Holy cats! A $625 M1917 Eddystone!

[Buckshot]

From Dennis at Empire Arms:

"U.S.A. Model of 1917 bolt-action infantry rifle # 658594 (.30-06) mfg. by Eddystone in May 1918. Near Excellent condition with 98% or better light-gray Parkerizing and a somewhat bright bore. Stock has a few handling-marks from actual use, front handguard is beech. Not import-marked. PHOTOS . . . $625. C&R SOLD"

And it sold, with a 'Somewhat bright bore' !? Egads, I better get a safety deposit box for mine.

...............Buckshot

[Four Fingers of Death]

From Dennis at Empire Arms:

"U.S.A. Model of 1917 bolt-action infantry rifle # 658594 (.30-06) mfg. by Eddystone in May 1918. Near Excellent condition with 98% or better light-gray Parkerizing and a somewhat bright bore. Stock has a few handling-marks from actual use, front handguard is beech. Not import-marked. PHOTOS . . . $625. C&R SOLD"

And it sold, with a 'Somewhat bright bore' !? Egads, I better get a safety deposit box for mine.

...............Buckshot

I must have another look at the $250 one I saw recently, it was about the same as above but the bbl was a bit more worn, although it wasn't clean and it was a bit dirty and I didn't have my glasses with me.

I normally turn my nose up at Eddystones, I have a Remington M17, a Winchester P14 sniper (sporterised unfortunately) and a P14 Eddy which has Dutch naval markings. they cost me $250, $165 and $150 respectively.

Mick.

[XBT]

I found one of these in a pawnshop a few years ago and bought it for $80.00. It was all original except for the stock, which had been “sporterised”. I found a new unissued stock for another $80.00 so for $160.00 I have a nice, if not “technically correct” example of a 1917.

The 1917 is not one of my favorite rifles, (too clunky looking) but if you’re going to collect military rifles ya gotta have one of each.

The gun looks and shoots fine, but if someone offered me $625.00 for it, well......I'd be looking for another!

Jim

[StarMetal]

I know some of you like Empire Arms, heck I even bought a few rifles from him, but as of lately he has become the Ebay of milsurps. You can buy just about any factory rifle new for his prices. They are out of sight. What a bunch of kooks collectors have become. Like I said before, if someone gave me Billy the Kid's six shooter I'd shoot the hell out of it. Life is too short to let a gun set because it's a collectors item. Let it set for what?, so some other SOB can have it when you pass on? Nope, I'm shooting it.

I reckon when BlueSky I think it was had all those M1 carbines for $169 back in the 80's that I should have bought a basement full of them. Dennis is selling them for like $625. I'd be rich.

Buckshot, I don't care how much work Dennis does or even if he has to shoot his way out of some drug lord own area in South America, he sells his guns for too much money and suckers pay it.

You think the 1917 Enfield was high, how about the Krag he sold for $900 something? Nope, nuts.

Joe

[BruceB]

It's not at all uncommon for Krags to be priced at over $2000, although I don't know if they actually SELL for such prices. I once ran across a Krag rifle that was almost virginal on the outside, but the bore looked like a sewer pipe...an ANCIENT sewer pipe. What a crime. At the last Big Reno Show I attended, there were a lot more Krags priced over $1000 than under, and not worth the prices asked, in my opinion.

I happen to know the gent who owned and organised the Blue Sky operation which brought in all those Carbines and Garands from South Korea, and he also owned Harrington & Richardson at the same time. Very interesting, to hear the inside stories of the intrigues, infighting and plotting that go into such deals.

'Way back around 1970, I visited Lever Arms in Vancouver, British Columbia, and they had M1 Carbines hanging everywhere, stacked in corners, piled on counters, HUNDREDS of Carbines, for a flat $66 each. Times have changed. I foolishly turned down a very nice Inland-built Carbine a short while back because it had a rollover-cheekpieced sporter stock that was unusable for us left-handers. Apart from that it was as-issued and in excellent condition, for $240...one more to kick myself about.

I've never warmed up to the P14/M1917 myself, although I've owned a couple. The best one was a nicely-done sporter P14 in .300 H&H...and it was STILL too clunky for my taste. I've seen some Remington M30s I wouldn't mind owning, though.

Prices for old guns are always going up, and I sure wish I'd socked away a few of them. Persian Lugers in excellent condition were once available for $40, which in today's money might be several hundred dollars, but the guns are selling for $5000 and more. Now, that is a "good investment".

I'm with Joe...if I own it, it's gonna get shot.

[Frank46]

BruceB, don't you just wish the "Good Old Days" would return??. My M1 is a blue sky and think I paid about $250 for it.Walked into my buddy's gun shop and he was standing there watching the guys ripping open the boxes (thats how fast they went) checking for good bores and such. Mine was a WW2 springfield with nice bore and a national match op rod. Looked like a ticker tape parade the way those boxes were flying. In less than two weeks 80 garands went out the door. Another dealer back in NY had a small shop. Had racks lining the walls with #1MK3's all with WW1 dates. $20 bucks and out the door. Last decent carbine I bought was a blue sky in really nice shape w/crappy stock (since replaced w/ birch M2 stock) and paid $495 for it, has win proof mark on bbl. Ah well we can only dream about yesteryear. Frank

[Four Fingers of Death]

BruceB, don't you just wish the "Good Old Days" would return??. My M1 is a blue sky and think I paid about $250 for it.Walked into my buddy's gun shop and he was standing there watching the guys ripping open the boxes (thats how fast they went) checking for good bores and such. Mine was a WW2 springfield with nice bore and a national match op rod. Looked like a ticker tape parade the way those boxes were flying. In less than two weeks 80 garands went out the door. Another dealer back in NY had a small shop. Had racks lining the walls with #1MK3's all with WW1 dates. $20 bucks and out the door. Last decent carbine I bought was a blue sky in really nice shape w/crappy stock (since replaced w/ birch M2 stock) and paid $495 for it, has win proof mark on bbl. Ah well we can only dream about yesteryear. Frank

Trouble with the good old days is that we mostly didn't know sh*t from soy beans and didn't take advantage of it. Its a shame, youth is wasted on the young.

When I was a lad in Australia, almost every gunshop had a barrel in the middle of the shop full of Martini Cadets. One of these became my first centrefire.

[Shepherd2]

Empire Arms listed a Eddystone 1917 with bayonet yesterday at $725. It didn't last too long.

[Buckshot]

Empire Arms listed a Eddystone 1917 with bayonet yesterday at $725. It didn't last too long.

Yeah I saw that one also on the Dennis's 2nd list. Zounds! And a M96 Swede, sounded nice and with an un-numbered barrel band for $325 and a nice M38 Swede for what? $525 was it? Heck, I could sell my Ljungman with the spare new in the wrap barrel and 3 other magazines and other parts, one of my M96's, a M38, the M94 and buy a good used milling machine!

.............Buckshot