Gun Show Report 11/30/08...

NOTE: Guncollectorsclub.com doesn't offer a membership, but throughout these pages you may find links to various Collector Clubs and Associations that are dedicated to the various firearms and topics covered.

I went to a Gun Show yesterday and was astonished at the turn-out. It was the largest crowd I've ever witnessed at this semi-annual event. The show opened at 9:00 am and I arrived at 9:30 and found myself standing in a line of about 200 to 300 people waiting to get in.

People are truly afraid that our new President will push an anti-gun agenda that will make it either; a) more difficult to buy a gun and ammunition of any kind, b) more expensive, or c) more difficult and more expensive.

Most of the talk centered around a possible future tax on ammunition, not a reasonable tax but one so "punitively" high that it will take away the ability of many citizens to afford to buy it.

The guy standing in line behind me commented on how few attendees had brought guns to sell or trade. I had not noticed this fact until he called it to my attention. He was right. Normally you would see one in four or one in five people checking guns in at the entrance. On this particular day, I would say only one in twenty brought a gun to the show.

I found about a dozen Colt Pythons, all priced between $1,200 and $2,400 with the average going price being about $1,500. There were four Diamondbacks in the $800 to $1,500 range and one Colt Mustang, nickel, unfired with the box for $1,000 (I almost bought it). I saw four (three blue and one nickel) 1903 Pocket Hammerless .32's, all in terrible shape priced at $450, $550, $600 and $650 respectively.

"Now is a very exciting time to be involved in gun collecting. Many modern and antique collectible handguns and long guns are coming on the market as the WWII generation are dying and a younger generation is inheriting pieces or whole collections. Often times the surviving spouse or other heirs don't have an interest in guns. The internet has opened up accessibility to individual pieces and collections unlike anything in history! Values are soaring on many out-of-production Colts. Winchester values have climbed since production ceased when they went out of business in 2006."

Colts and John Browning Patent Guns are my favorites:

My second hobby is publishing on the web, like this site! I hope to put a lot of useful information here about gun collecting. In the coming days and months I will be adding information like, serial number ranges and dates of manufacture for many popular guns. I enjoy seeing pictures along with information, so I will attempt to include quality pictures on every page. I'm not a great photographer, but I'm learning and getting better.

You won't find much here about gun values. Occasionally I may post what I paid for a gun, what one sold for or what I'm willing to pay for one. It is my opinion that the internet has had a direct impact on the value (pricing) of guns. In the case of old, used, antique or collectible guns, the internet favors the seller. In the case of new guns, the internet favors the buyer.

I am also of the opinion that every paper publication that I have bought and read in the last few years purporting to list gun values have been almost worthless when it comes to current real-world values. Forgive my rant, but I just returned from the bookstore today and the only true statement I found in a few of the supposed "gun value" publications was the disclaimer...loose interpretation...we may not know what we're talking about, the values may be something totally different than what we print here, don't rely on this book when buying or selling a gun, etc., you get the drift.

It really upsets me when I pick up two new (current) books on the shelf in the store and read conflicting statements of fact, especially when the statements are about a gun that is almost 100 years old. You would think that with 100 years to research the data they could get it right. I'm talking about production information, not values. I was researching my Ithaca Flues Single-Barrel Trap gun that I recently acquired.

Well, I do realize that anyone can make a mistake and I probably have some on this site. The one thing that I learned at the bookstore today was that I should probably put one of those CYA Disclaimer Statements on my site. If you are trying to establish the value of a firearm, monitor Auction Arms, Gun Broker and Guns America for recent sales of similar guns.

I am regularly adding information and pictures to this site in an effort to make it useful to gun collectors. Please bookmark the site and check back to see what new (old) exciting information you can find here. My main goal with this website is to share my love of collecting, researching and yes, even shooting old but modern collectible firearms. I truly hope that members of the younger generation gain interest and join in this pass-time/hobby.

Note Regarding Colt Serial Number Tables: In my limited experience, all of the Pythons, Detective Specials, 1903's and 1908's that I have ordered Colt Archive Authentication Letters on, have shipped the same year that the production table put them in. However, I bought a First Generation Single Action Army that the table showed late 1928 as the year of manufacture. When the Colt Letter arrived, it showed the gun as being shipped January 2, 1931.

My first thought was, "I can't imagine that this gun was manufactured and probably assembled, then sat on a shelf at the factory for two years". Then I realized that the time period in question was the "Great Depression".

After much consideration and several re-examinations of the serial number tables for the First Generation SSA's, I believe the tables for that particular model are flawed. According to the table, Colt produced as few as 100 guns per year (1935 and 1936). The serial numbers start at 357,000 in 1940, the year that they end. These guns went to serial number 375,000 and I do not believe that annual production went from 100 to 18,000.

Therefore I elected not to publish the serial number ranges on the First Generation SSA. Disclaimer time: I don't own any cowboy guns, I know very little about them and my limited observations may have caused me to draw incorrect conclusions.