I went to a gun show and didn't see a single Garand offered by a vendor.

[boltaction]

I admit it, I hoard.........

Here in Canada, there seems to be less good stuff around at the shows, but there is a very brisk internet market. Prices have certainly climbed--I still can't believe a "Russian Capture" mismatched refinished kar98k is going for $600+.... I think it's going through a cycle right now where the milsurps are in collections for another few years until the current owners die or whatever, then there'll be a little bump of them on the market again. But, there's always attrition. Every year, some of these fine old guns are lost to fires, floods in basements, theft, and just plain old ignorance. Bubba is still active, and family members who don't like guns call the police to pick up and destroy old guns when owners pass away, instead of calling the local gunshop to come and sell them to someone else. The ironic thing about Bubba is that Bubba was really active years ago when nice original milsurp Lee Enfields and Mausers were pretty cheap, and now even the crappy mismatched stuff is so expensive I don't think Bubba will buy it for a deer rifle.

I suspect we may see the same thing with the SKS's, though. Right now they're cheap and plentiful, seemingly limitless, so guys buy them, put synthetic stocks on them, refinish them, mount scopes on them, lose the accessories, etc. I bet that in 10-15 years, we're going to be looking with nostalgia at ads from today when you could get a completely kitted out original (as refurd'd) SKS for $250, and they'll be pushing $500 at shows in unmessed with condition......... I wish I could go back to 1985 when one could pick from racks and racks of Swedish Mausers and AG42B's for $60 each and whisper in my own ear "buy 60 of them with bayonets and cleaning kits and put them away until 2012; forget the RRSP".

Ed

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