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Want to buy a firearm, cheap? (So do I. Anyway...)
From the September, 1957 issue of Guns Magazine
Believe it or not, that issue carried this as its main article, 52 years ago:
"Why not have a PRO gun law?" by William B. Edwards
The intro:
"ANTI-GUN LAW PROPONENTS ARE NOT ALL DO-GOODERS.
LAWS THAT STRIKE AT CIVIL LIBERTIES THREATEN BUSINESS AS WELL AS OUR
AMERICAN WAY Of LIFE."
Go figure(!)
I remember those prices too, but don't forget that minimum was only US $1.00 an hour....
When I enlisted in the USMC in 1964, an E-1 made US $88.00 or $93.00 per month & I thought that was good money!
The most important aspect of this signature line is that you don't realize it doesn't say anything significant until you are just about done reading it & then it is too late to stop reading it....
Grand Poo Bah WA F.E.S.
In real life may you be the bad butt that you claim to be on social media.
I don't remember that far back, but I can still remember devouring the gun ads in the Sears Catalog. I remember the M-1017 Enfields, and M-1903's, Garands and M-1 Carbines with low prices, and all the neat pistols and revolvers at prices that would make our mouths water today.
What were those 3 for $29.00 rifles, i couldn't make them out for sure. I thought one might be a Veterlli and another a Carcano, but couldn't be sure.
You keep thsi up and I'll try to scan some pages of an 1897 Sears catalog with M-1886 Winchesters under $30.00 and Colt Peacemakers for under $20.00/ ;-{p>~~~
Doc Hudson, OOF, IOFA, CSA, F&AM, SCV, NRA LIFE MEMBER, IDJRS #002, IDCT, King of Typoists
I was at a DRMO sale once YEARS ago (mid 80s) and they had a lot of 10 1911 pistols that were all missing a part or two. If I recall correctly, the entire box went for about $75. Sure wish I had gotten that bargin! The biggest gun deals I missed in my ADULT Life was on the SKS's back when they ran about $75-80. At the time, I swore them off as CHEAP Chinesse Guns that would never amount to anything. Sure wish I had bought everyone I ever thought about buying so I could flip them for a profit and buy me a GOOD GUN! Yep I still think they are cheap guns but they fetch a premium these days.
“Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.”
When I look at some of my Dad's old American Rifleman magazines, first I normally cry over the prices, and second I usually get upset that we are still fighting the anti's!
I have met Mr. William B. Edwards. He was living just over the mountain in Afton but may be in a home now (I don't think he's passed yet). He's quite a character!
Sincerely,
Hobie
"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend." Robert Louis Stevenson
Hey!! I bought one of those .45 Webleys with paper route income. Came to me thru the post office. Never mind that I was a freshman or junior in high school. Maybe it was from that same ad, though the prices seem a little high to me. I mean, 40 bucks for a 1911-A1? What was the world coming to?
Those prices do look a bit high, but I can sure remember reading those ads in the gun magazines while waiting for a haircut. The barber wouldn't let me read some of the -- ahem -- "other" magazines because I was too young.
$75-80 for an SKS HaH. I will always regret not buying a boat load of them from a guy at the Allentown Ag hall show he had a table of them 4 or 5 deep in the middle...$33 each and couldn't sell a one. AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!! Tom
a Pennsylvanian who has been accused of clinging to my religion and my guns......Good assessment skills.
Guns was the only firearm magazine you could buy at the news rack. I started buying it in 1954 at Den-Russ pharmacy in Brownsville Texas. I devoured every word in print and could barely wait until the next months issue came out. I still have many of those old issues.
The local library had three issues of Gun's Digest and a copy of Dr. Mann's book, The Bullets Flight From Muzzle to Target. The latter was some pretty heady reading for a lad of 12 and 13.
About 1956, I ordered a copy of Phil Sharp's and Naramore's book on handloading and read them both "quiver to quiver" several times.
Guns were indeed cheap, but money was very hard to come buy. Buying a Remington Rand 1911 for $35.00 took as much sacrifice as buying a new Colt Govt. Model today.
The real good thing about those years was good, what we would call today vintage, Winchesters, Marlins, Colts and Smith and Wessons were just old used guns and could be bought for a fraction of the price of a new rifle or pistol. With my lawn cutting money I bought a Winchester 94 take down rifle (30 WCF), a Winchester 92 in 25-20 and a Winchester 73 in 44 WCF for the sum of $35.00 each. That was about four months worth of grass cutting for each one in 1956. I was 14 years old.
Kids could walk into Bernie Whitman's pawn shop and buy a rifle with no hastle. Bernie wouldn't sell pistols to kids much under 17. When my pockets were full, I would walk over to Whitman's after the Saturday afternoon picture show and buy a rifle. I always hand one on lay away. I would then ride the bus home with the rifle and walk the last five block from the stop to my house with the Winchester over my shoulder having the time of my life. From time to time I would work the lever, draw a bead on a piece of caliche and click the trigger.
Nobody though such a thing was abnormal or remarkable. It was a different time, a different culture, a different country. Maybe I am just getting old, but it seems things were much better then. I know life for everybody was much much simplier.
When my wife was a girl of 5 or 6 some local fellow in Raymondville Texas waved his weinie at her. She told her father and her father and a couple of guys who worked for him at the cotton gin, found the fellow and took him down an alley. He left town as soon as he was able to get out of bed.
Yep I still think they are cheap guns but they fetch a premium these days.
