lucky_fool
Member
As many folks have said, those prices are just about what you'd pay today if you adjust for inflation. It isn't the seemingly low dollar figure that makes me jealous of those days, it's the lack of hoops to jump through.
GUNS Magazine February 1958 Issue
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10X
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Days gone by
In the early 1970s I bought a number of M1 Garands for $100 and USGI 1911 and 1911a1s for $50.
I used the M1s for service rifle shooting. You couldn't find match sights so I had a machinist narrow the front sight balde. Fired them until the barrels were worn too much. It was hardly worth it to spend $50 for a new GI NM barrel installed. Sold em and got different ones.
If the 45s were not 100%, didn't know anything about fixing them then. Just find a different one.
30 cal ball M2 ammo or AP ammo for $0.045 -$0.05 per round all day long. 45 ACP @ $2 to $2.50 per box.
Back then I made $11,000 per year. The M1s and 45s seemed cheap even then and they were plentiful.
Today, they don't seem cheap.
In the early 1970s I bought a number of M1 Garands for $100 and USGI 1911 and 1911a1s for $50.
I used the M1s for service rifle shooting. You couldn't find match sights so I had a machinist narrow the front sight balde. Fired them until the barrels were worn too much. It was hardly worth it to spend $50 for a new GI NM barrel installed. Sold em and got different ones.
If the 45s were not 100%, didn't know anything about fixing them then. Just find a different one.
30 cal ball M2 ammo or AP ammo for $0.045 -$0.05 per round all day long. 45 ACP @ $2 to $2.50 per box.
Back then I made $11,000 per year. The M1s and 45s seemed cheap even then and they were plentiful.
Today, they don't seem cheap.
iiibdsiil
Member
And I assume back then, Cash on Delivery meant CASH?
The FedEx man came to me with a COD package, and then told me they can't accept cash. Oh, so it's not cash on delivery?
Joe Demko
Member
As others have already noted, if you adjust for inflation guns have become, if anything, a little cheaper than they used to be. Back when the guns we are discussing in this thread were selling for those 1958 prices there was a thriving market for much cheaper guns. The 1958 equivalents of the Lorcin and its ilk, if you will. There were numerous cheap, crappy revolvers imported from Germany, for example. When $50 is a sizable chunk of what you netted a week, it isn't so cheap. That $15 Arminius might look a little more in your league.
jerkface11
Member
Yup ammo was expensive back in the day. Hard to believe that a Colt AR cost roughly the same then that it does today after you adjust for inflation. After all you KNOW the manufacturing techniques have gotten cheaper.
Kind of Blued
Member
I think "timeless" would be fitting.
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