Have milsurp prices ever crashed/substantially dropped?

commissar_lubi

commissar_lubi

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The conventional wisdom is that milsurp prices keep on rising because of their collectible value and increased rarity over time, but is that always true?

For instance, Martini-Henry rifles are extremely old yet they still go for under 1000$. In comparison, some ww2 milsurps are well over 1000$. Does age matter that much when compared to rarity?

Cheers
 
Ive found that they only go up in value. Some go up very slowly and others go up in huge jumps. All of mine have gone up in value, I don't buy them as investments, I buy them because there is something about them that I like.
 
Recent memory.... WW2 is my grandfather's generation... for some of us it it their fathers or their great grandfather's...

In 100+ yrs they will be valuable but will be like the old brown bess to folks of the future.
 
I find the price is tied to the availability of the ammo for that specific milsurp rifle. GP11 is avaliable, price of K31 goes up. As soon as you have to handload for something people ditch that rifle.
 
The Civil War market had a huge crash years ago, mainly due to the amount of fakes around and when your spending 20k+ you don't like finding out it is a fake.

Rarity isn't always a factor for value. I have some pretty rare firearms that aren't worth more than 400$ (such as my matching except for the bolt Bulgarian M95 in 8x50r), well some really common rifles are worth 1500$ (M1 Garands for example).

Age also isn't always a factor for value. There is many black powder rifles that are worth a fraction of what many smokeless powder rifles cost (big things being odd cartridges which are difficult to reload for, and many people not having a connection to it, vs WWII where most peoples grandparents or great grandparents served).
 
Yarbo said:
I find the price is tied to the availability of the ammo for that specific milsurp rifle. GP11 is avaliable, price of K31 goes up. As soon as you have to handload for something people ditch that rifle.
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While some of that occurs, the price of French rifles as gone up steadily. So has Enfields, Mausers, and everything else except maybe things like the carcano - but they have gone up also, just ot a lesser extent.

Only gun I know has gotten cheaper is the SKS because of mass imports - but they are starting to creep up now also, as good ones are harder to locate.
 
All the milsurps I own have gone up in price, except for my SKS’s. I expect that once the supply has dried up, these will creep up as well eventually.
 
I remember after Zulu came out, there was a huge upsurge in the Martini-Henry... everybody and his Uncle Clarence wanted one. Nowadays... not so much. Not that they will lose value, they just won't experience the wild swings that 'in vogue' rifles go through.

Look nowadays at Garands and Carbines.... Band of Brothers , the Pacific, Saving Pvt Ryan... all that Hollywood BS does affect market price, at that particular moment... but never lasts. Consider the Trapdoors, Sniders, Spencers ... indeed, all manner of early breechloader or percussion ( and yes, regardless of historical context) after Burns' Civil War. for example.

I would say the intrinsic value of a milsurp will always be there, and will never 'crash' , to use the OP's metric.

Just be sure to obtain as high a quality example as you can possibly afford. We all know, on this forum at least, that a solid, numbers matching example in NRA Excellent with proper, period accessories will always hold it's value regardless of it's 'popularity' at the moment.

I reflect on a recent Arisaka that was displayed here just recently. I have never seen one in such fine condition, and completely un-Bubba'd.

I consider THAT an investment. I want that one so bad my teeth hurt...
 
I think having a rifle in a "situation", with other rifles pointed at you made it priceless. It will never be quite as valuable afterwards. Doesn't matter which "side" it was on.

I think Mosins are a fine example of up and down prices...post millennium imports meant a few years ago one could be purchased over a counter for about $120. I never saw that in the 90's.

Like anything: supply n' demand, and interest make the market. Have a rifle that you want to appreciate faster? Put it in a good movie, or video game. My first 'surps weren't acquired because of a respect for history, but because a deer could be taken at a fraction of the cost. Not so much now... They certainly aren't making more of any of them.
 
collector67 said:
All the milsurps I own have gone up in price, except for my SKS’s. I expect that once the supply has dried up, these will creep up as well eventually.
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I've found sks rifles have gone up if you bought them say 5 years ago. 5 years ago I bought my first one for $154 at a gun shop. They are $100 more now so that's a decent increase.

As for other milsurps, I've found that most if not all have risen drastically over the last 5 years.

For instance I bought a minty 1943 longbranch regulated by AG Parker 5 years ago. I paid a then top market price of $380 for it. At the time that was top dollar. Now that gun is probably north of 1k.
 
Here are the crashes that I noticed
The k31 bubble topped at 1200 then fell pretty fast after that and it has stabilized since
The Type 56 sks fell from 350 to 250 when some new imports came in
Swedish Mausers seemed to be pushing for the high 500s for a while but they came down to normal again
If this was the stock market these would be considered huge crashes in percentage.

Some guns are undervalued right now and are due for a market adjustment.
 
I think in time even the SKS will go up. So many are being heavily modified that the number of good ones will drop. Based on my SVT, admittedly rarer and more interesting than the SKS, which has doubled in price since I bought it. When the cheap bulk buys disappear then the price goes up. Not sure about the Mosin, lets face it they made something like 70,000,000 of those so I can't see rarity becoming as issue and they are not a great rifle so I doubt that they will go up much but who knows. If we all had crystal balls we would be millionaires.
 
I'd say there are a lot of undervalued milsurp firearms out there yet, and some which garner a massive "tax" so to speak. It is hard to believe that a captured K98 hodgpeodge can be had for 1k when I've bought no less than >3< Carcanos for less then that!

I suppose the historical aspect is important here, and as mentioned what is "in vouge" thanks to media can help or hinder. Battlefield 1 has really shocked the market for great-war era firearms, and by proxy the near-equivalents are affected as well (ie, Joe can't find/afford a Gew98 so he settles on a K98 etc).

Personally, I buy milsurp firearms due to my fascination with history and engineering. I have a soft-spot for anything using the Mannlicher system, so those are what I have the most of. Next comes your eay-to-source Mausers and Mosins, and it only goes up from there.

One of the most shocking value shifts for me has been the Arisaka. Japanese cultural curios and relics always hold a certain mark up in value, but only recently have their WW2 relics garnered much attention. I think this has to do a lot with the Japanese national-shame aspect of defeat and reconciliation coming to an end and a certain romanticism of Japanese fighting spirit and nationalism has brought the humble Arisaka back to the forefront.

Anyway that is my .2 cents.
 
Milsurp prices follow the economy in general. Depending on the area you live in and its economic viability has a lot to do with pricing. Government pressure also has an impact on prices. For instance NRCAN makes it very expensive/difficult to bring surplus ammunition for some types of milsurps into Canada. Then again, look at the prices on French milsurps. There was a time, maybe a decade ago, when you couldn't give one away. Now, depending on condition prices are right on up there with Lee Enfields. I use the Mle 1886 rifles as an example. The same can be said about Japanese milsurps. The prices on those have gone up close to 1000% in the last ten to fifteen years.

When the economy tanks, prices on milsurps tanks. The other factor is as mentioned ammo availability but that is a very narrow view based on certain individuals that are only looking at these rifles to go bang in the general direction of the target. I have noticed a lot more serious collectors are emerging than there were even 20 years ago. Imported ammo from Yugoslavia has filled a niche market, albeit at high cost, for hard to find ammo. This allows people that want to collect as well as occasionally shoot their pieces to have their cake and eat it to.

The South American Mausers were once relatively cheap. Less than five years ago 1909 models could be purchased in VG condition under $400 without to much trouble. That same rifle today will bring close to $900.

A very under appreciated and under valued milsurp IMHO are the Kropatscheks. Made for Portugal in four different models by Steyr, they are marvels of machining and fitting. IMHO well above the quality control of even the South American Mauser designs/models. The 8x60R ammunition is almost impossible to find in shootable quantities so reloading is the best option.

As witnessed recently the AR platform rifles have dropped dramatically in price. Ruger, S&W, Mossberg and a dozen private as well as offshore companies have brought the price of them down under $800 delivered to your doorstep. Some of the offerings are still high but the market is flooded at the moment and some of the lesser known/quality types are relatively cheap.

A lot depends on the times. As for movies, there certainly is no lack of media material where AR type rifles are used in quantity. Still, in Canada, restricting the model has kept demand and ownership levels relatively low.
 
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