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How much does a non matching numbers gun effect the value?


Thumpy

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I’ve seen some Thompson’s say upper lower not matching and I was wondering does this effect the value of the firearm? If so by how much would it effect it also is it something that could potentially make it a harder sell later on down the road? Or does it not effect it by much ?

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Most GI Thompsons are non-matching. They were rebuilt/refurbished by the Government, and it didn't matter if the upper/lower matched. An all matching gun is somewhat scarcer, and will typically sell higher than the others. But, that being said, all Thompsons are a good value, as they just keep going up.

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THUMPY , GOOD ANSWER ABOVE , HOWEVER MOST of the REAL QUALITY NO EXCUSE NFA WEAPONS, have a long want to buy list or anxious heir in the back ground. its true very few issued TOMMYS  in TODAYS market will match and there is a ton of "BRING BACKS" in the system no matter how they got there. BUT ! in the late 50's early 60's maybe a little later, almost all the guns I handled were matching. i'm not talking about a few guns on a table at some show, I m talking about crates full in fact my very first paid job for SAM was remove the cos from 200 28-A1's, test fire 1 mag/ clean light oil and off to Egypt. all in the system, all like new "rebuilds" that simply moved somehow  to be checked out some point in time between 1943 or so until I got em when nine years old in 59. cant say how they ended up loose , but a lot of our goods came from the UK or the like. almost all weapons in EUROPE went to plants like FN for rebuild and if they looked good I'm sure time was money even then and they never came apart, except for cosmo and packing.  in my opinion an other wise mint matching WWII era THOMPSON of ANY breed, is worth at least 15/20% MORE than the same thing NOT matching. SHOOTER? almost the same value either way. IN ANY CASE, WHEN IT COMES TO VALUE, I find the best asset to be the CURB APPEAL, IE; what you see when you pick it up. POOR quality stamping from some agency / punched out letters/ numbers just don't work for me, no matter why they exist.  in the past some of my collectors rejected choice examples at ANY PRICE . when your talking MOST GERMAN stuff either war it gets crazy and each example evaluated on its own

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6 hours ago, b_san said:

Except lately, as they've been steadily going down or just plain not selling.

Yea I’ve been seeing that across the board with transferables it seems I think what we currently are seeing all the older folks w the money to buy are in the selling part of there lives and you all have inflated the price on mgs out of reach for most of people in there early 20s,30s I think we are about to see not only the transferable mg market take a hit but I think we are also going to see the stock market drop because there’s now enuff young folks with cash to make up for the amount of boomers pulling money out of the market. I may be completely wrong but this is just my theory. 

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There’s also the fact that the future leaders are talking about confiscating guns, and with the recent ruling in bump stocks that said the government is sovereign, and does not need to compensate you when it confiscates something dangerous, why would someone want to risk spending thousands on something they might not have for very long?

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With the stock market, there's enough Gen-Xers and millennials now starting to worry about retirement to keep it from going too low, especially overseas. And Thumpy, let me assure you that the country is only done when we lose our ability to screw over foreigners, because that's the last capability we will lose.

As for MGs, I gotta start saving to take advantage of the downturn!

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GIMMEE A DAMNED BREAK!  DOWN? you guys have any idea how many record level prices were reached during MORPHYS 10/23 auction?  A NON C+ R MODERN VICKERS  SIDEPLATE GUN SOLD FOR $34K ! WHY? BECAUSE IT WAS DONE RIGHT, HAD NO EXCUSES, GREAT CURB APPEAL AND 5 PEOPLE WANTED IT! IMAGINE ANY MP-40 FOR MORE THAN $105k? 7 people wanted it INCLUDING ME.  sure nothings selling on the net.  if its not a SAMPLE 95% of the guns offered on this site are PURE JUNK! when compared to an honest original piece.  ''RARE VARIATION THOMPSON" BEAD BLASTED WITH BOULDERS AFTER MARKINGS WERE HIT WITH A PUNCH? the only honest guns are AC-.556 rugers and a few macs. or guns that only accept plastic mags waiting to fail.  DONT GET ME WRONG  "SHOOTER'S" are OK there is no way someone is going to move a SHOOTER AT COLLECTOR QUALITY LEVELS AND THATS WHAT WE ALL LOOK AT HERE! day in day out with a BUMP to the top, maybe a little word change and it starts all over! PLEASE DONT CONTRIBUTE TO THE RUMOR MILL AND SPOUT FOUNDLESS OPINIONS NOT BASED ON FACT ! I HAVE DOCUMENTED PROOF IN MY FILE CABINET overall sales are up in value MORE than 15%. I HAVE LEARNED TO EXPECT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF FOUNDLESS DRIBBLE FROM SOME, BUT THUMPY, YOU DISAPPOINT ME FOR THE FIRST TIME.! 

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2 hours ago, mike todd said:

GIMMEE A DAMNED BREAK!  DOWN? you guys have any idea how many record level prices were reached during MORPHYS 10/23 auction?  A NON C+ R MODERN VICKERS  SIDEPLATE GUN SOLD FOR $34K ! WHY? BECAUSE IT WAS DONE RIGHT, HAD NO EXCUSES, GREAT CURB APPEAL AND 5 PEOPLE WANTED IT! IMAGINE ANY MP-40 FOR MORE THAN $105k? 7 people wanted it INCLUDING ME.  sure nothings selling on the net.  if its not a SAMPLE 95% of the guns offered on this site are PURE JUNK! when compared to an honest original piece.  ''RARE VARIATION THOMPSON" BEAD BLASTED WITH BOULDERS AFTER MARKINGS WERE HIT WITH A PUNCH? the only honest guns are AC-.556 rugers and a few macs. or guns that only accept plastic mags waiting to fail.  DONT GET ME WRONG  "SHOOTER'S" are OK there is no way someone is going to move a SHOOTER AT COLLECTOR QUALITY LEVELS AND THATS WHAT WE ALL LOOK AT HERE! day in day out with a BUMP to the top, maybe a little word change and it starts all over! PLEASE DONT CONTRIBUTE TO THE RUMOR MILL AND SPOUT FOUNDLESS OPINIONS NOT BASED ON FACT ! I HAVE DOCUMENTED PROOF IN MY FILE CABINET overall sales are up in value MORE than 15%. I HAVE LEARNED TO EXPECT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF FOUNDLESS DRIBBLE FROM SOME, BUT THUMPY, YOU DISAPPOINT ME FOR THE FIRST TIME.! 

Mike you are correct there are many guns selling at record hights currently 

an you are right what I said is nothing but my opinion witch should most definitely be takin w a grain of salt on the account I’ve only been in the mg world for about a year and a half - 2 years.

I made my opinion based on the entry level mgs witch is currently in my price range  and a handful of Bridgeport thompsons that have been on the market

witch seems the only entry level mg I’ve seen increase is the m11 

the m10 has from what I’ve seen has stayed stagnant or decreased by 500-1000 dollers 

m2 carbine the Plainfield one I asked y’all about months ago... is still for sale at about 500 less then what it was originally listed for 

mk760 from what I’ve seen has dipped a little bit as well 

sorry to disappoint ya mike but I think we both have made different conclusions on the market possible because we are on different levels ? I’m on the buy cheap entry level mgs 

while you are on the collector higher end mgs? 

Or maybe I think the markets down because I know now what guns are going for instead of when I was brand new and uneducated assuming every one got closer to asking price? Witch this may very well be what has happened witch would make me think there’s been a decrease when I’ve just learned what the going rate of certain guns really are?

As far as the stock market  brettbaker I Hope you are right. I pray I’m wrong

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THUMPY, I hated to come down so hard but the entire thread pissed me off and I had to respond. its not a matter of "levels" when it comes to KNOWLEDGE . from a lot of my posts it might look like I am trying to make it that way, but I can assure you THATS NOT THE CASE.  I am simply trying to share what I KNOW!  its ALL BEEN HANDS ON and if you want to talk about LOW level, 2 months after I got married, my wife had my truck full time and I walked or hitch hiked to work both ways until I bought a 49 Buick fast back for $60 dollars at the swap meet. I never lost sight of my hunger while driving that car, I also bought a M1 Bridgeport on layaway for $410.00, a lot but it was MINT. I could have bought one for about $250 it had heat marks from a weak de mil and a commercial barrel from the same shop and passed. at work I earned just over minimum wage, that's ALL the wife got. any extra I earned doing repairs or in the basement went to the collection. after 5 years of marriage and living in a rental, I sold half the collection and built my own home with no mortgage. that was the last time the collection suffered, and all the while I kept learning. all the while paying close attention to the entire industry, trends, new imports, people and designs you name it. hell you might win  the lotto next week and then all the SHARKS would be at your backside with a greedy smile and feeding because , you just didn't know? who wants the biggest collection of the worst? I have said all that b-4 the part that REALLY UPSET ME is using wrong info to feed an ILL WIND .  one spouting bad info sooner or later is joined and then those 2 by another on and on it grows. I can help with that if you like,  we all rightfully fear NOV 2020. lots of members here say they wont get MINE!  well I have those same fears and often have night mares . imagine a 28 year old black gent , registered democrat  in the AIR FORCE recently promoted to CAPTAIN returning from a training mission in a fully armed WARTHOG ordered to inter dict a lone 2009 FORD super duty moving south on I-10 because someone reported there was an AUG in the back seat. did you pay close attention to what those HOGS did to those IRAQI TANKS? imagine what it did to my TRUCK !   well they sure has hell got mine and they will get all the others also when they want them.

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I understand mike you are fine. Lol I don’t take offense to anything the entire thread was going off topic any how. I spoke on something I do not have enuff knowledge about and it needed to be corrected.

i looked at some archives of sales/auctions and came up with a very similar % increase as you did witch proved my statement was wrong as you said.

an speaking of 2020 if it must go that way w that warthog haha don’t worrie Mike I think that would be best case scenario to go out be pretty instant way to leave this earth might even be mildly more peaceful compared to what some of us may see hahahahaha hahaha I mean we’ve all ready had swallwell talk about drone strikes and nuking us hahahahaha 

 

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I have to agree with MIke too. I think in any collector market be it guns, coins, collector cars, art, jewelry, etc. top quality almost always brings top dollar. Why? Because quality NEVER goes out of style. If it is top quality today it is top quality ten or 20 years from now. Junk is always junk. Collectors always gravitate to the best just like Mike has done in his collection. My dad told me to always buy the best I could afford and to stay away from junk. I also think even at the top levels of the collector market there are deals to be had. A case in point was the very rare MP40/1 at the Morphy auction last week. It went for a very "modest" $104,000. Now some people may say, "but that is crazy for an MP40." However, when you look at it rarity wise, I think it is far, far rarer than an FG42. How many MP40/1's are in the registry? Perhaps three or MAYBE four? How many FG42's are there in the registry? I have no idea but I would guess maybe 50 perhaps? Making the MP40/1 a screaming deal. The only thing with an auction is you don't know how much the top bidder was willing to go so if someone may have jumped in at the last minute it may have have gone much much higher. We will never know.

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Yeah, but it’s only worth something to someone who wants it.  That’s one of the reasons the big DDs don’t sell all that well.  There are not very many anti-tank guns or Howitzers in the registry.  Very few, in fact.  But they’re a lot cheaper than these MGs because not many people want them.  Expensive to shoot and maintain...you know the deal.

I also think it has to do with the forum.  RIA and Morphy draw high income collectors.  That type of stuff would take forever to sell on something like Gunbroker.

I also personally think the term “collector value” is abused and can be misleading.  Flamethrowers is a great example.  The same auction houses mentioned above will occasionally auction off an M1 or an M2, and it sometimes is advertised as complete, all original, in the crate, etc. If that’s what you want, great, but that doesn’t mean it works.  In fact, only about 25% of the complete units out there actually work (according to Charlie Hobson).  So what’s more valuable?  A flamethrower that might have all the right, original parts, but whose tanks will rupture because they fail hydrotesting?  Or one that may not be 100% but that you can take out and fire?  If the answer is not the rare, exceptional case that happens to be both, then I think the answer my vary from person to person.

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I DONT log or track them ,and too many guns since, sometime after spring 2009 but in fact an original as found completely arsenal rebuilt KOREAN war era FLAME thrower in the chest with recent hydro test data hammered well over $20k at auction and I wouldn't pay $2k for it but SOMEONE DID.  I agree ALMOST completely about the DD deal also. we DD idiots most likely have whats being offered on a regular basis. but GOD help us when that special one pops up. I anxiously waited my turn in line while a long time dealer I know had 3 Solothurn SA-18's bought another for $16,000. MORE than another at the show was priced at just because this one had WHEELS! also I know of more than one that privately sold in excess of $30k because nothing had been for sale in 8 yrs. within months 3 major collections hit the auction with them and better examples hardly made $20k and its been down hill since. NOT FOR LONG. the newbie with a LAHTI will see one, get bit and the sky is the limit. my GERMAN PAK-37 was easy at $6,500. nothing I know if has sold since and if decent? I don't think $75k will touch one. the WORST factor about DD's is a place to shoot one. if you don't own your own place its multi use land. and right when you yank the lanyard at a 2000 yrd target some guy on a 400 HUSKY stops to look at it. (happened to me)  when collecting / using anything RARITY is way down the list of importance. too rare, and no body knows it exists. when and how it was used and by how many are the major factors I watched a as new perfect 1928 Maxwell coupe, 1 of 3 known to exist hammer at $12k and 2 lots later one of the millions 31 ford model A's hammered at $21,500. its so danged hard to stay on course with some of these threads, we got WAY OFF here. but the statements were made and needed to be addressed. hell its all fun anyhow right? cheers mike

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Scarcity and desirable are what drive price, rarity has little or nothing to do with pricing.  I have a number of rare (lets say less than 30 in the registry) that won't break 25K.  The rarest Thompson's don't bring the most money, the desirable ones do.  Even though the Mp40 dual mags don't work, they are on a must have list for a number of collectors. 

There is a fair amount of shill bidding at auctions, which can skew the numbers dramatically in a tiny market like nfa firearms.  Sometimes when you win an auction you are the loser, the only true winner is the house, just like a stockbroker.  If 15 specific guys died overnight the nfa market could easily crash, it's that small.

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Another anecdotal piece of data, a decent shooter 28 Bridgeport sold on Frank's auction page last night for $15,600.  Now his site doesn't get much auction traffic but still that's really low for a non-WH shooter. If you add that to the Colt 21 that sold at Morphy's for $24k I think we can definitely say that prices are soft.

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2 hours ago, b_san said:

Another anecdotal piece of data, a decent shooter 28 Bridgeport sold on Frank's auction page last night for $15,600.  Now his site doesn't get much auction traffic but still that's really low for a non-WH shooter. If you add that to the Colt 21 that sold at Morphy's for $24k I think we can definitely say that prices are soft.

Yea I saw that. I also won a c&r sten in one of franks auctions a few weeks back for a very good price... Idk I guess we should just keep watching and reporting on it because I see the auctions mike is talking about and did some research am came up w a 15% or so increase just like he did....

but then at the same time I have seen a few person to person sales go for less and a few auctions like the ones on frank witch went for much less then they normally do?

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yes and 2 west hurley 28's hammered just over 12k that's under 15 with that terrible 20 prem. for me , I find morphys a great asset to the nfa community. prior the best was Julia but they didn't care to express much detail MORPHY's WILL they are in a learning curve and can only get better . say what you will about the auction houses, but its the ONLY answer for these large collections of ANYTHING . no one has the money to pay up front and too many people in the past lost out hen cheated by dealers when it came time to settle.

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On 11/1/2019 at 0:05 PM, b_san said:

Another anecdotal piece of data, a decent shooter 28 Bridgeport sold on Frank's auction page last night for $15,600.  Now his site doesn't get much auction traffic but still that's really low for a non-WH shooter. If you add that to the Colt 21 that sold at Morphy's for $24k I think we can definitely say that prices are soft.

I saw that but looking at the pictures of it there looked like two drilled areas on the port side near the magazine area.  I wonder what those indentations were (and I guessed that was a concern for some potential buyers without knowing what happened in that area).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thumpy, 

There are many different Thompson variations. A non-matching frame on any of them will generally impact price. One exception is a later M1A1 Thompson without a serial number on the frame. Colt guns with mis-matched frames will take the greatest hit in price and value, probably a 5K decrease in price. World War II Thompsons by Savage and Auto-Ordnance Bridgeport (AOB) not as much. It really depends on what you want to do with the Thompson you purchase. There are shooter grades in all variations, i.e., non-original finish, incomplete, non-matching, etc., and some variations are shooter grade even if new in the box, i.e., West Hurley's, 1928AC's, NAC crate guns, Pearl's, etc. Decide what you want and what you want to do with it (safe queen - display only, very little shooting or a shooter).  

Regarding matching and non-matching World War II Thompson guns, both exist in the marketplace. Matching 1928A1's are not rare and but with everything else being equal, will usually cost a little more. And will usually sell for a little more to the next caretaker.  Shooter grade Colt's without the original barrel, wood, internal parts and poor or refinish can be found for under 30K. Aside from that great buy every now and then, there is usually a reason why one gun sells high and another of the same variation sells low. Decide on a variation, study the marketplace, buy a few books and join one or both of the Thompson Associations. This will make you an informed buyer. 

Good luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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