Thinking of selling my Garand -- could use some advice
I have a Garand I've owned for about 18 years. I was an FFL dealer back when I bought it -- bought it from a walk-in at a gun show I was selling at. I haven't done much of anything with it in the ensuing years other than take it out and shoot it a few times. It is a good shooter -- quite accurate.
The gun was reimported. It has a very faint stamp on the barrel, not all of which I can make out. Looks sorta like ADI ORD ARLINGTON VA -- could be API or APL or ADL etc. Pretty sure the second letter grouping is "ORD."
Condition-wise, it's in excellent shape. If it were a CMP Garand, it would probably grade out as Correct or better. The metal looks to have almost all its original finish and has no corrosion or pitting. I haven't had the muzzle or throat gauged, but as I mentioned at the outset, this Garand is quite accurate, so I gotta believe that both of those areas are well within spec. Manufactured by Springfield, the S/N is 5.29 million.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...garand_1-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...garand_2-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...garand_3-1.jpg
The guy I bought it from had two buttstocks to go with it. Both are walnut. One has a very nice straight grain and the other has a very pronounced flame pattern, as you can see in the above photos. The fellow told me that he had worked in an armory where Garands were stored and had combed through over 20,000 stocks to find that one stock with the flame. As you can see from the photos, the flame is pretty nice. Here's a shot of the straight-grained stock, which is looking pretty nice itself after six coats of Tru Oil. You can see a few blemishes in the photo yet. I couldn't get them out without having to remove too much material, so I just let them be.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...ndstock1-1.jpg
One of the things that will probably affect value is this guy did a real number on both stocks. He sanded them down aggressively then finished them rather crudely. In sanding down the stocks, he removed all traces of stamps or cartouches, plus he left flat spots and sanding scratches behind before slathering on the finish. Fortunately he didn't mess with the two pieces of forestock wood other than refinish them. They're in excellent condition, but I'll be refinishing them as well anyway because the job he did wasn't good enough for my tastes.
So far I've stripped the finish from the straight-grained stock and resanded it, smoothing out the flat areas and recountouring others to get it back to looking right. Fortunately, Garand stocks are beefy enough where I could do this without affecting appearances or feel.
So that's the background. Now, for the advice part. My plan is to swap stocks from what you see. I plan to sell the Garand with the straight-grained stock and to sell the flame-grained stock separately. I think I'll be able to maximize my return this way. What do you think? Would you include the figured stock with the rifle and sell the straight-grained one separate, or do as I plan to do? Or would you do a package deal and include both stocks in the sale?
Also, given the CMP prices for "Correct" Garands, and given that mine is at least as clean as a Correct one, but given that mine has been reimported, is it realistic for me to try to get an equivalent amount for mine? I'm in no real hurry to sell, but I do want to get as much as I possibly can when the time comes.