Whats funny is now every clown thats got grandmas old rusted out slant six plymouth out back thinks its gold. They see a restored, documented hemi road runner sell for big bucks and think that the old POS out back is just the same...
Good point and human nature. Because certain guns do command big prices from collectors, every jerk who has one that granpa left that bounced around under the truck seat and laid in the bottom of the boat wants that price because it's "collectible" . . .
The internet does seemed to have helped >[ -and hurt (added edit)]< gun collecting. The internet has ruined other collectible items, baseball cards, old toy trains, and a ton more. Items once thought rare were on eBay every day, they really werent all so rare after all...
Such as it was all over the country before the computer and the 'net opened up the world. Back in the 70's I remember being frustrated because we would look at the catalogs and inquire of the local dealers and were told that there were models they 'just couldn't seem to get'. Come to find out, it was usually that popular models were being gouged for premium prices by the distributors and the company reps were steering the product to certain areas and favorite customers ( and who knows for what recompense aside from their employment salary and commissions ?)
A recent thread on one of the old catalogs and the prices listed simply reminded me that the disconnect between what was purported to be available (that we never even saw) and the disparity between what the S&W catalog said the price should be and what the selling price actually was from a retail store (should you ever even see a specimen) was quite different. And the gun magazines, as usual, only fueled fires and painted unrealistic pictures for a lot of us.
Like the old song said, "
what is and what should never be". Human nature and economics. Young people today may intellectually be able to grasp and realize what I'm talking about, but those who grew up with the internet take for granted that Texas or California or Tokyo for that matter is a lot 'closer' and more accessible to the Average Joe in Backwater, USA, than in just a few short years past. Many of us who are buying these guns today from all over the country simply did not have the access to them, the opportunity, or the money to pursue our hobby such when we were younger.
When there is a only finite amount of product available and more people want it, the price of eggs goes up. It's just that now the potential realistic purchasing pool has expanded beyond the wildest dreams of sellers from just a few years ago.
