For Sale: John Garand personal M1

[Ole Cowboy]

Why own a vintage M1 Garand when you can own the vintage M1 Garand?

The .30 caliber M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle belonging to John Grand himself — the brilliant Canadian-American gunsmith whose work at the U.S. Army’s Springfield Armory yielded the legendary service rifle of American troops during World War II — will officially go up for auction in September through Rock Island Auction Company.


https://taskandpurpose.com/m1-garan...c9489df-6cac-47f6-9fff-bcf5355cef95&bsft_pp=2

 

[Steve_In_29]

Nice bit of history but WAAAAAAY too rich for my blood at the expected selling price.

 

[Dawico]

That should make a nice addition to somebody's collection.

 

[robertc1024]

Pretty cool. That zebra striped wood is gorgeous.

 

[Fosty]

Interested in seeing how much this goes for.

Any guesses?

 

[vmax]

John Garand....article said "Grand"

 

[Ole Cowboy]

John Garand....article said "Grand"

Betcha it was the spell checker that changed it...

 

[vmax]

Betcha it was the spell checker that changed it...

Yeah it was misspelled in the article, so the writer never proofed it.

 

[benenglish]

Any guesses?

I don't think I'm going out on a limb with guessing it will break USD$500K.

 

[vmax]

I don't think I'm going out on a limb with guessing it will break USD$500K.

with the economy like it is, that's a good guess.
I just wonder if it will be a private collector or a museum that gets it. I hope it stays in the US

 

[benenglish]

I just wonder if it will be a private collector or a museum that gets it.

I'm guessing that my number is close to accurate if it goes to a museum.

If two private collectors with FU money get into a pissing match, the sky's the limit.

 

[deemus]

I'd bet it breaks $1 mil. Some rich gun guy will buy it to show his drunk friends at parties.

 

[Steve_In_29]

Interested in seeing how much this goes for.

Any guesses?

The article said the expected selling price at auction was high $200K to mid $300K.

 

[oldag]

I would be surprised if it goes for more than $200k.

 

[LOCKHART]

Good for whomever gets it, but it won't DO anything that my 1954 Springfield won't do just as well. I bought mine to SHOOT, not for any collector status. And, the parts on his gun will swap out to mine with no problem and vice versa. And his name was pronounced "GARE-rund", not " Guh-RAND!"

 

[Ole Cowboy]

I would be surprised if it goes for more than $200k.

I was at a car show the other day. As it turns out it was a meet and it was like the Ohio 30's & 40's cars meet the S Texas group.

LOT of cars for sale and mean a LOT! Got to talking to one of the guys and said I was surprised at how many cars were for sale. He said next year there will be more. Most of the cars are not wanted by kids and grandkids and he said the market for this is literally dying off. These cars don't appeal to hardly anyone that never owned one back in the day and rode in daddies as a kid. He said most of these guys are trying sell before the they die or the market caves in completely. He said the ones that do sell typically had PS/PB and AC.

John Garand means nothing to about 99% of all the people.

I have a friend who is a private gun dealer and he deals in high end Colts (Pattersons, Dragoons etc) in mint and near mint condition or rare pieces like the original Texas Ranger Company guns. We were talking and he was telling me the same story as the guy at the old car show. The market for old guns is very soft and getting softer there is simply more of them than there are collectors. He did say the stuff he plays with has gone up in value but its high dollar people that are looking for various investments that will retain or increase in value, but the "brown" gun market is dying. I asked what "brown" was: Any gun that has more brown than blue!

So Oldag, you may be right and unless some high dollar individual buys for a possible investment or needs a tax write off for a donation to a Museum (which is where this rifle belongs, as in the Smithsonian).

 

[LOCKHART]

Well, all I can say is these kids don't know what their missing! You can't readily buy a black rifle that has possibly "been there, done that" like a lot of the M-1 Garands & carbines have. Too bad. I look upon these old guns as the real McCoy. Not some piece of plastic & aluminum. But that's just me.

 

[BRD@66]

When I read about this, I picture an autographed baseball for sale -with Abe Lincoln's signature.

 

[LOCKHART]

Hahahahahaha!

 

[benenglish]

Most of the cars are not wanted by kids and grandkids and he said the market for this is literally dying off. These cars don't appeal to hardly anyone that never owned one back in the day and rode in daddies as a kid.

A car tester and writer I like did a bit on this within that last month or so. He pointed out that the muscle car market is slowly going away. In his opinion, if you really want to invest in cars that will be worth a lot of money in 20 years, you should look at Japanese cars from the 90s that were lusted after by kids and commonly hotrodded, e.g. those things that had the coffee can resonators that drove me crazy.

The prices on some of the rarer ones, in untouched condition, have already started climbing. A clean Acura Integra Type R from the end of the 1990s can run $40K, already, and they're just continuing to go up.

I think firearms have a longer collectible life. The market for old high-end Colts may be softening, as you point out, but it took many decades longer for that to happen than happens with cars. I still think that Garand will bring big bucks but if it doesn't it won't exactly shake my faith in mankind.