Nickel Pythons As Valuable As Blued?

[pythonguy]

Hi all,

Happy holiday's to everyone! I was thinking of adding a nickel python to my collection, and I was thinking of a nickel snake this time. I own two blued pythons, with another in the mail. Still have some Christmas money left to spend so any help is appreciated.

 

[Onmilo]

There are far rewer nickled Pythons than blued making them harder to aquire for collector purposes.
As for shooters, they tend to bring less money making them a good buy.

 

[dfariswheel]

There are several sides to this.

On one side, Nickel plated guns sell better in some areas than in others.
In some areas, there is NO demand for nickel guns, and the price on them is lower irregardless of what brand or model it is.

Another factor on nickel Pythons is, there has long been a persistent rumor that Colt nickel plated Pythons on which there had been an "Oops" by the polisher, and they plated these guns to hide the blemish.

This is total "BS" since plating will NOT hide polishing blemishes, and Colt's nickel Pythons are NOT "Factory seconds".

The other side is, as above, fewer Pythons were nickel plated and the law of supply and demand puts the price slightly higher than the more common blued versions.

Couple this with the lesser demand by actual shooters, and you're left with a lot of variables that make it difficult to make a blanket statement about actual street value.

The value depends on where the gun is being sold, who's buying it, and the demand for it.

 

[pythonguy]

Hi and thanks for posting, great point of view as usual dfariswheel, how about stainless steel pythons by the way? same as nickel? Any advantage to either, or just a preference?

 

[dfariswheel]

Stainless Pythons "usually" bring more than either blued OR nickel.

This is due to the popularity of stainless guns in general.

Of course, the advantage of stainless is, there is no "finish" as such to wear, and any marks can be easily buffed back out with a blending pad.

Coupled with not as much problems with rust, most people these days prefer stainless, so the demand is higher.

Due to the fragility of nickel, and the ability of stainless to be polished to a nickel-like gloss like the Ultimate Python finish, nickel is going to be a disappearing gun finish.

 

[Standing Wolf]

...nickel is going to be a disappearing gun finish.

I'd say it already is. I can't recall the last time I saw a nickel-plated Smith & Wesson at my local gun shop; in fact, except for old single actions, I can't recall seeing a nickel-plated revolver in a gun magazine since... Well, since...

 

[mec]

on a semi-related note, I remember a batch of pythons that appeared in our gunshop. They were surplus from the honor guard of some eastern seaboard police department. Apparently they were not fired but spent most of their time in the holster rigs. One of the batch was Stainless and was in perfect new condition. the other ones were all nickel and the finish had eroded considerably. Plated pythons in perfect condition might actually be more valuable because of attrition.

 

[russlate]

So is the blued finish dying. And walnut stocks.

Nickeled guns have always remained special to me.

One reason, per a gunsmith is that to fix nickeled guns was such a pain for the factories they took special care to ascertain the guns really worked before letting them out the door.