Some old shotshells - any guesses at age/value?

[dreamwaters]

A buddy of mine was moving and had a pile of stuff free for the taking. Most of it looked worthless to me, but I did take a box of old ammo, mostly 12 ga shotgun shells.

I've been using some of the more recent looking stuff (plastic shells) but there is some paper stuff in there as well. I haven't been using those because I didn't know if they were at all damaging to my shotgun. If I do use them should I clean it right away? On the other hand, are loose shotshells like that every of any value to collectors?

Five of the boxes, both full or partially full, look pretty old and I wondered if they might be worth something so I put them aside for now. Here are some pics of the oldest looking box (I'm basing that on the price tag - 2.77$ a box).

Any info would be great.

This one is full of the original shells:

This one is full as well (price tag says Kmart 5.77$ - must be before Michael Moore!)

This one has 20 original shells in it, but there may be enough loose in the bottom of the big box to top it up.

These two have mixtures of shells in them, and I'm not sure which are the original ones. There is a chance that there are enough original ones loose in the big box that all of this came in to top up one of these to full as well.

This is the same but has a piece of tape with "5&6" handwritten on the top, which I guess would decrease the value of the box, if indeed it is of any value to begin with.

 

[Grouse Man]

Conversation pieces, start of an ammo collection. Either give them to another collector or keep em. Their value as shootable ammo is about $5 a box.

 

[Calum]

Shoot them now so they are not a PITA for someone else later.

 

[tracker]

Bought a lot of the same kind at a recent gun show to use for crows and never pay more than $5 a box, sometimes as low as $3. The Polish ones work the best for long range.

 

[MD]

Funny, I got a box of those FAM Polish shells with an old shotgun I borrowed a couple years ago and shot 'em off at clays last year to get rid of 'em.

I have a bunch of #5 and #6 CIL shells in thos eold boxes too, and they patterned so well out of my 870 that I'm saving them for upcountry grouse hunting.

 

[Win/64]

A buddy of mine was moving and had a pile of stuff free for the taking. Most of it looked worthless to me, but I did take a box of old ammo, mostly 12 ga shotgun shells.

I've been using some of the more recent looking stuff (plastic shells) but there is some paper stuff in there as well. I haven't been using those because I didn't know if they were at all damaging to my shotgun. If I do use them should I clean it right away? On the other hand, are loose shotshells like that every of any value to collectors?

Five of the boxes, both full or partially full, look pretty old and I wondered if they might be worth something so I put them aside for now. Here are some pics of the oldest looking box (I'm basing that on the price tag - 2.77$ a box).

Any info would be great.

This one is full of the original shells:

This one is full as well (price tag says Kmart 5.77$ - must be before Michael Moore!)

This one has 20 original shells in it, but there may be enough loose in the bottom of the big box to top it up.

These two have mixtures of shells in them, and I'm not sure which are the original ones. There is a chance that there are enough original ones loose in the big box that all of this came in to top up one of these to full as well.

This is the same but has a piece of tape with "5&6" handwritten on the top, which I guess would decrease the value of the box, if indeed it is of any value to begin with.

I'll take those Imperials off your hands

 

[Fassteel]

The Imperial box is the only one that might be considered old, relative to the rest that you have. Many european countries made paper hulled shells into the 80's. Non of this is collectable unless you are 20 years old and want to hang on to it for 50 years. FS

 

[dreamwaters]

SWEET - I'm RICH, I'm RICH!!! lol .
Thanks for the info - I was pretty sure that they were not worth anything much, but I would have felt pretty stupid shooting them only to see the same thing on ebay going for hundreds of dollars! I'll probably hang onto the fam and imperial boxes in with my mini-collection of old tools, fishing lures and other "junk" - just for sh*ts and giggles, but use up the rest.