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What constitutes a collectible and what is coveted by the collector in terms of firearms?

Interesting question and also why is it that even if a longarm is rare or ultra rare that it is not collectible regarding the masses? I always fall back to Daly, who had the pulse of the American Sportsman and offered them something that the American Sportsman thought they needed in order to be successful, and that including wares for competition as well as hunting. Seems that wild advertising, as well as a little folklore, and a product that delivers are key factors for an item that is coveted, then collected.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

Anything can be a collectible if two or more people want it. Demand is paramount. After that you can break it down into provenance and condition. Was it owned by a famous person like Elvis? Is it in remarkable condition for it�s age? Is it the first or last of its type? What makes it special in the eyes of a buyer. Does it have a famous name in it?

Collectors tend to be specialists. They collect one brand, or one model or even just one version of a model. Pigeon grade model 12�s in small gauges for example. Winchester model 70 Safari models. They tend to ignore the common place items in average or worse condition. They want ones which look brand new. And they hate refinished or upgraded items. They consider them fake, a fraud or attempt to get them pay top dollar for a bogus item.

Collectible implies some kind of a market.

We can collect almost anything, it�s the human condition, but for whatever we collect to be collectible, there must be a market, and competing demand from at least one other collector.

In terms of firearms, I think collecting was more interesting before the Internet.

For something to become collectible, you need buyers with a certain type of insanity. That's what makes otherwise rational people pay large sums of money for things like Beanie Babies or Hummel figurines. It's also why thousands of guys chased Parkers and paid big bucks for them, when there were lots of guns just as good or better for less money. Scarcity helps a lot, but there has to be demand. That's why my Hunter Arms Co. Gladiator double shotgun will probably never be worth as much as a Parker field grade in equal condition, even though there were only about 365 hammerless Gladiators produced.

If I knew what was coveted by gun collectors, I would have loaded up on Colt Pythons when they were relatively cheap... compared to the stratospheric prices today. But it is fairly safe to say that prices for semi-autos will jump again if this country is stupid enough to elect an anti-gun Liberal left Democrat in 2020. People will collect as many as they can knowing that Democrats want to ban them.

Does a true collector collect expecting a return on their money ?

I once had a collection of bird's nests. Lost'em somewhere growing up, but I do not remember any return at all...Geo

For something to truly become collectible there must be enough made to reach a wide enough audience to create competition.

A lone gunsmith working in his basement might make the worlds best shotgun, but if there's only one it's just another oddity. Parker made enough guns to make them accessible to enough collectors to create the market.

Collecting is crazy to me. Possessions become a burden. I was carried away a couple times of wanting more than I needed of cameras, firearms and fishing rods and started giving them away about 25 years ago

Collecting made no sense. Except for books, rare and common, technical and inspirational; my libraries remain, out of the living area, out of sight, not trying to impress anyone with my taste.

No, for the most part I do not think the collector expects a return on the collection investment. But the glory is in the struggle where the chase of cobbling together the collection is the actual reward. Will be interesting to see what is collected in the next 50 years. Sure wish I would have saved all those early computers & components. I am told that early NASA items will be most collectible.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse