I'd buy it AND shoot it! Guns are about being guns - being shot, held, carried, taken apart and fiddled with. Owning a gun with the intention from day one of never shooting it so someone several lifetimes down-stream of ME might make money when they sell it is ridiculous- IMO.
As for the asking price - I'm sure you KNOW it's a steal deal so the person selling it must need the money. Even if you shoot, shoot, and shoot it some more, the gun will still be worth what you paid. People are shelling out $500-$800 for "clones" so getting the real thing for a piddling thousand bucks is like....well, you might ought to put the cash in your hand and turn around and back up to hand it to him so you don't have to look him in the eyes when you take possession for such a paltry price!
I've got an S&W M627 PC 8-shot coming that's just a hair under $1,000 at Bud's pricing and will go over that with tax and transfer fee! I've got a $1,300 FiveseveN that I didn't hesitate to buy when they finally came back in stock, and several models of 1911 from the likes of Kimber, Colt, and Springfield Armory that cost very close to the $1,000 mark before "tax tag and title," so to speak. I've got three X-frames that each cost over $1,200 with all costs combined! Even my M25-15 was around $800 before transfer and tax, so that puts it right at the thousand mark! Man, that gun is a STEAL!
As for collector value, well guess what, it's not the guns everybody bought at the time that become valuable, it's the once nobody wanted and are less represented decades down the road! Right now EVERYBODY is all in love with the .45 Colt because that's what the original was, and they will suffer the greatest lack of retained value 50-100 years from now than the less popular .357 magnum. But take note I said, 50-100 years from now. So if you buy the gun to put in it's all original box and put it in a safe somewhere never to be seen again, YOU will have never actually enjoyed possessing the gun, and it will likely be your children's children who benefit from any collector value several lives from now! That is making the BROAD assumption guns will even still be transferable in 2119!
