[tobnpr]

The more I look at some prices being asked (and often, paid) for common rifles that are double- or more- than what they were just a year ago, the more I scratch my head and believe this is becoming nothing but another investment "bubble"...Driven not by a collector's desire to add a particular rifle to a collection, but rather by fear that "if I don't buy it now, it'll only get more expensive", and just as likely by those believing this crazy jump in prices still has legs and are looking to make a quick buck by reselling.

I just don't "buy" the rationale that "they don't make any more of them" yada yada...
Nothing has fundamentally changed in that regard from just a few years ago when rusted out, bashed up pieces of crizap that were sold as U-Fix-Em's by Century as parts guns for $50, are suddenly worth four times that much? They weren't "making any more" of these three or four years ago, either.

C'mon.

Sorry....I don't buy it. Does anyone really think, that a re-worked Yugo Mauser will be worth $500? Or that an SKS that was less than "only" $200 a couple of years ago (and a lot less than that, not much earlier), now selling for over $400- will really be worth a grand someday in the near future?

Or that the lowly Turks- like the Spanish- still can't be given away, will suddenly be "in vogue" with collectors? I mean, they ain't making any more of them- so why not?

I've felt Bill Gross has been right for years with regard to stocks...nothing but a herd mentality driving prices up because they can, with no basis whatsoever in fundamentals- and I'm convinced the same thing is happening here. Of course, just as the markets may reverse short term- eventually, reality sets in. May not be this year, or next- but this has to change, it is simply unsustainable; any rational person can plainly see this.

When I see a Mosin-Nagant M38 carbine, FAIR condition, being priced at $695.00, and a Chinese T-53- not even numbers matching- for $295.00 at Simpson, I know this "hobby" has gone nutz.

But hey, as the saying goes, "I was wrong once before"...and to those of you paying top dollar, at the top of this market (at least, I think it is)- good luck.

Flame suit on!! Let's go!