Are you old enough to remember when....?

We had a place where there would be several barrels (actually cardboard drums) full of surplus rifles.

I think the majority were Lee Enfield #1 and M1917 models w/ a few Carcano, Mannlicher, Mauser.

For about $15-20 of these found new homes where about ¾ of them had of the fore end was sawed off (at a rakish angle if you were daring) and sometimes shellac or varnish was applied (sometimes on the metal to waterproof it!) and declared sporterized or even a custom rifle.

Cardboard boxes on the counter by the cash resister held piles of loose ammo you could pick through for your new prize - maybe 2-5¢ apiece?

Reloaders bought loose surplus powder weighed out in paper sacks for maybe $1-2 per pound.

My first new Winchester 94 with a Lyman peep sight set me back $55. Sold it shortly for a like new Rem 760 (.270) w/ K4 for $100.

Even in the 70's- I bought a new Rem 1100VR at J C Penneys for $199. From TG&Y a Rem 742-$169. I paid $125 for a Ruger Blackhawk 357 magnum.

I have my granddad's S&W 32 Police revolver- still in the original red cardboard box. The only way I could tell the gun had been fired (it still looks that good) there was about 15 rounds of ammo in he box. I know the gun had not been fired since the 50's. I'll bet that gun did not cost much over $40 new if that much.

Edit: I am remembering Sears & Robuck selling fine double barrel shotguns made by Antonio Zoli.

Edit 2: Looking above at WRG and the vette.......I bought a brand new F100 1/2 ton 72 Ford pickup in 72 for just under $2600 out the door. I can not remember what I paid for my new Ford maverick in 70.....I'm thinking it was around $1900. I think the Honda Civic first hit the street for $895-new?

And those guns were MUCH higher quality then modern guns. All metal milled from a single ingot. Hand fitted parts. Remember walking into most any Western Auto hardware store and seeing one or two Thompson " Tommy guns " on the rack for sale ? Brand new, beautiful Thompsons, for like $400.00. ( allot of money then ) And all the magazines you want, including 100 round drums. I remember always two or three of them, brand new, in paper wrappers in the case also.

Added : Believe it or not in High School (early 70s) many high schools had a rifle range IN the school. We shot in the girl's gym. The school sold .22 ammo, cost $0.35 cents a box then. AND I had set several records at our school. They paid for ALL my ammo, took me to and paid entrance fees for ALL matches. Even bought me a BRAND NEW Anschutz 1413 match rifle, and a hard case for it. The 1413 was $450.00 back then with sights in a separate wood box. Would people go BONKERS today if any school bought a kid a gun ? We walked across the street after practice to the new Mall with our rifles, to get our ride home. No one was the least bit concerned. We live in very different times today. AND not better that is for sure.

A memory from the days folks had common sense, and morals.

You left out the fact that you could mail-order your firearm from the Herter's catalogue and the mailman would deliver it to your house.

Of course, these days, the milsurp rifle being dumped is the Mosin-Nagant. With the end of bolt guns as standard military weapons, we'll have this last run, and that'll be the end.

My first Remington 700, by the way, cost near $250, including the price of the Lyman scope with post-and-crosshair reticle on top, mounts, dies, sling, etc. That was more than a month's wages for a lot of folks.

In the early fifitys I bought a bbl full of 03-A3 Springfield 30-06 rifles mililtary issue unused for about $5.50 each. The shop teacher at my school let me bring them into the shop an showed me how to turn them in sporting rifles. Turnred the BBLS, added a Bishop stock, Timmen triggers. Blued BBL and Finished Stocks. Sold to local hunters and I am still using the first one I compleled today.

I don't remember those days, but I do remember when my top of the line of Kimber Gold Match was $800 out the door tax included. At almost the same time my "exotic" MP 95 .22 pistol was an "outrageous" $525, with "ridiculous" $40 magazines. The Gold Match appears to be running about $1,300 now, and the MP95 Atlanta is running nearly the same.

Unbelievable. That really wasn't all that long ago.

Thinkingblade

Funny you should ask. I found an old Winchester 9mm ammunition box with the price sticker still on it. It's a 50 round box and priced at $3.95 I think I bought it back in the '80's.

No. You think about those days but then again what was the hourly wage at that point in time? Taking account various economic factors and inflation you want not paying that much more. What is been going on since 2008 in terms of prices is an anomaly due to one man who hates freedom so much that if he had the chance he would kill have his forces slaughter us in the millions. And we all know this but we don't like to say it out loud.

I checked out your hyperlink and i do not keep in mind hector. But i did bear in mind Mary Mungo And Midge with the see noticed intro tune.I knew the track from once I was a child. Im 36 and that came out in 1969. So i ought to of obvious reruns once I was once 5 unless the programme was once nonetheless being made in the early 70's. It introduced back first-rate recollections although.

Yeah and just a few years before that you could get a German Luger sent to your mail box for $39.95.

Of course $39.95 was a weeks pay at that time.

I also remember the rumbling buzz of a slow moving B-36 flying over 7 or 8 miles high causing the ground to vibrate & the farm house windows to rattle for 10 minutes.

The cheap surplus guns of the 50's were great but i don't miss the unexpected sudden bang of the occasional sonic booms from invisible jet fighters breaking the sound barrier.

Those things would sometimes crack window panes if they weren't puttied in good.

The duck & cover drills at school were fun though, sometimes you could get a look at a girls underwear as she crawled under her desk.