide variety of firearms that would yield some magic number.

Maybe the one true bellwether is a Mitchell's Mauser K98k. LOL.

 

For Mosins alone you would need at least seven or eight "categories" for such an effort to have any value:
1) 91/30 refurbs
2) 91/30 original
3) PU refurbs
4) PU original
5) 91/30 Finned
6) 91/30 Finn version
7) M1891 Imperial/Soviet
8) M1891 I/S Finned
9) M1891 Finn versions
10) 91/30 SCW
11) M1891 SCW, etc., etc.

Numbers that blend any or all of the above have no real significance.

Ruprecht

 

That's only if it were Mosin-specific (I did not choose to post in this group; it was moved here). That list defeats the idea of a diverse index for the trend of common collectable firearms prices as a whole. So I would choose the 91/30 Original and be done with it - it would serve as a single data point among those in the index and represent just that one category.

I will offer this crude and somewhat uneducated beginning of a list, with the constraint that the firearms are all in excellent condition:

Revolvers:

Colt SAA first series, 7.5" bbl, .45 Colt
pre-1950 S&W M&P
1950's Colt Python, 6" bbl
1960's S&W M14 ("K-38 Masterpiece), 8-3/8" bbl
2000's era Ruger New Super Blackhawk


....replace or choose more....


Semiauto handguns:

Colt 1908
pre-WWII DWM P.08
pre-WWII Colt M1911A1
S&W 39
Browning Hi-Power
CZ-75

....replace or choose more....

Bolt action rifles:


M1903 Springfield
SMLE No.1 Mk IIII
Mosin 91/30 original
Swiss K-31
Swedish m/96
German K98k (byf) pre-WWII

.... replace or choose more ...

Semiauto rifles:

1943 M1 Garand
Russian SKS
FN-FAL
HK-91

.... replace or choose more ...

 

It's just going to be really tough get any sense of consistency between examples. Take M/39s for example. You have the major variations: Sako, VKT, Sako SKY, B-barrells and later date M/39s. Plus the oddball M/39s made off Imperial M/91s and the few round receiver M/39s. Then add PL markings, straight stocks, nice wood, nice bores, antique receivers and a multitude of other markings that can be present (or not) on the receiver. All these little differences in detail can make huge variations in value. You could easily have more than 25 variations of M/39s by themselves when you get to that level of granular detail that collectors look at.

 

As much as I hate to use the term "meme gun" I think some of them will be quite the investment.

USGI 1911s
Lugers
Broomhandle Mauser
S&W Model 29 stainless (aka Dirty Harry's revolver)
Any Webley revolver in .455 but especially the First World War vintage
Colt SAAs

Winchester Lever-actions, but especially the Winchester '73s

Would argue police department-marked guns will always carry a premium

 

I think it is too convoluted to have any accuracy. You can't simplify a highly complex subject. Way too many variables.
Dan 🤠

 

Too many variables, and lumping things together doesn’t really provide useful data, same as being ultra-specific:

SMLE MkIII - a non-refurb 1913 Lithgow is different than a refurb 1916 Enfield….. MkIII* refurbed into a MkIII? Other foreign property marks? Etc.

91/30 original - “original” in what context? Finn capture? SCW? Refurb or non?

Swede M96 - Finn? Refurb?

Type 99 should be on there, but monopod? AA wings? Mum? Last ditch? T99 Long?

Being too specific will yield information that is only applicable to one specific type, including every minor variation will just give an average that is almost equally useless.

 

Very well. You've all convinced me. Perhaps I'll just monitor the year-by-year price of a Mitchell's K98k Mauser on Gunbroker, or I can leaf through 1990's issues of Shotgun News while crying into my coffee.

 

Very well. You've all convinced me

I didn’t mean to ruin your fun.

You just gotta pick how you want to approach it if you want to do it, what are the criteria?

 

"Buy the best you can afford" is probably the best advice I ever received for collecting

 

I have always found this chart useful, albeit with the usual grain-of-salt:

Manowar's -- Military Firearm Prices

 

I also think prices back in the day reflected collector and importer ignorance to some extent. By which I mean, the importer calls them “Mosin Nagant rifles” and it’s the collectors who buy them who start geeking out over Ishevsk vs Tula vs hex vs ex-dragoon or sniper etc etc. All of em were $69. Now the ex sniper is $600 (? Guessing. Haven’t got one and haven’t looked up selling prices ever for them.) The round receiver 1943 Ishevsk is $375 all day long. So those collector details will matter more now because we have to buy from enthusiasts or at least those who only have a few of something so are inclined to research it to get the most they can.

I wanted a Finn M39, I remember my choice was Vkt for $375 or Sako for $475. Not a lot of nuance.

Some of these guns have appreciated a lot more than others. Or appreciated a lot and then flatlined. For example, I was offered a Bulgarian mak for 3-something in 2009. They’re 4-something now I’d wager. P64s were 1-something when imported, supply dried up and they were 3-400 guns, now they’re available again in the 300s.