FAL-Ordinance
Member
I definitely hear yours and tallen702's points. In a lot of ways I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder on these things. My initial goal when I bought two rifles was to bring both back to their true form. For the first, I was hoping to restore in a way that preserves the authenticity and collector value (using stocks pictured), the second was going to be brand new 100 year old shooter to have fun on weekends with. Both have value IMO, just a different type.It's certainly not meant to be taken that way, and I definitely never said anything about protecting historical accuracy - that's a whole different subject than trying to protect the monetary collectible value of a firearm where the overall value difference would be $100-$200 because the value of the firearm as a whole is only $500-$700 anyway.
I guess it depends on what you want to do. Refinishing and fixing the furniture on an antique Winchester, Colt, Luger, etc, is a whole different ballgame than refinishing and fixing the furniture on a WW1 or WW2 battle rifle. It also depends on whether or not the person is a collector who intends to sell/flip their guns and therefore needs to maintain it. Clearly some people think it's important, but it's perfectly ok that I have different opinion on it when it comes to guns where the difference in the monetary value between changed and preserved is negligible.
I mentioned my Dad earlier in the thread because he was the guy who didn't ever really flip guns. He liked to accumulate and shoot, so for him, picking up old battle rifles was a matter of personal interest because he just wanted to have those guns, so he'd pick up one and then take steps to clean them up to the point where I'm certain that it "devalued" whatever it was.
But how much was it really devalued?
What is "value?"
For Dad, the "value" was in something he enjoyed working on, looking at, and shooting - he didn't really care so much about what the dollar value might be, with the aforementioned Colts, Winchesters and Lugers being the exceptions.