I just had to get this off my chest as many folks really enjoy buying new guns under the belief they are getting something better than older guns. I see comments all the time asking about new guns with no consideration to any alternative option. The facts have to be taken into account:
New guns have gigantic and expensive advertising budgets.
They have tremendous liability insurance.
Manufacturing wages adjusted for inflation have never been higher.
There is an 11% excise tax on them in the USA.
There is a complex distribution model with at least two middle-men in between manufacturer and buyer.
Vintage guns of high quality were usually vertically marketed. The maker was the distributor and the retailer. They passed on this savings to the customer in part and kept some in part.
The skill of the labor was of the utmost, particularly between 1918 and 1965 when demand was soft, skills were plentiful, and only the very best tradesmen kept their jobs year over year.
The sum of their parts is usually worth 3x-5x their present value assembled, whereas modern guns are worth less parted out.
The raw materials are significantly more expensive. Most vintage guns have stocks that would cost $3000-$5000 to reproduce today, yet the entire gun may cost half that value.
Vintage guns were typically well maintained and highly tuned. Issues of having them broken in are uncommon.
Whereas new guns are really "worth" a number less than their wholesale to distribution price used, leading to horrible deflation of value upon acquisition, vintage guns at minimum hold their values and often appreciate.
There is a demand for vintage guns due to scarcity, whereas with modern guns there is no scarcity.
Vintage guns were made based upon the demands of real world use where form met function for a particular purpose. Modern guns are made based upon market demand that may have no particular use or maybe "focus grouped" instead of reliance upon experts to build the correct product and then create their market.
I just had to get that off my chest as I continue to see questions on which new $1500 to $10,000 gun one should buy on this forum. A year later those guns are $500 to $5500 languishing for sale fired a couple times on the gun sale boards with few customers interested in them. It seems like there would be a better way: buy the very best used for the price of mediocre new at an equal pricepoint. Several friends of mine come by for a beer lamenting their disappointment in new purchases and how they cannot get their money out of the purchase, the bolt doesn't work right, it won't regulate, and a host of other issues related to buying a new low quality product that had 70% overhead into things other than manufacture...of course the gun you paid $1000 for that has $280 in manufacturing cost is a lame duck...and no one wants to pay you $280 for a defective gun, and they won't reimburse you for the distribution, retail, excise tax and marketing costs that made up the other $720 on the initial purchase cost.
Consider vintage guns.
New guns have gigantic and expensive advertising budgets.
They have tremendous liability insurance.
Manufacturing wages adjusted for inflation have never been higher.
There is an 11% excise tax on them in the USA.
There is a complex distribution model with at least two middle-men in between manufacturer and buyer.
Vintage guns of high quality were usually vertically marketed. The maker was the distributor and the retailer. They passed on this savings to the customer in part and kept some in part.
The skill of the labor was of the utmost, particularly between 1918 and 1965 when demand was soft, skills were plentiful, and only the very best tradesmen kept their jobs year over year.
The sum of their parts is usually worth 3x-5x their present value assembled, whereas modern guns are worth less parted out.
The raw materials are significantly more expensive. Most vintage guns have stocks that would cost $3000-$5000 to reproduce today, yet the entire gun may cost half that value.
Vintage guns were typically well maintained and highly tuned. Issues of having them broken in are uncommon.
Whereas new guns are really "worth" a number less than their wholesale to distribution price used, leading to horrible deflation of value upon acquisition, vintage guns at minimum hold their values and often appreciate.
There is a demand for vintage guns due to scarcity, whereas with modern guns there is no scarcity.
Vintage guns were made based upon the demands of real world use where form met function for a particular purpose. Modern guns are made based upon market demand that may have no particular use or maybe "focus grouped" instead of reliance upon experts to build the correct product and then create their market.
I just had to get that off my chest as I continue to see questions on which new $1500 to $10,000 gun one should buy on this forum. A year later those guns are $500 to $5500 languishing for sale fired a couple times on the gun sale boards with few customers interested in them. It seems like there would be a better way: buy the very best used for the price of mediocre new at an equal pricepoint. Several friends of mine come by for a beer lamenting their disappointment in new purchases and how they cannot get their money out of the purchase, the bolt doesn't work right, it won't regulate, and a host of other issues related to buying a new low quality product that had 70% overhead into things other than manufacture...of course the gun you paid $1000 for that has $280 in manufacturing cost is a lame duck...and no one wants to pay you $280 for a defective gun, and they won't reimburse you for the distribution, retail, excise tax and marketing costs that made up the other $720 on the initial purchase cost.
Consider vintage guns.
