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Is my new Les Baer collectable? Should I shoot it?

Trey Veston

Trey Veston

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Idaho/Washington border
I bought a Les Baer 1911 Thunder Ranch Special Gen 2 that came from an estate. It was new in the box and has never been fired or cleaned.

I was watching a YouTube video about it, and the guy stated that it is a very rare pistol since only 65 of the Gen 2 versions were ever made before Les Baer and Thunder Ranch parted ways. His is #41 and mine is #26. If it's true that it's that rare, I was wondering if that made it a collectable, and if so, should I shoot it?

I'd hate to find out years later that they are now worth big bucks and an unfired original is worth really big bucks, lol.

20250412_140710.jpg
 
Trey Veston said:
I bought a Les Baer 1911 Thunder Ranch Special Gen 2 that came from an estate. It was new in the box and has never been fired or cleaned.

I was watching a YouTube video about it, and the guy stated that it is a very rare pistol since only 65 of the Gen 2 versions were ever made before Les Baer and Thunder Ranch parted ways. His is #41 and mine is #26. If it's true that it's that rare, I was wondering if that made it a collectable, and if so, should I shoot it?

I'd hate to find out years later that they are now worth big bucks and an unfired original is worth really big bucks, lol.

View attachment 1260367
Click to expand...
Tell you what… You shoot that! and I’ll shoot this! let get s few scratches on it and enjoy

IMG_4734.jpeg
 
bc1023 said:
I honestly do not see it becoming collectible. Rare and collectible are not synonymous terms.

It’s an awesome pistol. Shoot it :cool:
Click to expand...

Coming from the classic car world, rare and collectible can go hand to hand. There are collectors for everything.
But add in the third and most important number, worth, you get the real equation.

Wish I could find deals like that one, nice grab.
 
Shoot it! In other words enjoy it! It might save your life one day. But even if it doesn't, you will enjoy shooting it.

Hard Chrome and Blueing go together!
 
It was designed and built to be shot, so just shoot it already. The couple of Baer 1911s I shot ran great. Enjoy that pistol.
 
My question would be, did you buy it to shoot or to collect? Seems you paid what you thought it was worth for a shooter originally, and now you're having second thoughts? Will whatever the gun's value appreciates over a few years, be worth more than the pleasure of shooting a gun that was designed to be shot? Will it's value over those years depreciate more, from being shot, than a gun of lesser value that has been shot out? If you "stole" the gun because you got it as such a great price, you might make more selling it now, as compared to other investments, where returns are higher. If you paid what the gun is truly worth, I personally, don't see it as making a lot of money over just a few years. Maybe for your grandkids.

JMTCs.
 
IMO... it's a lot of $ to spend on a gun to NOT shoot, unless you intended it as an investment all along.


Now - if you're apprehensive about missing out on some collector cash in shooting the gun (which you can't guarantee has never been fired anyway as non-original owner), then just go buy a budget 1911 to shoot and keep it in the box. Nothing much wrong with that either. But eventually, someone is going to shoot it... do you want it to be you?
 
Dave DeLaurant said:
buck460XVR is on the same wavelength as I. You were certainly thinking about shooting it when you bought it. Otherwise, why even ask the question?

Either sell it right now for a profit or go have some fun -- don't second guess yourself.
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I can shoot it for OP if he’s scared of the .45 Recoil! we are in the same state!
 
A Gunsite 1911 Service pistol will always have value, but its value may be peculiar to the Boomer Generation. Jeff Cooper left the world in 2006, even before that date his ability to influence the American shooting community was down to one page articles in a Gun Magazine. Cooper’s Corner ended 22 years ago, and those fun articles were more Cooper's opinion pieces on pop culture.

Boomer’s still venerate Jeff Cooper, desire to live in the Romantic World of Jeff Cooper’s Gunsite, when Jeff Cooper said:

The original pistol designed to shoot it (the 45ACP) stands as one of the preeminent artifacts of the 20th century. It is difficult to point to any other mechanism available before WW1 That remains the best tool for the task. About the only parallels that comes to mind is the claw hammer.”

The Cult of the 1911 and Cult Cocked and Locked were strong in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, but weakened as technology made prototyping easy, and production facilities stopped using manpower heavy, inflexible, single stage machines. Of course Glock was a big badda boom, a high capacity 9mm made out of plastic. It worked, and it cost less than a Colt 1911. Today kids are buying two hundred something fifteen round Tisas polymer PX9’s, meanwhile Grandpa is buying seven round capacity $1000 Colt 1911’s and bragging about it to his fossil friends on a wall phone. Grandpa also brags about his car radio which holds five CD’s. Gunsite 1911’s, and CD car radios had their time and place, and how long anyone thinks either is relevant and worth having, is hard to predict.

What did you do with your parent’s Hummel collection? Make big money from it?
 
UncleEd said:
By all means, shoot this engraved baby but DO NOT take the tag off. That would decrease its value by half immediately.
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Uhhh... No, it would not. That is a price tag placed there by the seller, not by Colt. Removing it would not hurt the value of the gun.
Mark_Mark said:
I can shoot it for OP if he’s scared of the .45 Recoil! we are in the same state!
Click to expand...
Mark Mark, You can shoot my avatar if you ever show up on my poarch...
 
tark said:
Uhhh... No, it would not. That is a price tag placed there by the seller, not by Colt. Removing it would not hurt the value of the gun.

Mark Mark, You can shoot my avatar if you ever show up on my poarch...
Click to expand...
well, I already too off the store tag! that mean it a shooter grade now!

Don’t Bear Spray me if I show up! 😆
 
sevt_chevelle said:
Coming from the classic car world, rare and collectible can go hand to hand. There are collectors for everything.
But add in the third and most important number, worth, you get the real equation.

Wish I could find deals like that one, nice grab.
Click to expand...
They can certainly go hand in hand. Rare alone doesn’t mean collectible value. It can, but not always. They aren’t synonymous
 
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