monotonous_iterancy
Member
- Joined
- May 27, 2012
- Messages
- 915
The SKS is a great rifle. I know that some of them, like Yugoslavians, aren't chrome-lined. I don't know if any others aren't, but does lack of chrome lining affect anything?
for an awful lot of folks who spent the last 10 years or so regretting having butchered a pretty nice rifle.
Well, that is rather the point of the thread. Not so much any more. Neither so plentiful nor so inexpensive....and inexpensive/plentiful enough to modify/bubba etc without feeling guilty.
Dang this was a 60 dollar gun 20yrs ago.
If a modern company -- say, oh I don't know...how about Ruger? -- wanted to make a semi-auto carbine with a wooden stock that fires common service rifle ammunition and has a business-like, utilitarian mien, how much would that cost? Well, an SKS is not a significantly less "quality" rifle than a Mini-14. Maybe a hair less on the smoothness of finish. Maybe a hair more on the accuracy. So I'd say $600-$800 in today's market?
hey guys, I have a buddy who owns 3 SKS, with cosmoline still on 'em. He's been offered $600/each but he is getting the $600 in trade credit toward something else in the traders shop. I've tried to explain to him that he should let "normal people" (and I often use that term loosely...lol) have a chance at them, so that people who do NOT want to deal with an FFL, can obtain something without the paperwork. I'll have pics soon, but I think he will take $500/each. Shoot me the # you might think about and I'll run it by him.
With respect to 20 years ago...
Is it still a $1.35 gallon of gas, and we're all fools?
Is it still a $3.35 burger combo, and we're all fools?
How much ground chuck can you buy for $4 today, compared to 1993?
Yup. Just like that 1903 Springfield. Or that Parker SxS 12ga. Or that 1956 Corvette. Or that 1790 house on the village square.Was the SKS produced decades ago, fixing the cost......sure was.
Fools willing to pay for them? Yeah, and Mini-14s, and AKs, and ARs and everything else which is of similar capability on the market today. Are you really suggesting that people should ONLY pay the original purchase price (uh, apparently the price paid by a foreign government who produced them via whatever esoteric and non-free-market procurement system?) for an item, EVER?Is the cost of an SKS inflated because fools are willing to pay more for them...yep
Ok, now that's just silly. Not even wishful thinking, just nonsense.Will we ever see cheap SKS's again....yep, if the fools stop buying them
Far from setting a fixed price, cessation of production sets (pretty firmly) a ratcheting lower limit on what the cost can be. Moreover, it guarantees a gradual upward pressure on the price due to the natural decay of that supply. The original slave-labor cost losses incurred by the USSR allowed us to procure them initially for an exceptionally low price in their time of desperation --it does nothing to keep that price from bidding right back up where it belongs at a future date when the sellers are no longer desperateWas the SKS produced decades ago, fixing the cost......sure was
Yup. Just like that 1903 Springfield. Or that Parker SxS 12ga. Or that 1956 Corvette. Or that 1790 house on the village square.
People are so stupid. They'd pay more today for those things than they were worth 65, 100, or 200+ years ago! If the fools stopped paying for them, the price would fall back to what it was way back then!
(Of course, when the price falls below similar items in the market because demand is deflated, those items -- however much utility and absolute value they might have -- become valueless and unwanted and so are simply discarded as trash. A worthwhile fate for that Corvette or house or rifle, right? Since so few people want one that the price has fallen below the market?)
If the fools stopped paying for them, the price would fall back to what it was way back then!
Is it? Go ahead. Make one. Today in 2013. You can't POSSIBLY judge the costs to make something based on the lowest price you can remember paying for that item as surplus 20 years ago.The fact is the SKS likely cost $30 or less to produce. Adjust it for inflation, factor in supply and demand (which is truthfully just fools paying too much for an item in its simplest form) if you must, but the SKS is still selling for more than it is worth.
Well good. At least you accept my point. Your original statement is analogous to saying that those houses are "worth" only whatever it originally cost to build them, regardless of market forces, inflation, or any possible other factor. And that's obviously invalid.Ever hear of Detroit, MI? $100K homes selling for $50. Is it a $50 home now? Hell, the salvage value is more than $50.
Supply and demand control EVERY transaction for goods that we make. Heck, they control EVERY transaction of every kind we make -- right down to questions of love and other less hard-econ. phenomena.
Well good. At least you accept my point. Your original statement is analogous to saying that those houses are "worth" only whatever it originally cost to build them, regardless of market forces, inflation, or any possible other factor. And that's obviously invalid.
Saying that only "fools" pay money for things like that is a VERY strange statement for a member of a shooting interests forum largely dedicated to exactly that sort of pursuits.