List price in 1978

[Smith357]

While leafing through some old books I thought a few folks might find these pages intersting.

 

[P&R Fan]

My late Father had American Rifleman magazines back to the 20s. I still read them. The classified ads in those will make you weep.

 

[GF]

Why didn't we stock up !?!

Oh yeah, we didn't have any money.


GF

 

[Brian41]

Yup I remember those prices and also didn't have much money then either but did buy some.

One that surprised me was the $120 price difference between Model 57 and 58.

 

[Smithboomer]

That's a great post, Smith357. Thanks.

Interesting how in 1978 S&W still listed each revolver by its name and added the model number as an afterthought. This was twenty years after the change-over.

I agree that the Model 57 seems pricey compared to the 58, but even more does the Model 27 ($268) compared to the Model 28 ($154.50).

 

[Jack Flash]

It was about ten years after those prices were published that I bought my first M19. The price was $225 IIRC, and it was at a regular sports store, not a large discount gun shop. So the prices didn't jump too much in ten years.

 

[Dregg]

I love seeing stuff like this. It reminds me of looking at older "Baseball Card Digest" price guides.

 

[Frank237]

If you were a Police Officer you were allowed to buy at LE prices...basically dealer minus the Federal excise Tax. In the mid 70's I think M-66's were about $140. I do recall my first off duty gun a 2" M-60 was $120 in 1974.

Look at the price lists from the 50's if you REALLY want to make yourself ill.

FN in MT

 

[crsides]

I was looking for some paper work this weekend and came across the receipt from National police supply in Charlotte, 1973 or 74.

Model 19 NIB with the best bluing and best grained stocks I had ever seen. $122.

Model 29 nickel 6 1/2" pres box etc $181.


So now you know how old I am.


Charlie

 

[NFrameFred]

I also seem to remember at the time that I was living off a take-home pay stub of around $350 or less . . . and the only way we would ever even see some of those guns in my area was in a magazine. I remember walking into a little obscure gun shop during a road trip that was out the way in the middle of nowhere and getting to hold a model 14 - a gun that I had read about but never actually seen in person before. And the guy also had a weird piece of machinery in the then new gun material of stainless steel - a .357 AutoMag (that I had never even heard of) for the princely sum of around $850, if memory serves. I remember thinking 'what in the world would somebody want with something like that ?' This was probably around 1975 but we had the 'bug' even back then, though we couldn't do much about it.

 

[310Pilot]

I owned a gun shop back in the '70s, and the list prices of most S&Ws were as shown, but - even dealers couldn't get any of the more desirable S&Ws, as they were in very short supply, and the distributors played games with their "allocations." In other words, you had to buy $2,000 - $3,000 of "garbage" inventory (cases of ammo in calibers you wouldn't sell in the next 50 years, arctic-level parkas we'd never sell in the desert, etc.) to get one gun. I just about couldn't get any guns (S&W or Colt, especially) that I could sell from any of the distributors "authorized" to sell to dealers in Arizona, had to go to a bunch of distributors in the midwest, south and east to get anything (and I had to buy a lot of other stuff to get them, and it was still difficult to get 19s, nearly impossible to get 27s, 29s, Pythons, etc.). The wild "Dirty Harry" demand was still in place for 29s, and $268 was a pipe dream, with used 19s going for $450-$650, and most dealers, if they could get one, priced them at $500 and up (I didn't, but, then again, only received one or two 29s over a 10-year period, and only one 27 - just couldn't get them). Yes, those prices sure look good, but if you wanted anything other than a Model 10, "lotsa luck" even finding one. Oh yeah, the stainless guns also were nearly impossible to get, and prices were significantly inflated on them, too. In fact, as I recall, even after playing the "allocation" game, the desirable models of S&Ws were often priced by the distributors to the dealers at well over the suggested retail price - not a good way for the dealer to make a profit when customers came in expecting to find a gun priced at retail, and the dealer had to pay more (sometimes MUCH more) than the listed retail price.

Ahh, memories!

 

[BUFF]

I started shooting handguns in 1975 and fell in love with Smith & Wesson handguns. I developed an "in" at a large sporting goods chain that got their S&W's from S&W (along with the ammo, holsters, rifles, shotguns and whatever else they were selling) and sold them at suggested retail. It was part of a marketing agreement with S&W. The friend advised me when they got S&W guns and when they would be put out for sale. I got some killer deals. Model 29's for retail when they were being sold in most shops and stores for $500 and up.

I remember J&G Rifle Ranch, then in Turner, Montana, advertised heavily in ShotGun News. They seemed to usually have a good supply of the scarce guns but charged dealers through the nose for them. They also never published their S&W prices in their ads, listing the price as "P.O.R." The owner of my favorite local gunshop said that it stood for "Piss On Retail."