First off, thanks to all of you who have added material here and in the triple alpha s/n thread. If there's ever a 5th Ed., Rick and I will harvest these goodies and add them to the book.
Hi Lyle -- Great idea. That's exactly what I proposed to Gun Digest publications 25 years ago when they contacted me to ask if I'd like to do a Standard Catalog of S&W. The thing is, they're in the business of publishing firearms price guides under the Standard Catalog branding. It makes sense from their perspective in that it provides an incentive for the reader to buy a new edition when one comes out. Their answer was "nope."
After they nixed that, I proposed making it two volumes -- a big lavish densely illustrated hardcover that contained all the detailed info but no pricing, updated maybe every ten years, and an slim little paperback pocket annual that could be easily carried to gun shows and updated every year. They didn't go for that either. (Blue Book did though - don't know if they still publish their pocket guide to S&W or not, but I thought it was pretty neat).
The other thing is -- I think SCSW values are a bit more accurate and better researched than Blue Book. BB is a top-notch, well researched publication. I miss Steve Fjestad, and am grateful for all he did for gun collecting and for his friendship. When i was a full-time gun dealer i used Blue Book a LOT (also when I was running the NRA Museums.) The S&W section is very good -- if I'm not mistaken Rick Nahas has been been reviewing the pricing for BB for several years?
However BB is trying to cover every gun ever made by every manufacturer. That's a huge task. I know, coz I'm currently editing the 2021 Edition of Standard Catalog of Firearms, and it's making my eyes glaze over.
The big advantage of the SCSW values comes from the direct input of a couple hundred knowledgeable collectors like yourself. For every edition, we solicited that input directly, and through this VERY helpful forum (THANKS!), and at a "Midnight Pricing Panel" meeting at every SWCA annual meeting preceding a new edition, open to all SWCA members in attendance.
The weakness of SCSW pricing is that there can be five or more years between editions. Values can change much faster than that. However, when we do a new edition, I'm usually more surprised by the values that haven't changed than the those that have. I don't think it's as fluid a market as I used to believe.
This has been reinforced by my recent research for the new Standard Catalog of Firearms 31st edition. To track firearms values over time, I selected about 100 random guns and charted their Std. Cat. of FA values over 3 decades. The lack of change was much more apparent than rapid fluctuations (buy the book to see my results, plug, plug.)
Anyway, that's how the cow ate the cabbage, and thanks for asking! Don't worry that the dollar values in SCSW are pushing out scads of helpful background information on rare S&W variations. Rick & I cram everything we know (plus lots of stuff other people know and have told us, plus stuff we just sort of suspect) into every edition. We have yet to have to omit something because the prices took up too much time or space. By all means, buy SCSW AND Blue Book. And pick up a copy of the next Standard Catalog of Firearms while you're at it.
Jim
Quote:
Originally Posted by austintexas
Just a thought, Why bother with dollar values? I never use The Catalog for gun values. A year after it is issued the values have already started to change. The Blue Book of Gun Values is produced every year and and even it is 6 months out of date. Just mention at the beginning of each segment a more accurate assessment of value could be had by checking the current Blue Book. Wouldn't it save you a lot of time not checking gun values that could be better spent in updating information?
Lyle F Frey
SWCA 892
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Why all those prices?
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