Cheap surplus guns - a thing of the past?

[oneounceload]

That $17.50 .45 represented 17 1/2 hours work @ the $1.00/hr minimun wage in 1960.

17 1/2 hours work at the current minimum wage of $8.25/hr will gross you $144.375.

I haven't seen a shootable .45 for TWICE that price in years.

HUH? Seriously? A sale price of $17.50 has a little more involved than a salary for workers - that salary you extrapolate might be 15% of that $17.50 -marketing, shipping, profit, insurances/taxes, etc. all contribute - and we haven't talked about materials

Maybe you need to look at reality in your numbers

 

[Speedgoat]

I think he was implying that it represented the time that the 'buyer' worked to buy said .45. I occasionally at work will think that way to help me get through the day.

 

[oneounceload]

Again, it doesn't represent reality and everything involved
in 1979I bought a new Chevy pick up for 5400........that same truck today is pushing over 45000, and that is after the union-backed gov't buyout

it is always an apples to sheetrock comparison

 

[1911fan]

Speedgoat is correct.

The $17.50 represents the 17 1/2 hours I (the buyer) have to work at the $1.00/hr minimum wage for 1960 to buy the gun.

This, too, is relative:

When I got home from the Army in 1973, they were having a gas crisis. Seems that gas had gone from 29-31 cents/gal to over 35 cents. Minimum wage in 1973 was $1.60/hr.

One hour's work would buy over four and a half gallons of gasoline.

Where I live now, gas is WELL over $3.50/gal. One hour's work at $8.25/hr minimum wage will buy right about two and a third gallons.

Apples to apples, one hour's work at minimum wage will buy a little over HALF the gas it would buy forty years ago.

Oneounceload--more apples to apples:

That pickup you bought for $5400 in 1979 represented 1862 hours of work @ $2.60/hr, min wage that year. The same model pickup selling for $45k represents 5454.5454 hours @ $8.25, THREE TIMES the hours you would have worked to pay for the thing 35 years ago.

What's not apples to apples is that you're not getting the same truck you got in 1979. 350 ci gas guzzlers and armstrong steering, do-it-yourself transmissions, brakes by Flintstone, wind-wing cab-cooling and AM radios have all been upgraded, and part of the price you pay is for those upgrades.

However, a Remington Rand 1942 mfd. M1911A1 will ALWAYS be a Remington Rand 1942 mfd. M1911A1.

My point here is that we are working harder and harder for less and less--not to mention the ever-increasing tax burden--and cheap surplus firearms are pretty much a thing of the past.

ed

 

[vaupet]

And it won't get any better.
In Europe at least, regular armies and police forces tend not to sell but to destroy their surplus armes, in an effort to keep them of the streets, thus distroing tax payers money.

So surplus armes will disappear in the end.
I personally know someone who assisted in the distruction of 10000 UNISSUED fn49 sniper versions with their scopes.:banghead:

 

[Wanderling]

Speedgoat is correct.

The $17.50 represents the 17 1/2 hours I (the buyer) have to work at the $1.00/hr minimum wage for 1960 to buy the gun.

This, too, is relative:

When I got home from the Army in 1973, they were having a gas crisis. Seems that gas had gone from 29-31 cents/gal to over 35 cents. Minimum wage in 1973 was $1.60/hr.

One hour's work would buy over four and a half gallons of gasoline.

Where I live now, gas is WELL over $3.50/gal. One hour's work at $8.25/hr minimum wage will buy right about two and a third gallons.

Apples to apples, one hour's work at minimum wage will buy a little over HALF the gas it would buy forty years ago.

Oneounceload--more apples to apples:

That pickup you bought for $5400 in 1979 represented 1862 hours of work @ $2.60/hr, min wage that year. The same model pickup selling for $45k represents 5454.5454 hours @ $8.25, THREE TIMES the hours you would have worked to pay for the thing 35 years ago.

What's not apples to apples is that you're not getting the same truck you got in 1979. 350 ci gas guzzlers and armstrong steering, do-it-yourself transmissions, brakes by Flintstone, wind-wing cab-cooling and AM radios have all been upgraded, and part of the price you pay is for those upgrades.

However, a Remington Rand 1942 mfd. M1911A1 will ALWAYS be a Remington Rand 1942 mfd. M1911A1.

My point here is that we are working harder and harder for less and less--not to mention the ever-increasing tax burden--and cheap surplus firearms are pretty much a thing of the past.

ed

And there's been many ok-to-well paying jobs replaced either by some low-tech Chinese ex-farmers living 16 per dorm room, or high-tech Western robots. Plus, the steady devaluation of US dollar ever since Nixon took it off gold standard and the printing presses got busy. So the actual purchasing power for many people has been steadily going down over the decades. Which is why the price of things that can't be cheaply replicated with modern mass production technology is much higher than what the inflation calculator suggests. I.e. they didn't become more expensive - your working hour is worth less (not for everyone, but for many) in real money. Which would've shown up in inflation calculators if these calculated real inflation, and not the government inflation table "adjusted" in the 90s to keep the reported numbers artificially low.

 

[fanchisimo]

http://www.classicfirearms.com/chicomsks

Saw these and it seemed fitting to the subject.

 

[Zoogster]

Now they come in parts kits form and "some assembly is required."

Yeah but not that long ago ATF stopped import of barrels.
A new domestically produced barrel will cost you what the entire surplus gun would have if you could buy it.
Really the only part of any substance you still get is the bolt.
Stocks and fire control parts are inexpensive and easily made domestically. Just look how inexpensive they go down to for AR and AK builds.

Hardly worth the trouble to demill export/import, advertise, and try to sell for profit now.
Especially when the UN will give them extra points for destroying them instead.

 

[Ignition Override]

vaupet/Zoogster and others:

An Australian guy at Gunboards or Surplusrifle has a friend in South Africa.
About two years ago he said that this friend walked into a gun shop, and saw the staff destroying both Brens and Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles, which are obsolete!

I never knew that African or Asian warlords want bolt-action rifles from WW2.
The SA govt apparently received either UN or British/Euro tax money to destroy them. It's one thing to destroy select-fire AKs, but semi-auto FN 49s or Enfields!? I don't know the words in French or Nederlands, but 'doof', 'dumm' and 'blod' come to mind.
Intelligent use of your hard-earned, highly-taxed Euros....