Classic Gun ads
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MSgt G
US Veteran
I bought several of the old S&W ads and had them matted and framed - they look great! One of my friends loves the old Ithaca Shotguns (as do I) so I did the same thing as a gift for him. He was thrilled.
OP
bitstream
Member
Do you have some pics?
dickttx
Member
Nice ads. Thanks for posting. Bought a couple of early 70's Esquire magazines a few weeks ago. I had forgotten about all the gun ads that used to be in magazines.
I've got a pretty extensive collection of old Weatherby ads from the 1950s. I really need to get them framed.
OP
bitstream
Member
Can you scan a couple to post?
Brian41
Member
I've bought old gun mags cheap at Antique shops before and love reading the ads and old articles.
I love the little cut out order forms you send in with your money and they'll mail you your gun no paperwork needed.
I love the little cut out order forms you send in with your money and they'll mail you your gun no paperwork needed.
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
I dont have the ad to show, many years ago I and my dad got into a old fell down log cabin that had books, news papers etc. The material was from 1916 or so as headlines were all about poncho`s raid in new mexico.
Anyway there was a ad for savage firearms showing their gun and said: "Injun medicine". P.C. being what it is I have never able to find the ad again even through google. I also found a nice 1916 indian motorcycle catalog at the same time.
Anyway there was a ad for savage firearms showing their gun and said: "Injun medicine". P.C. being what it is I have never able to find the ad again even through google. I also found a nice 1916 indian motorcycle catalog at the same time.
bigolddave
Member
I have all but a couple of American Rifleman from 1928 on, and the ads, especially the classifieds are enough to make one weep. In the thirties, what are now collector's items were just obsolete stuff. Winchester 1876 for eleven dollars, with two boxes of ammunition, and brand new Colt New Service, and Winchester 1886 and 1892 being closed out for just over twenty dollars! Then in the fifties, YeOldeHunter was selling Winchester 1895 muskets for thirty-five dollars!
Of course, I wasn't born in the thirties, and just had paper route money in the fifties, but I can dream about what I could have done!
Of course, I wasn't born in the thirties, and just had paper route money in the fifties, but I can dream about what I could have done!
sigp220.45
US Veteran
My favorite, by a mile:
(Photo not copyrighted)
(Photo not copyrighted)
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
According to the CPI (consummer price index $10.00s today would be worth $160.00s in 1932! Or, $100s in 1932 is worth $1,600s today!
You should think in those terms when we look at old gun prices! Dad worked and supported a family on $2.00s a day on a ranch in 1939/1940 too! When I was a kid in the late 1940s probley my folks made $60s a week. I remember my folks paying $20s a month in the 40s and at the most $40s a month rent in the early 1950s! I belive they paid $2,000s for their house on 2 1/2 acres of land in 1952. It was old, bad repair and no running water and in a small village in wisconsin.
According to my grandfather, his dad never made over $300s a year in his life! That would have been the civil war forward time frame.
You should think in those terms when we look at old gun prices! Dad worked and supported a family on $2.00s a day on a ranch in 1939/1940 too! When I was a kid in the late 1940s probley my folks made $60s a week. I remember my folks paying $20s a month in the 40s and at the most $40s a month rent in the early 1950s! I belive they paid $2,000s for their house on 2 1/2 acres of land in 1952. It was old, bad repair and no running water and in a small village in wisconsin.
According to my grandfather, his dad never made over $300s a year in his life! That would have been the civil war forward time frame.
My dad made $300.00 a month as a chemist for the Danube Oil Company in 1936. His first job out of college.
With his first check he bought a Colt 1911 National Match and his second check he bought a Nickle Colt 1911 in .38 Super.
Both guns are sitting in one of my safes now. My dad bought other pistols and revolvers. I still have all of them, but the two Colt 1911s are my most prized, for I know the five years of college that he sweated through and his first thought upon graduation and a good job was to buy them.
Rule 303
With his first check he bought a Colt 1911 National Match and his second check he bought a Nickle Colt 1911 in .38 Super.
Both guns are sitting in one of my safes now. My dad bought other pistols and revolvers. I still have all of them, but the two Colt 1911s are my most prized, for I know the five years of college that he sweated through and his first thought upon graduation and a good job was to buy them.
Rule 303
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
I remember when the colt python came out along about the same time colt came out with the SAA again around 1956 or 1957. Both were $125s! I wanted one or both bad! But they just as well might have been a couple thousand dollars. Thats how it looked to me back then. I bought a brand new winchester 94 in about 1957. It was I think, around $55s. 1961 or 1962 I bought a new ruger convertable single six. Right at $65s. In 1953 at a farm auction I bought a nice hammerless 12 gauge modern steel double barrel parker shotgun for $21s!
The other day I gassed our pickup. $81.06! I grumbeled to the cashier it was more than I spent for my first two or three cars! I bought a nice 46 chev for $65s!
It is/was all relative. However, the guns and cars seemed far more desireable back then. Today buying a car is about as exciteing as buying a refrigerater!
The other day I gassed our pickup. $81.06! I grumbeled to the cashier it was more than I spent for my first two or three cars! I bought a nice 46 chev for $65s!
It is/was all relative. However, the guns and cars seemed far more desireable back then. Today buying a car is about as exciteing as buying a refrigerater!
jlrhiner
US Veteran
Another one of my addictions is old Boy Scout stuff. I have handbooks and field books back to the 30's. And in the back of everone is an ad for someones .22. How scandlous it would be today.
stantheman86
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I wonder if, in 40-50 years, the gun enthusiasts of today will talk about gun prices like that........"I remember when a S&W 629 was only $700".......By then an "average" salary will be $170,000 a year.......with minimum wage being $27 an hour and new S&W's, if we can still get them, will be $4,000.
It's even starting now, I found the receipts for the brand new 6" 586 my Dad bought in 1989 and it was "only" $380. He's a retired teacher and said his starting pay in 1973 was something like $7,000 a year and that was good money then. In 1989 he was probably making $50,000+ a year which was seen as a good salary, now if you make $50,000 it's just "decent".
It's even starting now, I found the receipts for the brand new 6" 586 my Dad bought in 1989 and it was "only" $380. He's a retired teacher and said his starting pay in 1973 was something like $7,000 a year and that was good money then. In 1989 he was probably making $50,000+ a year which was seen as a good salary, now if you make $50,000 it's just "decent".
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
In 1960 I got $2.11 a hour in the national park service. In 1962 I started out at $320s a month for the state of wisconsin conservation dept. In 1965 I started out at about $2.00 a hour as a guard for universal studios. After that I belive I started out for $2.45 a hour as a lockheed guard, and after prior years doing bull work in the fields for half that I thought I had hit the big time!
In the late 50s I worked in a foundry doing very hot extreamly dirty, hard work for $1.75 to $2.00s a hour, and at the time it was considered one of the best paying job`s in the area!
Summers in the 50s durring high school vacations if we could get jobs in the fields and make $40 a week we were doing excellent and proud of ourselves. The thing is anyone could find a job back then, there was no excuse to loaf all be it, the work was hard and dirty. Anyone back then could get a job summers for green giant cannerys, or ripon cookie factory for the $1.00 a hour. Funny thing. On many of those jobs I had to show a brith certificate. Now you can apply to be president and evidently dont have to show one!
In the late 50s I worked in a foundry doing very hot extreamly dirty, hard work for $1.75 to $2.00s a hour, and at the time it was considered one of the best paying job`s in the area!
Summers in the 50s durring high school vacations if we could get jobs in the fields and make $40 a week we were doing excellent and proud of ourselves. The thing is anyone could find a job back then, there was no excuse to loaf all be it, the work was hard and dirty. Anyone back then could get a job summers for green giant cannerys, or ripon cookie factory for the $1.00 a hour. Funny thing. On many of those jobs I had to show a brith certificate. Now you can apply to be president and evidently dont have to show one!
Well now that we are way off topic, but what the heck, lets talk about how underpaid we all were when we started.
In 1974 as a patrolman 4 th. class my base salary was $795.00 a month. I was single, shared a house with two other cops, drove a used but well kept Porsche With O/T and court time, I had a pocket full of cash. God I was in tall cotton. Then I fell in lust and married the first of my several Ex's. boy that woman liked to spend money her favorite expression was," charge it." I finally realized that neither she or the Porsche were worth the price of admission, but at least the Porsche had some resale value.
In 1974 as a patrolman 4 th. class my base salary was $795.00 a month. I was single, shared a house with two other cops, drove a used but well kept Porsche With O/T and court time, I had a pocket full of cash. God I was in tall cotton. Then I fell in lust and married the first of my several Ex's. boy that woman liked to spend money her favorite expression was," charge it." I finally realized that neither she or the Porsche were worth the price of admission, but at least the Porsche had some resale value.
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pilgrim6a
Member
sigp220.45
Thank you for posting my personal favorite. You just can't do adds like that anymore. If you were to print a picture a guy who caught a nice FISH, some of these nitwits would take to the streets with torches & pitchforks.
Just to show my standing as a semi BOF. The first pistol I bought with my own money was a Ruger Standard Auto in 1969. $37.50. NEW!
Then I saved every cent all summer to get the $107 to buy my new Browning High Power. 1970.
Thank you for posting my personal favorite. You just can't do adds like that anymore. If you were to print a picture a guy who caught a nice FISH, some of these nitwits would take to the streets with torches & pitchforks.
Just to show my standing as a semi BOF. The first pistol I bought with my own money was a Ruger Standard Auto in 1969. $37.50. NEW!
Then I saved every cent all summer to get the $107 to buy my new Browning High Power. 1970.
cincinnatijim
Member
Anyone remember the ads for DEWAT Sten guns selling for $14.99? Supposedly some folks repeatedly dropped ball bearings down the barrel until the mandatory plug dropped out. A few folks in NM reportedly used this process then hunted rabbits with them. ATF wised up pretty quickly and then a torch cut was used to ruin the bolt. Then there were those ads for Carcano carbines with scopes until President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember those .22 rifle ads in Boy's life. Sure wish I had kept my copies.
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
Anybody but me remember buying a comic book in the 50s that on one page would sell deactivated plugged barrel thompsons, and a few pages later another ad was selling new barrels for your thompson!
That was some off beat comic, it also showed how to make knucks out of milk can handels!
That was some off beat comic, it also showed how to make knucks out of milk can handels!
David LaPell
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I like to collect alot of old gun ads, the nicest ones are in frames or will be, the rest in plastic sleeves in a 3 ring binder. Here are a few.
Forester
Member
Here is a whole collection of them:
Hunting & Guns - Subject (Advertising Art) - Period Paper
Link stolen from Bmcgilvray
Hunting & Guns - Subject (Advertising Art) - Period Paper
Link stolen from Bmcgilvray
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