How much did a MG cost in the "old days" ?

drive_accord_ingly · Aug 9, 2016

Does anyone have any insights as to how much a machine gun would have cost back in, oh say, 1964, 1976, and 1984?

Say, for example, a nice tommy gun, a BAR, an m60, MG34/42, etc.

safecracker · Aug 9, 2016

In the mid-80s, before the Hughes amendment went into effect, MAC 10s were around $350, UZIs around $700, and M-16's around $800. These were for NEW machine guns.

awptickes · Aug 9, 2016

They cost about the same as their non-machinegun counterparts, but you had to order it specially, then file a $200 stamp, and wait a couple months to get it.

Hence the reason most people didn't go for it.

12a10 · Aug 9, 2016

Back in the early '60s a near new 1928a1 Thompson cost around $100. A Sten could be bought for about $20. Live 37mm cannon, Boyes AT rifles and other such stuff was dirt cheap. The catch , as always, was the federal paperwork and the $200 taxstamp "Deactivated" Stens with only a small spot weld holding a steel dowell into barrel (easily knocked out with a cold chisel I am told) could be bought for $2.95 plus 90 cents parcel post through ads in Popular Mechanics.
Remember, minimum wage was $1.00an hour and an Army E2 was paid $85 a month before taxes, uniform costs, insurance. My pay at the time was always under $50 a month.

MacGuns · Aug 9, 2016

Back in the mid 80's in Los Angeles I was offered a select fire HK MP5 for $400. I would have jumped on it if it wasn't a week's salary at the time. There was also the issue that it was being sold from the back of trunk by one of my coworkers brothers, who just happened to be a Blood.

Whitey · Aug 9, 2016

MAC 10's & 11's $900 around the mid '90's.

rtse4me · Aug 9, 2016

Had a friend build one with DIAS for around $400 back in the mid 80s. I think he got a kit from Shotgun News. He hung out with a group of guys really into machine guns.
They went through a lot of ammo.

BigCity · Aug 9, 2016

In the early 80's, I saw an MP40 for sale at $8,000 at the Pikesville Armory.

rsideout · Aug 9, 2016

BigCity said:
In the early 80's, I saw an MP40 for sale at $8,000 at the Pikesville Armory.

Did you mean $80? I passed on one at $8400 just 2-1/2 years ago.

drive_accord_ingly · Aug 10, 2016

What's the difference between the Hughes amendment and the NFA act? And what was the justification for banning full autos? I know the backstory for banning up resorts is to prevent poaching or some such thing.

safecracker · Aug 10, 2016

The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 implemented strict regulation of machine guns, silencers, short barrelled rifles and shotguns, destructive devices, and AOWs. Prior to this, there was no federal regulation of such firearms. This is where the $200 tax (and $5 AOW transfer tax) began being levied on the manufacture and transfer of such items.

The Hughes amendment was added to the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986, and specifically banned the further manufacture of machine guns for civilian transfer after May 19, 1986. That created a finite number of "transferable" machine guns for the general population, which numbers approximately 170,000 and decreases for various reasons each year.

Further, the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 banned the importation of surplus machine guns such as the MP40 and MG42 from importation into the United States. However, surplus parts were still legal to import. Between 1968 and 1986, many of these machine guns were assembled and registered in the United States on domestically-produced receivers.

Also, machine guns were never "banned" by any of these acts - or any other legislation - at the federal level. Rather, they were strictly regulated and taxed. Some states and municipalities have enacted their own restrictions and bans on automatic weapons.

5.56blaster · Aug 10, 2016

1990 M11/9 and can $600. 1992 Sten $550, AC556F $890, Fleming Auto Sear for HK $199. Paid $599 for my HK 94 and felt ripped off.

Biggfoot44 · Aug 11, 2016

Late '70s-early'80s one of the then big time class III dealers regularily advertised in mainstrean gun 'zines. Original Thompson's were described as " costing about the same as used car", which translated as $2K-ish .

Further Hughes Act trivia - May 19 per se was not specified , rather it was to be effective upon signing. Seeing rhe handwriting on the wall in the weeks leading up, most 007/SOT operations worked around the clock doing minimum work on recievers to stamp a s/n to file the paperwork on them. More Machineguns were registered in that month than the previous 50 plus years.

Things like origonal Thompsons that were already valuable for age and rarity, Hughes made little initial difference. For then common newly mfg, the frenzy of last minute recievers (/registeted components) kept prices fairly reasonable for up to aprox 10 years.

erwos · Aug 11, 2016

There has been ~125% inflation since 1985. So a buck in 1985 is equivalent to $2.25 now. That $700+$200 registered Uzi was the equivalent of $2k back in the day... which is to say, a considerable chunk of change.

And while I know you're like "but it would be worth $14k now!", remember that a dollar invested in the NASDAQ in 1985 would be worth $21.85 today. If you had taken that $900 and put it in the NASDAQ, you'd have about $19.5k - enough for that Uzi, plus maybe a beater low-end MG on the side. Even putting it in an evenly-split combination of three major indexes would have netted you more than 14k.

Moral of the story: investing in guns is not the great financial strategy some people think it is. I own a M11/9. It's my toy, not my retirement fund.

ericoak · Aug 11, 2016

erwos said:
There has been ~125% inflation since 1985. So a buck in 1985 is equivalent to $2.25 now. That $700+$200 registered Uzi was the equivalent of $2k back in the day... which is to say, a considerable chunk of change.

And while I know you're like "but it would be worth $14k now!", remember that a dollar invested in the NASDAQ in 1985 would be worth $21.85 today. If you had taken that $900 and put it in the NASDAQ, you'd have about $19.5k - enough for that Uzi, plus maybe a beater low-end MG on the side. Even putting it in an evenly-split combination of three major indexes would have netted you more than 14k.

Moral of the story: investing in guns is not the great financial strategy some people think it is. I own a M11/9. It's my toy, not my retirement fund.

Correct but then again the price increases really didn't start until the Internet greatly increased the demand. I'd bet that the m11/9 has beaten the market from say 2005ish.

And things like $250 HK Sears and RDIAS are killing the market even from 86.

But I agree I wouldn't buy as an investment. t some point you might as well rent commercial property and get an SOT

My friend said my m16 costs as much as his car. It's also true my m16 could turn his car into scrap metal in about 20 seconds.

erwos · Aug 11, 2016

ericoak said:
Correct but then again the price increases really didn't start until the Internet greatly increased the demand. I'd bet that the m11/9 has beaten the market from say 2005ish.

The OP was asking about the "good old days". To me, that means "when you could register a new MG". I took my pricing from the very edge of that (when the tax would have been lowest due to inflation) to now. I think it's a reasonable comparison. I'm sure if I had arbitrarily delimited my timeline to, say, just before the great recession, I could have made MGs look like an even worse investment.

If it makes people feel better, some of the classic semi-auto rifles look even worse with this methodology - Galils and HKs, for example, were expensive back in the day, and simply did not appreciate that much when accounting for inflation. IMHO, the guns most likely to genuinely work as investment would be historical prototypes and items with production runs < 100.

ericoak · Aug 11, 2016

erwos said:
The OP was asking about the "good old days". To me, that means "when you could register a new MG". I took my pricing from the very edge of that (when the tax would have been lowest due to inflation) to now. I think it's a reasonable comparison. I'm sure if I had arbitrarily delimited my timeline to, say, just before the great recession, I could have made MGs look like an even worse investment.

If it makes people feel better, some of the classic semi-auto rifles look even worse with this methodology - Galils and HKs, for example, were expensive back in the day, and simply did not appreciate that much when accounting for inflation. IMHO, the guns most likely to genuinely work as investment would be historical prototypes and items with production runs < 100.

Agreed, I purposely tried to stay away from 2008 because the market collapse warps all those calculations. I don't think many people in the 80s or 90s thought of their MGs as investments. It wasn't until demand sky rocketed (based off internet) that caused prices to sky rocket.

I know a guy who paid about $5000 (stamps included) for 19 uzi bolts in the 90s. He is definitely beating the market.

Agreed on the low volume historical guns, especially ones made by old school skilled machinists.

Biggfoot44 · Aug 11, 2016

It is a coincidence that the internet was coming into semi-common usage at the same time the backlog of registered recievers/ bolts/ etc stockpiled in early May '86 finally started to dry up.

Notwithstanding cherrypicked examples in retrospect, firearms aren't a replacement for a retirement plan.
BUT cool things you like, that will at least hold their inflation adjusted value is a good thing.
BUT Hughes changed somewhat expensive cool things I'd hoped to get into a few years down the road, into stupid expensive permently out of my reach.

Alphabrew · Aug 11, 2016

How much would a Colt select fire M4 cost if it were legal to purchase new production guns? +/- $1,000 or so?

Second Amendment · Aug 11, 2016

At first I thought this thread was about a car.

How much did a MG cost in the "old days" ?

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