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I can remember No1mk3's selling for $9.95 and No4's for $12.95. Colt New Service revolvers for $35. Webley .380 revolvers for around $15 with a belt and quick draw holster. O3 Springfields for $40 and M1 Garands for $125.
Of course if you want to go waaay back, Bannermans in New York was selling trapdoor rifles for $1.25 and you could buy a 12pd Napoleon for $300 and the limber for #250 (shipping extra)
I'll raise you a No1 MkVI for $19.95:p
I fold.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
A Spitfire used to cost 5,000 pounds (actually probably nearly twice that, 9,800, but 5,000 was the amount towns and villages were encouraged to raise to pay for a spitfire with their name on it), and they were famous beyond words even as they were being scrapped. Why someone didn't fill a warehouse with them instead of melting them for a few buck worth of frying pan metal I'll never know.
PS Anyone see the headline a week or two ago about a dozen Mk14 spitfires found in Burma in their crates? True story, we're going to see a lot of new flying spitfires in the next few years.
...and ps about the villages raising money for the planes? When the war was over because the village etc had paid for them, if they survived the war then technically the village owned them, so all of the named spitfires were offered back to the towns that paid for them ,as gate guardians, thats how come so many became pole sitters and eventually flyers. They're almost the most numerous warbird surviving because of this one fact, somewhere between 125-150 survive, and soon to jump another dozen.
Spitfires buried in Burma during war to be returned to UK - Telegraph
Sorry, OT I know, but Enfields and Spitfires go hand in hand.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...t_2177424b.jpg
I take a passing interest in Spitfires because I am the Curator of the museum in the building where they were all designed post-1940. My understanding is that a Spitfire actually, cost a good deal more than double that nominal £5000 that organisations raised to "buy" one. The RAF used to have umpteen of them as gate guards but they replaced them with "plastic fantastics" (as they are known this side of the pond) when they found out how much they were worth. As to flying spitfires: about 50 world-wide as I understand it but most of them have been extremely heavily restored.
I currently have small exhibition of Supermarine memorabilia on display but unfortunately the House is not open to the general public.
The Spitfires reputedly buried in Burma will turn out to be the same as the buried and crated Jeeps or 'huge' ammunition caches supposedly still buried in Savernake Forest here. A total urban mytt. You mark my words. In fact I'll put £20 on the fact, to any UKArmy charity you care to name
Seems depressing at first but I found an inflation calculator and found that $40.00 in 1960 equates to $316.00 today. I've recently purchased a very sound POF #4 MkII for $350.00 which suggests to me that things haven't gotten too crazy (ie. milsurps can be nearly as affordable as they were 50 years ago).
Ridolpho
If I had a dollar for every time I've been told about the $10 and $12 Lees in barrels at the hardware store in the 50's and 60's by gun show tire kickers and door slammers I'd be a very rich man. I think Ridolpho puts it into proper perspective. It was a lot of money back then for an old army surplus rifle!!
I bought and have The RFI No4T. I also have the No5 and RFI issue bayonet. I bought all that stuff. I was 13 when Rock and Roll was introduced..... Dug out a Kropatschek carbine today. Read a posting about 88 rifles and got me pumped. My two are SOP. Age has it's rewards. gary
In the late '50's we used to buy brand new No.1's for rifle clubs at 5 pounds (Aust.).