The Most Expensive M1A1 in History

[Doug Quaid]

On 10/3/2022 at 11:23 PM, Gold1927a1 said:

I'm just going to come out and say it.

 

The romanticism of ww2 is complete and utter bs.

 

It is a religion for lemmings.

Sorry, what you wrote is nonsense.

WWII is the biggest, most colorful, most epic historic event in human history.  

People are utterly fascinated by WWII, and with good reason.  It would be truly strange if it wasn't romanticized.  The past is always romanticized. 

It has nothing to do with being "lemmings", it has to do with an incredibly colorful and dramatic historic event living on in people's imagination.

 

[Doug Quaid]

On 10/3/2022 at 9:52 AM, inertord said:

Thats a huge premium for a piece that was heavy pitted, dewated, rewated, refinished and owned by one of the thousands of soldiers at Pearl Harbor 🤔

Nice summary.

Don't worry, guys.   It will never sell for that price.

I have seen some really crappy guns sell for inflated prices because of stupid BS stories, but this one is beyond the pale.

If they had said that it was a "Marine bring-back" from Iwo Jima, and they priced it 25% high, they might have roped a sucker.  

But the "amazing story" for this gun is boring and lame, and the price is completely absurd.   

Gun collectors with $259,000 to spend do not buy guns from Gunbroker, they fly their private jet to an upscale auction house.   And they know the difference between a $20k gun and a $259,000 gun.

 

[Doug Quaid]

On 10/4/2022 at 12:02 PM, SlickG said:

Gunbroker is a joke, seriously. The larger sellers are crooks that open accounts with users that have NR rating (no rating) and shrill bid against other bidders to drive the price up. I think it was like last year that Colt Boa set Serial #6 was auctioned off... supposedly the earliest unfired set (hard to prove) bidding went like 4 hours over the stated ending time, sold for right under 100k... About 65k in, there were 2 bidders with good feedback bidding against each other then a NR started to bid and drove up the price to 100k. Kept bidding at the last minute to reset the clock.

 

I'm into German WW2 weapons, always looking for that diamond in the rough. k98 Mausers are a minefield, you really got to know your stuff or you'll get bamboozled. So many sellers are taking mismatched rifles, grinding the serials and restamping. To someone like me with moderate knowledge its so obvious. These inexperienced buyers buy the BS upsell talk that the sellers spew, a rifle that was worth more before it was faked goes for insane numbers... all its doing is driving up the market and pricing out young collectors like me... Like last year someone Chromed a K98, looked like Rustoleum and made up some BS claiming it was Hitler's personal SS Parade rifle. Guy listed it for 22k, 3 weeks later he dropped it to $7,500 and some sucker bought it.

 

A lot of sellers are unscrupulous and are destroying some collecting communities for personal financial gain, its almost like fraud.

 

Unfortunetly, we are kinda stuck with Gunbroker, not a lot of other options out there.

 

 

Not Gunbroker, but an Auction house that I've purchased some items from before.

 

Hitler’s watch fetches 1.1million

https://www.alexautographs.com/auction-lot/n-s-d-a-p-presentation-adolf-hitler-reversible-go_B434A5D9B8

 

Disccusion: https://www.k98kforum.com/threads/hitlers-watch-fetches-1-1million.52037/

 

Totally fake, I mean what a sucker to purchase that crap for 1.1 million? Must be nice to be so rich you just dont care, money is trivial.

 

Gunbroker is like anything else.   It has its good and bad points.

Military artifact collecting has always been a complete zoo, even back before the internet.

People were already faking stuff back in the 1960s, when collector prices were still cheap.   

Some items were faked so often that it actually devalued the original pieces, because it's practically impossible to tell the fakes from the real ones.

How about gun shows in the old days?   Some old rooster brings the same pile of guns to the same gun show for 10 years, twice as expensive as they should be, sits there reading the newspaper with a crabby look on his face.   Sometimes 90% of a gun show would be those kind of guys.

This is not 1955 anymore, with barrels of 1903s in the department store with $5 price tag on them.   If you want something good, you have to pay out the nose for it.

And if you want to use the internet to scour the whole USA for items, the flip side is that you have to outbid the whole USA of bidders.



 

 

[StrangeRanger]

Circa 1963 our local Junk Store (it's actual name) had the requisite barrels of SMLEs US Enfields, Springfields and Mausers but I distinctly remember them having a PIAT on the shelf.  At the time I had no idea what it was until I saw one in a WWII movie on (B&W small screen)TV.

[Doug Quaid]

prices of all collectables have gotten really high.   My grandfather had a TON of civil war stuff, and he was just a blue-collar guy with a large family who painted houses for a living.

but prices on all collectables have exploded in the last 20 years as Baby Boomers dumped their kids and mortgages.

Think about it - picture an accountant who is 62 years old.  And his wife works for  a pharmaceutical company.

The guy is making $185,000 a year as a vice president and his wife makes $110,000.   

His kids are done with college and he has no mortgage to pay.  

His retirement account is fat from 35 years of plunking money into it.

So he's got $17 grand a month of TAKE HOME pay and nothing to spend it on.

BUT HE ALWAYS WANTED A THOMPSON AND A 1969 BIG BLOCK MUSTANG.   So he takes his fat pile of income and drives the prices to the moon.

There are 100s of thousands of guys like that out there now.   Nothing but money to burn.  THERE ARE 22 MILLION MILLIONAIRES IN THE USA NOW.   

Also, YouTube has shown everyone that a.) machine guns are legal and b.) they are awesome.

Machine gun collecting used to be such a small market that nobody could get anyone to pay the $200 tax stamp.   Guys would break up MP18s and Lanchesters and throw them away because they were impossible to sell.

But now MGs are the pinnacle of serious gun collecting.  

And now we got The Great Caesar Brandon driving inflation to 8% as well.

It is what it is.   I remember reading forums full of guys complaining bitterly about paying $5,000 for a NIB M16A1.   

moral of the story - if you want something, get it now while the prices are astronomical instead of incredo-astronomical.


 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Doug Quaid

[Waffen Und Bier]

I've seen it with WWII militaria, especially German stuff, where authors will write books showcasing their huge collections in beautiful glossy photos. Unfortunately, their collections have so much reproduction junk in them. Those items hit the market and collectors snap them up and "they must be real because they were in so and so's book".

You also have those dealers with "I've been in the business over 30-40 years." They will sell you a nicely refinished and forced serial number matched gun as original and unissued with original WWII German (post war copies) accessories and pull the "who are you to question my expertness?" People like that make me glad I don't collect anymore. 

My dad and four uncles served during WWII. I have the greatest respect for them and what they did. Some enjoyed shooting until their last days. Some never wanted to see another gun.

Remembering WWII is not romanticizing it. 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Waffen Und Bier