Yesterday's gun and ammo prices in today's dollars

Pardon me if others don't find this as interesting as I do, but I enjoy running the prices for shooting stuff from the past through the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis inflation calculator to see if things were really as cheap back then as we thought. Here are my latest gleanings taken from three ads:

Potomac Arms 1962:
Dewat set of a ground version of the Lewis MG
and a U.S. M3 submachine gun, today's dollars:$542.38

Sporterized (bubba'd) Spanish M93 mauser today's dollars $91.32

Webley Green .455 revolver today's dollars $144.27

Western Military Arms 1964:

Mauser 98K today's dollars $189.82

WW2 German P08 9mm today's dollars $281.45

.30-06 ball non corrosive per 20 today's dollars: $31.70
7.62MM NATO ball per 20 today's dollars: $52.84
7.62x54R per 20 today's dollars: $42.27
.30 carbine per 50 today's dollars: $42.27
.45 non corrosive per 50 today's dollars: $38.75
9mm per 50 today's dollars: $28.18


And the best for last:

1966 A.E. Bechter

Swiss Solothurn 20mm AT gun with wheeled carriage and illuminated telescopic sight all in VG condition, regularly $1,988.52 (today's dollars) but 1/3 off close out price!

Looks like ammo has continued to trend the same cost wise (the 90s were an exception due to the sudden dumping of entire cold war stores) but firearms were indeed less expense than today.

I'm glad I stocked up on surplus ammo when it was cheap. I have fifteen rounds of German 7.92 x 57 purchased in the late 60s for 75 cents. That would be the equivalent of $4.57 today which isn't unreasonable at current prices but a lot more than the 5 to 10 cents a round I purchased equivalent ammo for four or five years ago. Thanks for your post, smle-man. Carl

No wonder some of those "bargains" back then were out of reach to a college kid.

Although I have fond memories of asking an acquaintance going to a gun show to look for a nice GI .45 for me. I sent him with $45 and he came back with a minty Remington Rand--and $10 change. I was happy with the deal then--and still am.

I bought a colt LW commander used in 1980 for $200. It was a "pre 1968" model according to the guy that I gave it to on a tradein at a gun store.
I traded it in as I didn't know you had to replace the recoil spring on a 45 and it was my first gun. Needless to say, I was shooting 230 FMJ loaded with 7.3 grains of unique which was the "hottest load" back in the day. I used to love to see the fireball at the end of the barrel and feel the recoil.
Funny, now that I'm an old man I'm shooting semi wadcutters of 200 grains and only 5.3 grains of W231.
BTW... the then new Colt govt model series 70mark IV was my old gun ($200) plus $150. I was happy to walk out the door with a New govt model for the total of $350 in my mind.
The gun shop guy was happy to get it because it was "pre 1968" and he made a big deal about that. It had a buckled frame and stovepiped about every other round and I told him so. He was still seemingly overjoyed.

btw.... about 1994 I bought a case (1000 rounds) of 7.62 CAVIM ammo for $140.
the stuff I had burned clean and shot less then 1 MOA. Wish I would have bought 100 cases of the stuff.

In the mid 80's I bought 5000 rounds of 8mm @ $80 per 1000 and that included shipping and bought 2000 rounds of WWII surplus .30-06 in bandoleers and stripper clips for $200 per 1000. Wish I'd bought twice that much.

Just one observation. Thare ain't no such thing as a Webley Green.
W.G. is an abbreviation for Webley Government.

Oh by the way, my Lewis cost $35 in the transit case from Ye Olde Hunter.
But that was around 1959 plus $200 to activate. Current price (working) $10,500 to $11,000

[QUOTE=John Sukey;39782]Just one observation. Thare ain't no such thing as a Webley Green.


http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=126948501

Yeah, the seller got that wrong. The original error was in an early book on the Webley by W. Chipcase Dowell, reprinted in 1987 in a limited edition.
Green had a seperate shop with no connection to Webley. Unfortunately later researchers didn't catch the error and passed it on.
The later book, Webley Revolvers, by Gordon Bruce and Christian Reinhart printed in 1988 corrected the error, but it seems to have a charmed life.

Oh by the way I have one of those revolvers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Sukey

Yeah, the seller got that wrong. The original error was in an early book on the Webley by W. Chipcase Dowell, reprinted in 1987 in a limited edition.
Green had a seperate shop with no connection to Webley. Unfortunately later researchers didn't catch the error and passed it on.
The later book, Webley Revolvers, by Gordon Bruce and Christian Reinhart printed in 1988 corrected the error, but it seems to have a charmed life.

Oh by the way I have one of those revolvers.

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Thanks John. I always wanted a MK1 with the birdshead grip.

I have a Mk1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and several 6's
and other Webleys
NOW oddly enough the Mk1 and Mk2 are antiques, but the later ones are not.
Our wonderful gubmint thinks the later models are "unsafe" and sez we can't import them cause they don't have a "safety mechanism" Guess the Brits were using unsafe guns through WW2.
Now the test is to drop a cocked revolver ten feet onto a concrete floor. How many Colt single actions could pass that test???? But then the Colts are not them "UNSAFE furrin" guns.

Prices of days gone by .... Yeah, know that feeling. In the early sixties 1911's were a dollar a caliber... Had a 35 dollar luger around that time too. Picked up a nice Dakota 22 revolver for 35 .. and carbines were 50 dollars on up. But then gas was the same price as a pack of cigarettes ... 18 cents. Had my eye on a nice 1928 Thompson for 1,700 just before the gun ban kicked in .. noticed now they shot up to ten times as much. Before the amnesty I know someone that picked up a nice 28' Thompson in LA and registered when he was abe to. Paid 200 in LA .. I think the price has gone up on most everything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smle-man

.30-06 ball non corrosive per 20 today's dollars: $31.70

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Wow! I'm glad ammo is relatively cheaper these days.

A couple of years ago, I did some research comparing prices for the 1880-1910 era (when prices in gold dollars were relatively stable) with current dollars. My conclusions (not always in agreement with an official figure) was a 1 to 40 ratio in dollars. An English pound, equivalent to $4.80 in that era, was equivalent to about $200 today. In places where the currencies were in use together, as on transatlantic liners, one pound was equal to five dollars, and the gold sovereign (one pound coin) was close to the same size as the five dollar gold piece.*

So a Colt SAA that sold for $16 in 1890 would sell for $640 today, reason enough why every man west of the Mississippi didn't carry one on his hip, Hollywood notwithstanding. Even those $2-$4 Suicide Specials cost $80-160 in todays dollars.

As for wages, a common laborer got the equivalent of $40 a day, a cowboy $20, a private soldier $20, a skilled workman $80, a skilled and experienced factory worker $120-160. In 1914, Ford made history by paying his workers $5 per day ($200 equivalent).

*English writers of historical fiction especially seem ignorant of money in their chosen eras. In recent "historical" novels, one writer had his character "toss a sovereign" to a shoe shine boy, another had "a wallet stuffed with twenty pound notes", and a third paid ten pounds for a restaurant meal. Some restaurant!

Jim

Jim: I can testify to the differences in the dollar versus the pound even as late as 1968. PhD chemist, Post-doc in UK, 1100 Pounds pa. Same post-doc in USA in 1968 (a few months later) $8,500 pa. Boy, did I think that I had struck gold!! Bear in mind this was pre-UK inflation. Dave_n

I was a Telephone lineman in 1964 and was paid $55 a week. In the Army as an E4, I got $55 a month combat pay $14? overseas pay and with pay it was $167 a month. When I was a kid in the 60s I worked for $1 an hour and was making huge money as a cement laborer at $3.47 an hour in 1963 which was more than a journeyman carpenter at the time (better union). We used to buy .22 shorts for 52 cents a box and 22LR for 72 cents a box. Gas was about 25 cents a gallon, white pump standard premium was 57 cents a gallon. A pair of Levis was about $4 and most important, a six pack of Oly half quarts was $1.75. You could go to your local bar and drink all night for $10, get into your car and drive home. Things were very different then.

During the war, my father was an experimental mechanic at Lockheed, working in what would later be "The Skunk Works", he made about $3500 a year in 1943.
He built parts for the Lightning and spent most of the war on the Neptune long range patrol bomber, they called it "The Blue Ox" while developing it.

In a 1903 catalog, 9mm Luger ammo (presumably imported) sold for $2.50 per 100. At a 40::1 conversion to today's dollars, that is $100. I have seen similar high prices for ammo in other old catalogs, but can't lay my hands on them right now. IIRC, prices equivalent to $40-60 a box of 50 were common for center fire revolver cartridges.

Hi, DaveHH,

I was giving the modern equivalents. The actual pay for a a cowboy or a soldier was $.50 a day, but they got "room and board"*. A laborer got $1 a day, a skilled worker $2. My grandfather and great uncle were stonemasons; in 1900, a master mason got $2.50 a day, a journeyman $1.50-2.00.

An odd variation from our common belief is that few cowboys carried guns; an SAA cost over a month's pay and many ranches banned handguns. Rifles and shotguns were "issued" as needed.

*The term "board" has come to mean renting a room, but at the time it meant the room and two meals a day - the "board" was the dining room table. Of course, cowboys and soldiers often didn't really have a "room", being in a barracks or bunkhouse, a tent, or just a bedroll.

Jim

I wonder when recreational shooting on a regular basis became acheivable for the common man? I dare say that firearms and ammunition are much more affordable for us these days which is why we have multiple quantities of firearms today. In decades past someone would have one, two, or three firearms. Now it is not unusual for even a casual shooter to have half a dozen and a collector approaching 100. At what point does the firearm market become completely saturated?