IMHO, if you've got disposable funds to invest at this time, there are some good S&W deals out there and the opportunities appear to me to be increasing. Last year I would have recommended K22's as something to buy in the $500 range. They were "hot" due to several reasons, but mostly due to the rapid price rise in CF ammo. K22's haven't lost much in value, but in my opinion they have fallen a little over the last couple of months, and that market seems to me to be sort of saturated. I'm sill buying a few of them (or at least trying to buy them) as they become available in that price range, but that's most likely because of my residual K22 addiction. 3" k-frames are still pretty hot, and M27's always seem to be popular. Snubbies are currently a lot more coveted than 8-3/8" target hog-legs. The thing to recognize is that there are revolver fads.
Prognostification is difficult, especially when trying to predict the future, but if I were trying to get a tangible return on my gun investments, then the candidate investments would be evaluated against some objective(?) criteria. Realizing that past performance is no guarantee of the future, some of the things that I think of when contemplating buying a gun include:
Why am I attrcated to it? (...how will it be used?)
Condition? (...is it safe?, is it original?)
Is it priced below market?
Is it real? (...avoid commemeratives)
Any iconnic recognition?
Any historic significance?
Future usefullness? (...availability of ammo, parts and service)
How will it most likley be re-sold?
Sometimes the popularity of a specific model will distort the value of a gun. M29-2's are a good example; great guns, but there are literally tons of them out there (and likely will be so for quite a while). M58's and M53's sort of represent the other side of that argument, in that they are considered to be niche guns. Anyway, to summarize: best advice is to try to know as much as possible before you buy and to know why you bought what you've bought. All that being said, the guns that I would be looking at with some expectation of increasing in value would include:
High condition pre-model 10's (....'cuz they're still cheap!)
High condition K-22's (...'cuz they're eternally popular)
High condition early M57's and M58's (...I don't know, completely irrational)
-S2
Prognostification is difficult, especially when trying to predict the future, but if I were trying to get a tangible return on my gun investments, then the candidate investments would be evaluated against some objective(?) criteria. Realizing that past performance is no guarantee of the future, some of the things that I think of when contemplating buying a gun include:
Why am I attrcated to it? (...how will it be used?)
Condition? (...is it safe?, is it original?)
Is it priced below market?
Is it real? (...avoid commemeratives)
Any iconnic recognition?
Any historic significance?
Future usefullness? (...availability of ammo, parts and service)
How will it most likley be re-sold?
Sometimes the popularity of a specific model will distort the value of a gun. M29-2's are a good example; great guns, but there are literally tons of them out there (and likely will be so for quite a while). M58's and M53's sort of represent the other side of that argument, in that they are considered to be niche guns. Anyway, to summarize: best advice is to try to know as much as possible before you buy and to know why you bought what you've bought. All that being said, the guns that I would be looking at with some expectation of increasing in value would include:
High condition pre-model 10's (....'cuz they're still cheap!)
High condition K-22's (...'cuz they're eternally popular)
High condition early M57's and M58's (...I don't know, completely irrational)
-S2
