1975 Refernce Catalog

[deadeyedog270]

My Step father made this neat find
love the prices
Marlin 336c Dealer $119.00 Sugg. $157.95
Ruger Security-Six Mod.117 Blued .357mag Dealer 109.06
sugg. 143.50

 

[Jim Watson]

Yes, but...
Ask him what he was getting paid that year.
The cost of a gun in man-hours was probably higher then than now.

 

[CWL]

If you use an inflation rate calculator, you will find that the prices are pretty-much the same, actually they are cheaper in 2011 dollars.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

 

[22-rimfire]

I enjoy looking through old catalogs and in particular Gun Digests for information like this. I pretty much have every Gun Digest between 1950 and 2000. Lots of books.

 

[CWL]

If anyone wants more reading fun, take a look at the online reprint of an 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalog. Here's the sporting goods section with firearms, ammo, gunsmithing & reloading tools. Colt SAA for $12.95, Winchester '73 for $10.95!

http://books.google.com/books?id=pavHOWOWKEEC&pg=PA524&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[JohnBT]

"Ask him what he was getting paid that year."

I finished grad school in '74 and got a professional counseling job in 12/74. My yearly salary was $9168.

I went out and bought a new Schwinn 10-speed and a new lower-end Datsun (before they were Nissan,for $2200) and was rolling in money. In the spring of '76 I took my girlfriend to Great Britain for 2 weeks to celebrate her college graduation. Heck, I bought her a Pentax SLR and all the Beatles albums too.

Money seemed to last longer back then. Of course, there weren't computers and cell phones to buy and cable bills to pay either.

 

[huntsman]

I enjoy looking through old catalogs and in particular Gun Digests for information like this. I pretty much have every Gun Digest between 1950 and 2000. Lots of books.

Me too; taking a trip back to the 60's is the perfect cure to taci-cool overload

 

[threefeathers]

I have a 1976 Gun Digest and I agree that we are actually paying less for many guns now when inflation is factored in.

 

[22-rimfire]

In part we may be paying less for guns today because wage levels have not kept up with inflation. Wages are THE key component of manufacturing costs.

This is why I believe I could buy much more with my salary in 1975 versus my salary in 2010. In essence, I have lost ground although on paper, I make considerably more. A 1800-2200 square foot house might run you $80-100K then. The same house today will run you double that (and more) in many locales.

 

[lizziedog1]

The same house today will run you double that (and more) in many locales.

Not in my locale!

 

[22-rimfire]

Actually I was being generous, 1975 you could buy an average 1800 sq foot house for 50-60K in Dallas TX. Nevada has a bit of a foreclosure problem at the moment as I understand it. Lets just say that I could have qualified for a loan easier then for a house like this than I can today in my area and I had only started working.

I really enjoy going though old Gun Digests from time to time. Lots of good articles and the gun list sections are a great way of seeing what was available then. They are much handier for me to dig out than from my gun catalog collection that is all bagged and cataloged.