Lee Enfield Prices

In 1965, I bought two really nice Mausers for about $35 each. Gas was about $.35 a gallon. I was making $200 a month.

In 2013, nice Mausers were going for $500+, gas works out to $5.00 a gallon, and I was clearing $1000 a week.

Guys like me drive the price of Lee Enfields up. Nasty situation, but that happens to be life. I started buying military rifles in 1965, paid what the going prices were, and have ended up with some real dillys.

The real snooty collectors would likely die laughing at some of my lamp stands. Guess what? I don't give a rat's butt what they think. I buy, I enjoy owning them, and shooting some, I love showing them to budding gunners and old crusty buggers like me.

The very last thing I worry about is the rising cost of these rifles. I try to be positive about the whole situation. Keep digging, you will eventually find an acorn!
 
Its a shame that thousands of decent condition Lee Enfields will be destroyed by the CAF once the Canadian Rangers receive a new service weapon... Instead of sell off the Canadian Rangers rifle they will be chopped into three pieces and incinerated... Its a damn shame. I wish I could find one in decent shape for a decent price but I guess Im just too cheap and I hum and haw over spending $20 let alone $300+ for a rifle.
 
chimo66 said:
Its a shame that thousands of decent condition Lee Enfields will be destroyed by the CAF once the Canadian Rangers receive a new service weapon... Instead of sell off the Canadian Rangers rifle they will be chopped into three pieces and incinerated... Its a damn shame. I wish I could find one in decent shape for a decent price but I guess Im just too cheap and I hum and haw over spending $20 let alone $300+ for a rifle.
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Our screwed up gov't will not sell off stuff such as rifles, sports gear or safety apparatus. Their mandate has for a long time been that these types of items cannot be free of libel should someone come to harm while using them.

I gotta laugh at that one though, because Crown Assets routinely sell boats, vehicles & industrial tools to any "tool" that cares to put up the bucks for them in a bid. Simply stupid reasoning.:runaway:
 
Well I tried today... bunch of guys on the facebook sale pages telling a guy to drill and tap his Enfield. He has a Longbranch and decided to do it... I tried offering cash to take it off his hands and replacing it with one thats already drilled/tapped/scoped; but no go.

Another one for the bubba.
 
Though it may suck for an original Lee Enfield battle rifle to be converted sport-wise to some, it matters
not to I.

The best use of said arm to me is that it's still in use and serving our nation..."One fridge at a time."
Get it?:)
 
As an old fart, I too remember when prices were insanely cheap by today's standards. Good quality .303 ball (I'm talking Canadian stuff) was plentiful and we thought .15 cents/round was pricey. A good No.4 sporter was $35.00 at Eatons or Canadian Tire. Hercules surplus sold No.4 spike bayonets for .50 cents each as tent pegs and they had buckets (literally!) of them, but that was then and this is now. One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the probability that we have whole new generations of shooters coming on board and one only has to see how many newbies are joining this site. How many new shooters don't know about CGN? How many new shooters are looking for the rifle that dad or granddad carried in the wars? God bless folks like Lou the Pou who have made a hobby of restoring the old Lee Enfield war horses back to original appearance. I've restored a few Long Branch Lee Enfields, and I was fortunate in getting one of the 1950 Long Branch No.4's when they hit the market unfired and in the cosmoline. I have a fondness for those beautiful old rifles as they were made not too far from me and I was born in 1950.
There are still deals out there if you get lucky and know what you're looking for. For example, my brother and I were at the Orangeville gun show and an older gentleman overheard my brother mention how he was looking for a nice No.3. He told us that he was selling some milsurp rifles on behalf of the widow of a recently deceased buddy of his. To make a long story short, my brother (on my behalf) went to the guy's place and got a beautiful unmolested, numbers matching, non FTR'd, walnut stocked, BSA No.3. Cost? Two hundred bucks!
 
Does not help the prices from going down when some dealers who have them (full wood ones) on their shelf's are selling them at a starting price of $600, not complaining as I have as many as I need and they need to make a living, but when people go into a LGS and see the asking prices there and then see the asking price of them at around $450 for a similar condition one, they jump on them, and who can blame them.

Plus as has been said so many times before, they are not making them anymore and the pool of them, while very large in Canada is always shrinking and most people like to hang on to them too. I doubt we will ever see anymore coming into the country any time soon, so maybe that nice uncut or not tampered with No.4 or SMLE is a good deal at a $500 or so price.
 
Prices i pay for Lee Enfields these days can & do exceed prices i used to pay but now i just buy the quality pieces & know what i'm buying.

I've found the prices to have been continuously up & down for a few years, todays prices are back up but some models are still down on what they have been, still would not class the prices as being anywhere near over the top yet, some (as they have always done) do reach silly prices in auctions, this of course is just what i see in NZ.
 
Yep. Supply and demand rules. Lee-Enfields were sold by the pound at one time. I wouldn't believe any story about one being unissued and unfired though.
 
Hi Sunray,

There are some in the wrap that are un-issued and unfired, they came directly out of arsenal storage to the open market and still wrapped in the packaging that they were put in at the factory. They come up on the EE and Gunbroker every now and again.
 
Also I was a local gunshow last weekend and there were heaps of fullwood Enfields and a couple of full wood P14's and they were all priced around the $450 to $650 and in the 3 hours that I was there, I did not see one sell. Got a bit of a laugh to myself there when I saw a average Swedish M96 fullwood with a heavy non original re-finished stock and with a worn bore asking $800! Wow!!! One guy had heaps of old .450 and .455 revolver ammo in nice shape for sale, price was high but.
 
chimo66 said:
Its a shame that thousands of decent condition Lee Enfields will be destroyed by the CAF once the Canadian Rangers receive a new service weapon... Instead of sell off the Canadian Rangers rifle they will be chopped into three pieces and incinerated... Its a damn shame. I wish I could find one in decent shape for a decent price but I guess Im just too cheap and I hum and haw over spending $20 let alone $300+ for a rifle.
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Well, not all of them. Have two EAL's One civillian and one From the Rangers.
 
Ok, my curiousity has been raised, The question is hypothetical since I don't really want to sell it and I live in the U.S. but what is a 1941 No4 Mk1 Longbranch worth in Canada? Here is a Picture
 
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SW28fan said:
Ok, my curiousity has been raised, The question is hypotheticcal since I don't really want to sell it and I live in the U.S. but what is a 1941 No4 Mk1 Longbranch worth in Canada? Here is a Picture
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It depends on if it is a matching numbers rifle and also serial number. 1941 was the first year of production at Longbranch for the no.4. If it is one of the really early rifles it will command a bit more.
 
All matching even the magazine. The Serial number is 0L4609. The front band is stamped; the stock is not as finely finished as my Faz or other Enfields; nor is it inleted for the hinged front band. The bore is nearly perfect. It benches about 3 cm at 100 meters and on a good day I can keep it in the black prone.
 
SW28fan said:
All matching even the magazine. The Serial number is 0L4609. The front band is stamped; the stock is not as finely finished as my Faz or other Enfields; nor is it inleted for the hinged front band. The bore is nearly perfect. It benches about 3 cm at 100 meters and on a good day I can keep it in the black prone.
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Without putting a hard # on it, from poking around it seems that Enfields go for about 1/2 in the U.S. than what they go for up here - especially true of a LongBranch...

Trouble is shipping, getting it through customs, etc... There are a couple I'm eyeing on dealer sites in the US, and I figure I can save about 25% all told, after exchange rate, shipping, brokerage...
 
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