1950's...."The golden days for gun-owners"...

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Before you get too nostalgic for the 1950s prices, $30 in 1957 adjusted for inflation would have the buying power of $234 today. Still, a surplus 1911 for $234 today would still be a good buy.

I remember the 1950s in Tennessee as open acceptance of sporting use rifles and shotguns, sold at Sears, JC Pennys, Montgomery Ward, Western Auto sporting goods section. I remember going to the country with my dad to shoot. A kid with a gun was not unusual or treated with alarm.

Pistols in Tennessee were more restricted than today and until 1996 there was no public carry for defense in TN, unless you counted the "special deputy badge" that may or may not have been issued at the discretion of the county sheriff. Purchases had to be signed off by your chief of police or county sheriff. Just across the border, Virginia had open carry.

The 1960s saw the gun issue approached in the model that Fredrick Wertham used to blame juvenile delinquency on comic books in his 1954 book "Seduction of the Innocents" featured in his testimony before the Juvenile Deliquency Committee. The demonization of guns and gun owners was the next step: I remember the 1959s Carl Bakal article "This Very Day a Gun May Kill You". I also noticed that Sen. Thomas Dodd's 1960s crusade against guns, also started in the Juvenile Delinquency Committe, followed the anti-comic book crusade model. Human evil is caused by a thing that can be banned or as I call it voodoo criminology.

The 1950s was an age of innocence for guns and gun owners, but the close of the decade was also the start of an era of demonisation of guns and gun owners. The media were on the Bakal/Dodd bandwagon from day one and ride it today.
 
I wouldn't say that I'm exactly nostalgic about the 1950s, but there was undoubtedly less social stigma about being a gun owner during that period. However then, as now, there were some people who didn't like guns and just didn't want them in their house! (For example, my English-born great-grandmother.) I do know that, in the case of my area, pistol permits or CCW's didn't seem to be as easy to obtain. At least according to my dad. On his application, he had to elaborate in a little more detail why he needed to carry a revolver in his car because apparently "personal protection" wasn't enough!
 
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I was born in 1950 and grew up shooting rifles and shotguns. Ammo was expensive well into the '70s. Good guns weren't cheap given the low wages.

John
 
We can ALL agree it was the Golden Age for PRICES (the dollar went further back in the day regardless of the so called 'adjusted for inflation' baloney).

-Cheers
 
We can ALL agree it was the Golden Age for PRICES (the dollar went further back in the day regardless of the so called 'adjusted for inflation' baloney).
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I agree completely. We had a store that sold Mausers & enfields for $10 to $15 bucks.

I remember buying gas for $ .16 cents a gallon, an as a kid had my .22 in the back seat at school so as to stop and hunt squirrels before going to work.

I even have an old electric bill from my folks for $4.00 for the month, this was early 50's. Yes we had television and electric appliances, I still live in the same house and still using one of the same chest freezers 60 years later. However we do now have central air.

The 50's were the Golden Age as far as money earned and cost of products. IMO

Only big thing is we have MUCH better health care,
 
No need to adjust for inflation. What really matters is how many hours' or days' work it takes to earn the purchase price.

That $30 surplus M1911 A1 would have cost most guys 3 to 4 days' industrial wage (before deductions) in the 50s.

How much is the 'same' gun today...and how many days does it take us to earn the 'higher' purchase price?

About the same.
 
I can remember order forms in the Scout magazine for left over 1911 from WWll.It was delivered to your door. Everybody had a gun and this was in NYC.
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Everybody in NYC still does. Probably the most armed state in this country.
 
No need to adjust for inflation. What really matters is how many hours' or days' work it takes to earn the purchase price.

That $30 surplus M1911 A1 would have cost most guys 3 to 4 days' industrial wage (before deductions) in the 50s.

How much is the 'same' gun today...and how many days does it take us to earn the 'higher' purchase price?

About the same.
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My Dad had an 8th grade education and worked in a factory, take home was $125 to $150 a 40 hour week, overtime of course paid time and half. He owned 3 rental properties, ran his own sharpening business on the side, and was Sextant of our church.

That $30 dollar rifle was just a days work.
 
I was born in 1960
My first rifle bought with my own money but by my Dad was a Ruger 10/22 purchased in 1976 for the princely sum of $54.95 brand new, complete with walnut stock and genuine metal barrel band.
My first handgun, purchased the same way was in 1977 and was a Harrington Richardson 929, .22 revolver, price, $79.00
Used this gun to run a couple traplines because the 10/22 got to be too much of a burden to carry.
To this day I still don't know if it was completely legal to use a handgun on a trapline here but nobody, not even the game wardens who checked me, ever said anything about it.
I bought an Iver Johnson .30 caliber Carbine that same year to hunt coyote, that gun was expensive at $135.00 but I earned enough to replace it a few months later in the winter of '77 with a brand new Ruger Mini 14 @ $200.00 just from the pelt prices I collected.

I earned way less money per hour worked back then but the dollar went a helluva lot further in those troubled times too.
Law Enforcement seemed far less likely to hassle a guy trying to make a living or at least earn some wages back then too.

I haven't seen anything improve since then.
The health care was pretty damn good back then too, they didn't load you up on wonder drugs that should you stop taking would pretty well guarantee you a heart attack or worse and they didn't fuss keeping cancer patients and the dying breathing until there just wasn't any point back then either. Sent them home, let them be with their families until they died.
Now they keep you breathing and drugged up as long as possible to collect as much insurance money as possible and everybody wonders why health care costs are so high.
 
I haven't seen anything improve since then.
The health care was pretty damn good back then too, they didn't load you up on wonder drugs that should you stop taking would pretty well guarantee you a heart attack or worse and they didn't fuss keeping cancer patients and the dying breathing until there just wasn't any point back then either. Sent them home, let them be with their families until they died.
Now they keep you breathing and drugged up as long as possible to collect as much insurance money as possible and everybody wonders why health care costs are so high.
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I still contend our health care today is way ahead of what we had in the 50's.
Eleven years ago I was diagnosed with Leukemia, it went into remission with chemo therapy in the first year. My Dr. informed me I had approx 30% survival rate, that was 11 years ago and I'm living a fairly normal life thanks to the Good Lord and our health care.

The statement about keeping one breathing & drugged up as long as possible, well I'm sure glad they did,I'm living proof.

May haps they should have sent me home to die with my family.

Onmilo, I would have replied to you with a PM thereby keeping this more on topic, but I see you refuse P/M or E-Mails.

Correction made, grossly sorry for the spelling error.
 
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It is Onmilo as in Milo Online, not Onmile.
I am glad you made it through.
It does not change my opinion.
 
Several things I remember. Started high school in 1958. First good paying job (grocery store) in 1960. I'd cash my check and order from "Ye Old Hunter" or "Centennial" or one or two other places one gun per week. Rolling Blocks for 9.99, Springfield 03s for 19.99, and I could ride my bike across town to the dump with a .22 across the handlebars to shoot rats without any hassle.
Remington Rockets were the first hypervelocity rimfires and came in a flat pack.
Mid sixties and the muzzle loading boom. Original Colt muskets for $100.
Never an issue in finding a place to shoot or hunt. No outfitters.
And.....we'd never think of using a gun or knife to settle an argument. If you couldn't do it with your fists you lost.
Every boy had a jackknife or boy scout knife in his pocket. Never used to hurt someone.
You ate what you killed. Or you didn't kill it. At least in my group.
All that said, we worked for a buck an hour, drove cars that needed tuneups often, on tires that wore out fast, and seventy was really fast. Gas was .30/gallon and my 53 Chevy might have gotten 18 mpg on the road.
We shot handguns one handed and never got really good but could hit tin cans and the steel ones would really hop.
I was able to work my way through college with minimal help from the folks. Got married as a sophomore and my wife's scholarship paid both our tuitions and books each semester. (She got $500/year). Budweiser was $1.05 for a sixpack of "glass" cans.
A fun night was friends, pinochle, that sixpack and some popcorn.
Drugs didn't make the scene in our area until I was out and teaching. Never bothered with 'em.
Don't know what went wrong but we're pretty happy today. Kids grown, educated, good jobs, great grandkids and a government building up a mountain of debt for them to pay off.
A few years ago the national debt was about $1500/person. I'd have been glad to pay off my share. Couldn't begin to offer to do that today.
Sometimes I think I'd better seal some of the guns in PVC and bury them for the kids down the line.
 
It does not change my opinion.
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Then it is just an opinion.

Fact: our life span has increased since the 50's as has our quality of life for the older generation, you may not wish to believe it but it is a fact.

This should be very evident with the Congresswoman who is still living, or all our service menbers "God Bless them" being saved.

Ya Our health care sucks, give us a break.

Back on topic, I just dug out some of my old American Rifleman mags.
New Browning Grade I .22 auto rifle-------------------Less than $75.00 MSRP
Fitted Leather case for above------------------------Less than $24.00 MSRP
Bausch & Lomb spotting scope new-----------------------------$10.00
U.S. .30 Carbine "Unused Condition"-----------------------------$89.95
New Savage Model 63------------------------------------------$21.95 MSRP

Yup it was the golden age.
 
Things have markedly improved in the last 20 years in tems of firearms and accessories. Pricing has little to do with the Golden Age as incomes have risen significantly since the 1950's both in buying power and available things to help increase you enjoyment of the shooting hobby.

In my opinion, hunting has gone down hill and has been increasingly become a money game since the 1970's in many states. That troubles me as whitetail deer populations are increasing nationwide with fewer hunters to enjoy the sport... often due to cost or availablity of a place to hunt that doesn't require you to camp or spend nights in a lodge or motel due to distance.

The Golden Age of Revolvers was probably in the 1950-1970's and mirrors Colt's position in the market place. Smith & Wesson made what many feel are better guns then.

The Golden Age of Semi-Auto handguns is probably now since there have never been so many choices available to the shooter hobbist.

The Golden Age of Ammuniton availablity is probably NOW if you ignore the bumps in the road caused primarily by politic concerns.

Sure, it was a golden age for gun owners. As long as you were white and local LE liked you.
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There is truth in this statement and clearly things are better now for everyone in terms of availability.
 
If you base the whole concept of "Golden Age" in the one factor of concealed carry, ah come on now, lets be realistic, theres alot more to it than that.

Lets not be so narrow minded.
 
I started 1st grade the fall of 1972. Sears , Wards, and Western Auto were still selling guns but you had to go to the store to fill out the paper work and pick it up. My rural County Store sold Stevens and Savage arms and had a full ammo selection in the corner of the store behind the counter. I rode all over the country roads on a bike with a single shot 410 or Dad's Western Auto 120 aka Marlin 60 22.
I took a gun to school in my truck every day of HS and took several teachers hunting on the farm. I remember buying 22 ammo or 410 as an elementary school boy with money I made from collecting, washing and returning empty soda bottles.
While CCW is more availible today; I always felt safe growing up and felt no need to have carried then but I do today.

The 70's and 80's wear good to me but I do remember longing for mail order guns.
Dad said the 50's were great.
 
Joe Demko

Sure, it was a golden age for gun owners. As long as you were white and local LE liked you.
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LOL. Just goes to show that one person's "Golden Age" is another persons "Dark Age". Well said.
 
My dad kept budget books throughout the fifties, I have some of them. He documented every dime that came in and every one that went out. In 1952 he was bringing home about $60 a week. By 1955 he was bringing home around $100, unless he got a bunch of overtime, then it could be as high as $125.

He was an engineer in the open hearth at the largest steel mill west of the Mississippi, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.

He bought a brand new JC Higgins shotgun at Sears (I believe in 1951), because they were $50 as opposed to $75 for a Winchester or Remington.
 
I know its not from the 50's but its close.

American Rifleman, May 1963, page 36, U.S. M1 carbine from the DCM, $20.00 shipping and handling encluded.

and again same issue, page 86, Mauser '93 7 mm, $9.50 no guarntee.

Then also inside the back cover, whole page add for Hunters Lodge, Alexandria, Va, no less. German Lugars starting at $39.95, British Enfields $14.95 ect. I think you get the idea.
 
"...money earned and cost of products..." About the same, for sure. Pay scales were much lower. U.S. Federal minimum wage in 1955, in today's dollars, was 75 cents per hour. No such thing as a 40 hour work week for anybody, then either. Most factory workies worked 5.5 or 6 days per week. A typical hunting rifle still cost more than a week's pay.
"...$30 just a days work..." Very big money then. You can bet your da worked a lot more than 40 hours a week too.
Most firearm laws were enacted due to Prohibition and the criminals running around in the late 20's and early 30's. The 'civil unrest' and assassinations of the 60's just caused more laws.
 
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