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Was watching an episode of "American Guns" last night where Rick Wyatt was selling some guns manufactured in the '60's (Colt Python, S&W 29, etc..) to some guy saying that they were a "good investment".
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This is a very interesting and sometimes touchy subject. Guns can be a great investment, or a poor one. It depends on many factors. The biggest question is this:
How do you buy gun X and how do you sell gun X?
Obviously the key here is paying the least while selling for the most. Usually one cannot get a great deal in the present moment from a dealer, IE someone buys and sells for a living simply because the dealer cannot afford to give everyone a deal. Deals can come that way, but they are usually from private party purchases. Predicting demand for guns can be difficult.
The other thing that effects all of this is condition of the gun which entails IMO originality. Many people say that CONDITION CONDITION CONDITION influences prices, but its actually more so CONDITION RARITY and DEMAND. Those 3 factors drive a price and a market value for something. This can be verified through 1000s of examples.
Regarding the Python example, you are right to say they are not necessarily rare, a garden variety Python is always available depending on where you look. But you see, DEMAND is high for a Python. Then if you add that together with say it being high condition, a rare variant such as a nickel snubnose, then you really have a valuable gun.
Another thing I commonly read is the whole purchase price vs inflation thing. Again we can use the Colt Python. My father purchased a Colt python new in the mid 1970s, say 1974 for $175. He tossed the box, but the gun was really clean, 6 in blued model. Today a gun like that brings $1000 to $1300. So you might say well gee, if I bought it in $175 in 1974 and sold it in 2011 for $1100, you made $925. Well no, you didn't. The buying power of $175 in 1974 was MUCH HIGHER than $175 today, in 2011. Using the westegg inflation calculator (seems fair to me), the $175 was $764.90 in 2010, let alone 2011 dollars. So while a profit was still made, it is now and more accurately, much less. This is an important consideration when trying to estimate profit from a gun esp one purchased many years, or decades ago. Many times a gun's purchase price when inflated is less than its market value today, but NOT EVERYTIME! In fact many Colts beat inflation, while many other guns do not.
Yet another angle in this is the whole "well you should have bought gold in 1974 instead of the Python, because gold is a better investment". To use our 1974 example again, gold was $150 using an online chart I found. So my father could have bought an ounce, but for $175 he could have gotten 1.17 oz of gold. Yesterday gold closed for $1706.52. So my father could have kept the gold since 1974, had he bought it, and today the 1.17 oz would be worth $1996.63, nearly doubling the value of his Python today aka nearly a 100% difference in value. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?
Well there are some problems with the "gold is greater than guns for investment" argument. For example: lets say you bought 1oz of gold on Jan 21 of 1980. It was actually $850 back then, believe it or not. Adjust for inflation today and you just invested $2219.43 as many people probably did that year, but gold will go up up up right? Well lets go forward, and say you kept your oz of gold 10 years, how well did you make out? It was $406 Jan 22 1990. So guess what? You lost big time. Adjust the $406 to 2010, you get $668.56.
Lets go back to when you decided to invest in gold, in Jan 1980, because you want to buy in before the price escalates further. You paid $850 in 1980, which is $2219.43 in 2010. Fast forward to today, aka Oct 31, 2011 and gold is only worth $1706.52!!! You kept it 31 years, and you lost! Now obviously, there were clues that the $850 spike in 1980 was a better sell price than a buy price, etc etc. But the point here is that you can lose on gold. You have to know what you're doing to make the most, or to make anything. Coincidentally, the same is true for firearms.
If thats not enough for you, there is another big argument against gold when discussing gold vs guns. Gold is approx $1700 per oz right now, have you seen it lately for $800 per oz, real gold? How about for $1200? Chances are you didn't because anyone would buy it for that price and everyone knows the price of gold. Now consider firearms. Earlier this year I bought a Savage 24D 30-30 / 20g for $250. Great condition but no box. I later found out this gun was rare and sought after, and approx 3 weeks later I had sold online for $687 after shipping and auction fees were paid. Back to the old adage, how do you buy and how do you sell. I bought from an estate sale company who obviously did not know firearms. They bought out a deceased man's esatate and placed the value on the model itself, with no consideration for caliber / chambering which is major in terms of value.
This example illustrates how much faster one can make money on a gun, which IMO coupled with the other paragraph shows that guns are a better investment than gold IF other things are assumed IE buying right and selling right. I kept the gun less than 1 month and nearly tripled my money. I bought the gun way under market, I will admit that, and sold it the best way possible, but you see, buying it way under market cannot be easily done with gold. Often times with gold, you pay a fee / surcharge on top of it, so its instantly worth less than what you paid. With gold, its a long term investment, vs guns which can be very short term. The beauty with a gun is that after you sell the gun, you could take the money and invest in gold if you really wanted to or anything else for that matter.
One may counter and say, well getting a gun deal is rare too, but this is untrue. Its all in how you go about it, your knowledge base, how much money you have to tie into guns, how much you are willing to look, etc. I look for the best deals I can find and I have found many, many other examples I could have chose to illustrate. I don't sell anything that I really like, so some of my deals are only half done, IE I only bought the gun at a good price and did not sell because I simply don't want to at the moment.
To get to your specific examples, it could go either way and more info is needed. A colt 1908 is no kind of investment if you got ripped off initially. If the Radom is mismatched, reblued or unoriginal in another way, it too is not a great investment. If you bought them right, for whatever reason, they could be a great investment with the benefit of shorter term profit vs other methods of investing.
While some may question or simply not believe what I've said, I have done this all many times, and will continue to do so. I also have a coin collection and have invested in gold and silver in years past. There were precious metal opportunities that I missed, that I regret, but overall, in my specific situation, I think buying the guns was the best choice. Guns are more interesting to own IMO than a coin or bracelet or bar, etc.
Just my opinion here, not recommending anyone do anything. This is what I've learned, what I've done, what I still do, and esp what works for me. Nothing more, nothing less.