27 replies to this topic

[gijive]

QUOTE (Arthur Fliegenheimer @ Apr 21 2005, 09:11 PM)

The Ruben Mendiola ad seemed straight forward as well even though the description included  a Colt TSMG covered in cosmoline, but then subjected to a Don's Gun Shop ultrasonic cleaning. Hummm.

Arthur,

I had to chuckle at that one as well.

[dalbert]

gijive,

Thanks for your reply.

By the way, Buddy is not my brother. He moderates the board,and does a good job of keeping out the troublemakers. Sometimes his techniques can rub certain folks the wrong way, but most people see very good results from their free advertisements, and learn to conform with the standards that are set.

I hope you have yielded good results from your posts on Sturmgewehr, and continue to post on the board.

David

[AZDoug]

QUOTE (gijive @ Apr 21 2005, 03:07 PM)

QUOTE (snipershot1944 @ Apr 21 2005, 04:34 PM) Wow, great pieces.  Where are they offered for sale?  I didn't see the ad on either Sturm or subguns. Wish I could afford that VSP piece.  They are pretty nice, since they never left the Richmond HQ gunroom unless they were used for in-service school demonstrations or for coal miner strike duty. They are on Sturmgewehr.com. Arthur is correct, it seems that J. Curtis Earl owned many of the Virginia State Police guns years ago. If he owned them, I would be a little suspect about the 98% rating, too.

I have xerox copies of Earls bound book, from the VA state police purchase(s) era. Not the complete bound book, just a few years worth of data.

If it is important, I can alway look and see if the gun did pass thru his hands.

Doug

[TNKen]

I was involved with the purchase of a collection a couple of years ago and moving it. We asked tall prices on some of the pieces that were rather exotic. In particular, I recall an original HK pre-May MP-5K that we got big money for, considering that it was a pre-May sample, because it was an unusual and rare piece. Some other stuff too. If I would have known WH's were going to be bringing $12k, we would have hung onto ours for a little while.

If I had the spare change, I would be interested in the VSP piece, and would pay some premium for it. You never know who is out there with a fetish for that particular weapon.

In trading and negotiating, you can always come down, but it is difficult to go up. Price it to low, kill the deal, and move the price upward, and see what happens.

I have ended up with a post-war MG-42, imported by Colt, in .308. Wartime and reweld MG-42's are running mid-$30's these days. Considering there are only about 6 of these guns in the registry, I would probably price it at or near $100,000. Crazy, sure; do I really want to sell it, not right now; but if someone came along at that price, they can have it.

I personally thought the Thompson prices were a little high, but I was not "shocked" by any means. Prices like this will level with a willing buyer and willing seller at some point. That sets the benchmark and value for the rest of us.

Ken

[skoda]

GIJive, Arthur,

What's up with J. Curtis Earl guns?

"Arthur is correct, it seems that J. Curtis Earl owned many of the Virginia State Police guns years ago. If he owned them, I would be a little suspect about the 98% rating, too. "

Was he a refinishers? I bought my 1928 AO from him about a year before he died. His prices were a bit high at the time but I couldn't replace mine now for the money I paid him for it.

[gijive]

QUOTE (skoda @ Apr 22 2005, 04:30 PM)

What's up with J. Curtis Earl guns?

The late J. Curtis Earl had many fine guns in his collection and sold many during the 1970's and 1980's. He had a knack for marketing, however, and even had some phony compensators made up claiming they were the "1st type" compensators and very scarce. Because of the popularity of post-WWII Thompsons in movies and TV shown with compensators, he dreamed up this new type in an effort to make some of his 1921A Models more attractive. Of course, there was no such thing as the compensator he showed in his early catalogues.

In other words, he was more of a salesman than a historian and rumor has it that many of his guns were swapped out with different parts and such. I remember speaking with him before he died and was interested in obtaining an early Colt style front sight for a second model compensator I had. In case you are not aware, they are not the same as the WWII variety in that the radius on the front of the sight blade is different. He claimed he had one availalble and charged me about five times what I paid for a military type front sight blade from Sarco. What he sent me was exactly that, a WWII production front sight blade. When I called him on it, he argued with me over the phone that there was no difference between the Colt and WWII sights and insisted he sent a sight from a Colt gun. He had enough guns over the years to know the difference. From then on any thing I heard about him and his guns I considered suspect.

Arthur may have some more anecdotes, but suffice it to say I didn't consider him very forthright for the prices he charged.

[snipershot1944]

Word on the Sturm board is that somebody stepped up and bought all three. That would be something like $110k for the load.

Quite a day's work for some lucky soul.

Sniper

[gijive]

QUOTE (dalbert @ Apr 21 2005, 10:00 PM)

By the way, Buddy is not my brother.  He moderates the board,and does a good job of keeping out the troublemakers.

Hi Dave,

Sorry about that, not sure where I got that impression. Thanks for the clarification and informative response.