The Top Investment Guns from WW2 Going up in Value in 2021
Yet another Show and Tell
Hey guys, and welcome to another show and tell video. Now, if you watch Netflix, you know, whenever they have a series, each episode they start out with a review of what happened last time to kind of get you caught up. It's not really helpful to me because I binge-watch, but in these videos, we're only sending them out every couple of days. So let me remind you.
Quick Recap
Our first video from the Andrews collection, we just showed you the spread of guns. This is actually about 200 guns laid out on our floor out of a total of 700. Then we followed up a couple days later and we focused on some of the factory errors that we found in the collection.
Now for today’s Show...
And today's theme, I want to talk about guns as an investment. I came across some pieces of literature that I'm going to show you and just show you have prices have changed over the last 20-30 years, and in some cases, 80 years. So I thought that would be educational. And I'm also going to teach you something new about Walthers, or at least I think it's something new. Just when you thought I can't teach you anything new about Walthers, lo and behold, I have something new to show you.
A Memorial Day Salute
Now to put this video in context, yesterday was Memorial Day. And I always would love to do a Memorial Day special because I really believe in honoring the troops, but didn't get it done and took some days off. Today is Tuesday, after Memorial Day. And so right at the end of this video, I have a Memorial Day salute to the veterans, which I want to show you. So stay tuned to the end. I'm not so manly, that I'm not ashamed to say this video brought tears to my eyes. So it will be at the end of the video when I'm all done.
A Lot of Literature on the Don Andrews Collection
Okay, I mentioned I'm going to start off with some literature. There was actually a lot of literature with his collection. And again, this is Don Andrews from New Orleans. And I did get a lot of feedback about going down there but not in July or August, so thank you for your tips on that. But getting back to the literature.
The Geco Catalog
This is a Geco not Geico, but a Geco catalog. Now they were a retailer. I know that they sold in Germany, pre-war period and I'll show you some of this. When I come up close, but also we got a Beretta in this collection, I can't get my hands on it right now because it's in one of the boxes. I'll dig it up and put it in the next video. But there's actually a Geco logo on an Italian Beretta. So that was also a gun that they sold. So it's a German retailer from the pre-war period. Here, check out this catalog.
Inside the Catalog
Now my German viewers will especially like this because they'll be able to figure out what all this means. But I can tell this is from the early pre-war period, notice the 90-degree safety. We're going to talk about early guns in just a minute. And of course, they sold the Mausers, there's a WTP we have some of those in the collection and they were selling for 27 Reichsmarks. Now I can't translate that in today's money, but I guarantee that there's inflation involved. Then you see a 1910, 1910-14. Here's some of the Walthers again, you can see the 90-degree safety so that's early.
Can't really tell that's a brown grip, but it has to be a brown grip. And this magazine, I've seen pictures of that magazine before, but I've never seen one. There is an HSC magazine that looks like that. Again, it's somewhere in this pile of guns. Maybe I'll show it to you. But I've seen an HSC magazine that looks like that but I think that must have been like an artist's rendition because I've not seen that magazine before. Of course, we've seen that magazine. So that's the Radom Night Sight and you can see the price is 2.60 Reichsmark but today that's about $500. So quite a bit in inflation and you see the Walther banner only magazine. There's a gun 90-degree and it looks like a fat hammer. I'm going to talk about that -- heavy hammer I should say.
I would love to get my hands on These
Now there's the model 9; you can see the model 9 with the etched slide and the model 8. Cool looking guns and they sold Sauers. Dural aluminium, that's a rare one to find. I wish I could go shopping in this store. I'll show you some others that are kind of cool. There's the Menz which was pretty rare. They tell me that Hitler carried a Menz for a little while, I don't know that that's true, but I read it on the internet so I guess it has to be true. Check out these guns, just love these. These are fully engraved, Sauers and Walthers. That's a Walther PP of course but there's a model 8 fully engraved, and a model 9 fully engraved, and a Mauser almost fully engraved. But check out those grips. So these are all real variations that I would love to get my hands on today. You see the Olympias, target pistols. And then in this collection, we've got some Franz stock. And Franz stock is not a gun that I come across very often, but he had a number of them in the collection, they tend to all be 22 target pistols.
They also had Holsters
Here's some holsters that they highlight. We do so these very thin holsters, I get those from time to time. Actually a guy in Germany sends them to me fairly often. And they show the use of a shoulder holster; there's some more shoulder holsters. This style of shoulder holster we get from time to time.
British or American Soldier
This made me chuckle a little bit, although the Brits may not appreciate it. Actually, that could be British or American, I was going to say you got the pancake helmet. So their target practice was British soldiers. But actually, lest I forget, between the wars, the US army would have had the same helmet at that time. So they took target practice shooting American and British soldiers.
A few Conversion Kits were available Too
Those are the conversion kits we've shown those before. And we've shown this device before, which is the conversion kit to 22 caliber for the Luger, and more conversion kits.
A 1966 Sales Catalog from Hunters Lodge
Now just to make this a little more applicable for all of you who speak English, here's a sales catalog and this is from 1966. If you see that right at the top, so in 1966, the Carbine, the M1-Carbine and that is converted to Korean War version, you can tell by the bayo lug, $66. And if we look down, we see the SVW - K98, that's actually a post-war French model. But you could buy those for 30 bucks, and other K98s are $30 - $35.
You just kind of look through and you can just see incredible bargains. So my point is would you like to have loaded up on this stuff back then. And today as I go through the guns, I'm going to talk a little bit about the investment value of these guns. Finally, you see a Norwegian Colt, only 50 bucks. Those easily so for $2,500 - $3,000; and if it's a 1945 with a Waffen stamp on it, it can easily be $7000 - $8,000. So you can see the value of collectibles and particularly collectible handguns have gone up quite a bit. Now, this came from Hunters Lodge, which was a division of interarms right there in Alexandria, Virginia. I don't know if Hunters Lodge is still in business, but I know their business has cut way back.
Guns as an Investment
So when we talk about guns as investments, one of my first points, of course, condition, but also making sure that they're real. They're not refinished, they don't have fake markings. So let's come a little bit closer. And let me show you a fairly rare Walther PPK, one of them that came out of this collection had some fake markings.
Real vs Fake, starting with the Safety
So first, we'll just take a look at these two guns. This one, of course, is in better condition and probably a better investment. You know that these are early, I think these are from about 1935. You can see the 90-degree safety, later it went to a 60 degree. Now the reason being if you're new to this channel, when you push this down, it hits. This tends to warp a little bit and separate right at the top. And so often it would hit and chip, right there. So the 90-degree safety was switched to a 60 degree so it stopped there. And you would have less problem with the grip.
Guess What! The Postal Inspectors Visited Me!
This is DRP. We did a whole video on the DRP which is the German Postal System. And again, I did a whole video on this variation. Yes, the Postal Inspectors did carry guns and they do today as well. I know because they visited me about missing guns. Not that I took any guns but we had guns go missing and the Postal Inspectors came in, because they were mailed.
Real vs Fake, the Serial Number
You see the serial number here is 912. And the serial number on this one is a little easier to read because somebody put the white wax pencil in there. This is not English-made, which means at some point it went to England, but you can see it's in the correct serial range for a DRP.
Why would you put Waffen Stamps on this Gun?
So this is a real DRP but some idiot decided to put Waffen stamps. Now these Waffen stamps aren't very good. First of all from the serial range 1935, they didn't have any Waffen stamped guns; that didn't start until about 1939. When the war started, they began to buy them for officers and Waffen stamping them at that point. Also you can see this stamp compared to a real one. It's very different, there's a lot more curve in it and also it's almost perfect, and it does say 359 there if you can read it.
A Real Waffen Proof Stamp
But a real one, you can almost barely read them. Here's examples of Waffen proofed guns. And again, most of those come from the wartime period, not this early pre-war gun.
How is the Value Affected?
So what does that do to the value? Well, it certainly doesn't help it at all. This gun would certainly sell as a shooter grade gun or a conversation piece. Probably somebody would be willing to pay about $1,000 for this gun, whereas a real -- Well, this was a real DRP. This DRP would sell for about $3,000 because it is a rare variation and sought after. In fact, people who work for the post office have called and said they want to buy a DRP - German Postal Service. So it cuts the price significantly.
This Gun made it to Freedom
Everything else on the gun is original. You may have noticed some of the markings I just want to point out not English-made, those are British proofs. So it could have been captured by a British soldier, brought to England, they made them mark them and those of you from England know that they made them stamp them and almost ruined the gun, but then they went even further and said all these guns had to be deactivated. Luckily, this one got out of England and made its way to the United States where could live free and happy and shoot another day.
The Evolution of the PP
Next, I want to show you two early PP variations, kind of fairly interesting in terms of how the production evolved a little bit. So come take a closer look. Let's take a look at this one first. Again, I apologize, these are dirty. And I mentioned that it's just impossible for me to go through 700 guns and clean them all. I will get to it but I'd rather show them to you. This is a very early gun, in fact, check this out.
Characteristics of the Very Early Guns
The first characteristic of the very early guns is the serial number is reversed on all the Walther's that you'll look at that you probably see, the serial number would be facing this way, on the earliest of guns they are reverse. So they faced this way. Now how early is this? Production started at 750,000. So this is the 302nd Walther PP made in the Walther factory. Another early characteristic is, if you know Walthers, they stamped them here, proof stamp here and the ejection port, and you'll notice these early ones, they stamped them on the frame and the slide, not on the ejection port. They still stamped them on the barrel, and you can just barely see that right there. The other early feature on this is the ejection port is blued.
3000 Guns Later
Later on and you can see how early this one is, this one is 753. So this is 3000 guns later, you still see that they're putting the stamp here and here, not on the ejection port, but here the ejection port is bare metal. This one is also pantographed, which pantographed means that the serial number is reversed but it's also written right here.
How do we know this was a bank Gun?
Those of you who know Walthers, that means this was a bank gun. The bank armory numbered these. They ordered the guns, they ordered them in 22 caliber and 32 caliber, this one went to a bank. It was numbered here, they call it pantograph because it's done horizontally. The bank guns are the only ones who do that. And then they also would number the magazine right here on the finger extension. In this case, it doesn't quite match but it's really early, I think that's 750. By the way, they are crudely done. The last three digits are 160. And so it's not matching, but it is an early bank gun. And often the bank guns have painted sights, red and then yellow; this one is not painted, not a big deal. These were done in the bank armory before they went to the banks - bank guards and bank tellers and probably in desk drawers and things like that. They are distinct in that they were numbered at the armory here and here. And then if they had painted sight that was done at the armory as well.
Back to the Earlier Gun
So let's go back to the early one, I'll wipe it down a little bit. The condition is pretty nice. This was made in 1929 because that's when production started. You'll notice that this is a fat safety. Now to find one with the original 90-degree fat safety, you'll notice it hits there. And again, that's why they changed it to 60 degree but if I push it a little bit, it goes to 90. So a fat safety, you can compare that to this. You see the safety, fat safety was the earliest production and then very quickly by 3000, they had gone to a smaller safety, and then also a heavy hammer. Look at the hammer here and look at the hammer here. This is a heavier hammer. So heavy hammer, fat safety; it reminds me of the video we did about early Colts where we talked about the differences and how they changed production soon after they came out. Soon after the Walther PP and then later the PPK came out, they made production changes.
Spotting the X-Grip
Now what I'm going to show you about the grip, without even looking, this is going to be an X grip, which means on the inside there's an X. I'm going to take this off and show it to you. But the way I can tell without even taking it off, see the gap at the top, the X grips were just a little bit smaller. People have bought X grips from me and said they don't fit properly, there's a space at the top. The X grips have that little extra space, they're a little bit smaller, this will be a weighted grip, not an X grip. So by number 3000 they had gotten away from the X grip and they went the weighted grip. I will show you that as soon as I show you a couple other features.
More Features that Evolved
One other thing about these, notice the extended barrel. The barrel is slightly extended and that is an early feature. Let me show you a comparison with a later gun. This one at the top happens to be 22 caliber but I had it on my floor here. And you can see very clearly that the bottom one has that extended barrel. And that was an early feature compared to the barrels that are not quite flush, but there's only a slight extension on the later wartime guns.
How the Grips Evolved
Once again, these are the X grips, those are the earliest variation. And they only use these for the first couple thousand. So that was 1929 into early '30. Then they went to the weighted grip and weighted because you can see they're weighted to make them heavier and more durable. One of the problems they found is the weights caused cracking because it would expand and contract. And so almost all of the weighted grips that I see -- this one does not have it, but there's a separation right here. And so when people say I want a perfect grip, see how that goes all the way down, looks like a crack.
Technically it's not a crack, well it is a crack, but it's separation, right here from the weight. That's where the weight is inserted. And so weighted grips often have that crack, some of them are far worse and some of them look more like that, which you really can't see it. And then during the war, so starting in about late '39-'40, they went to the hollow grip. Again, the American, if you know 1911s they had reinforced grips and hollowed grips. This was the hollow grip that they used during the war and right up to the end of the war.
The Enclosed Firing Pin
One last feature is the enclosed firing pin. Now this is actually a two-piece firing pin, I can't get these off, they're very difficult to get off, so it's an ordeal to try to change the firing pin. Two-piece firing pin is enclosed. They did that up to I think about 1933 and then they simplified it. This is actually the DRP. Remember the DRP I just showed you, from about 1933 on, it's got that open firing pin. And that's a lot easier to get out. And you can see it in there, you can press the firing pin and see it move. Here, it's enclosed. So that's also an early feature.
Another feature that some may Miss
One other point is I won't be able to show it to you. Oh, maybe you can get they would have the last three digits of the serial number right here on the inside of the slide. So it's just scratched in there with an ice pack or a nail. Very crudely done. And that one looks like 408. And then on this one, they did the same thing, but all of them will be etched inside the slide. And the best way to see it is to shine a light in there and look around a little bit. People call me and say mine's not etched, it probably is. But again, it's very crudely done. It's not stamped, but just crudely scratched.
The Finish on the Early Gun
Finally I thought it would be good to show you the differences in finished. This is the early bank gun, the finish on that is a nice high polish finish. I didn't bother putting the grips back on, because I wanted to hurry and get this video done. But that's what that finish looks like.
A Quick Run Down of a Later Guns
Here is one of the last ones made. Notice there's no slide legend which tells me it has to be 1945. And look at that, I can tell you that that is definitely weighted grips. But again, I mentioned in other videos, at the end of the war they were using up old stock. And I'm convinced that all these grips that came back cracked or any grips that cracked they threw them in a bin. They didn't throw them out but they saved them until the end of the war and they pulled them out. So a lot of the late war guns which should have the hollow interior has the weighted grip. You can see that no legend and AC marked, which is the factory code for Walther, this is matching, one of the last ones made. This is a phosphate part. And this hammer might be phosphate as well.
They did experiment with phosphate finishes at the end of the war, both at the Mauser factory and at the Walther factory. In fact, a lot of these -- good thing that worked out. This is a phosphated magazine with a blue bottom, often a W here, this one does not have the W. W would mean unhardened, so they skipped that process just to move things along quickly. So that gives you an idea of a very late war. This is in excellent condition, probably the way it looked when it left the factory. But you can see that it's not the high polish finish, it has eagle Ns and there will be one on the barrel. Oh talk about the extended barrel, this is a good example. This one has a slightly extended barrel and this one is fully extended. The later war gun would not have an enclosed firing pin.
Who did this 22 Caliber go to?
Digging through the pile a little bit more, I found this 22 caliber. Notice the painted sights. And for those of you who have been paying attention, who would you say this gun was issued to? That's right, it is a bank gun. Now in this case, it's a little bit later. In fact, this serial number is about -- there it is. I was going to say it's right about 1940, late 39, early 40. And sure enough, you see and this is just on the 22s, they put the eagle N stamp here and here. Normally the eagle N stamp would be here and here. But on the 22s for some reason they did it here and they also will have it on the end of the barrel.
So you do see the vertical pantographed serial number which matches the one on the frame. And then this is also numbered matching to the gun. Again, that was done at the bank Arsenal and issued to a bank guard or teller. This was 22. And they said that the women prefered the 22 that may be true, it may not be true, but they did, I mentioned before they made them in 22 caliber and 32 caliber. But this is a bank gun from 1940. I have seen bank guns all the way up to 1944. Late war PPKs with the black grip with the numbered magazine and serial number on the slide and the frame.
Moving on to the 9 Millimeters
Okay, you saw a 22 caliber, a 32 caliber, now I'm going to show you some 9-millimeters, this one in the original box. Now the 9-millimeters also had an evolution where they changed from the early 9-millimeter to a later 9-millimeter based on some flaws with the design. 9-millimeters, by the way, are only about 4% of the contract, the vast majority are 32 caliber. But about 4%, and again, this information is in the book that I have coming out, but we estimated that it's about 4% 9-millimeters.
So these are very rare. Going back to investment value, certainly if you find a box gun these just keep going up in value. Because again, when you get a gun at Christmas time, the first thing you do is rip open the box, throw it aside, go to the range, try it out, and often the boxes are lost. So it's only the most fastidious of Germans who actually kept the original box and kept them safely together. By now if you've been watching my channel, you've seen a lot of boxed guns, but I'm going to show you the differences between an early 9-millimeter and then a later 9-millimeter. I have a couple more to show you here.
The Early 9-Millimeters
So this is the early style box. We talked about this before, it has a bow tie label with a handwritten, this time it's in ink, but it's a handwritten serial number. I believe this is all original. You do see it says 9-millimeter. The green labels of course, you know are wrapped here and they're printed, not hand-numbered. So early box, pink interior, cleaning rod - we've talked about that before and it came in a little piece of cellophane. This German didn't even throw away the cellophane. And then you see the manual. This gun from serial number, is made in about 1935. So it has a manual that actually started out right about 1935. Before that was an earlier variation. You see the tin, it has the Walther factory. That's the early variation of tin. Let's see what kind of oiler it has. Oh, there it is. That's the right one. That's the early milk can with a rag and then again it has a spare magazine. So one of the things I wanted to show you about this, this is marked 9-millimeter because it is not marked here.
The Later 9-millimeter Magazines
Now later on the 9-nine millimeter magazine, the way you can tell is 9-millimeter is it has a reinforced follower. Let me show you that really quickly because that's the first change. They found that the rounds were too heavy, and they needed a reinforced follower and I'll show you what that looks like. This is a 9- millimeter PPK, which again, is a lot more rare, again than the PP. So these sell for incredible money, and very desirable. In terms of investment, I probably have a list of a dozen people who said, whenever you get a 9-millimeter PPK I'll take it. So this is an early bottom release 9- millimeter.
And in this case it's marked 9-millimeter but you see the reinforced follower. Notice that, you can see that solid here, solid here, as opposed to open and open. So the 9-millimeter is a reinforced follower and that was a change they made because of the heavier load. I assume they had problems with the magazines feeding correctly so they used a reinforced follower. There's other features that they changed.
More Features that Changed
The earlier nine millimeters, some of them came with a push button. And that seemed not to work too well. I'll show you one. Here's a push-button 9-millimeter, it happens to be completely engraved which is a bonus. But this had to be a special order because it's like just out of the middle of nowhere, somebody ordered a special order for an engraved 9-millimeter. This one has a push-button, not a bottom release. And it is 9-millimeter you can see it's marked here. The etched logo, it looks like somebody just added the 9-millimeter and it is indeed 9-millimeter. So this had to be a special order. It's early, this is from about 1936 and it has the push button. This is not from this collection this actually came from the earlier Peter Hischer collection and I still have it here because I can't bear to sell it.
Another Rare Gun
But here's another rare one. I showed you this one, when we first did the video about the 700 guns that came in. This is also pretty early. So right about the time that push button was made this one was also made and it does have a bottom release can see that, bottom release and we pull that out, and you can see that it is marked 9-millimeter. You do see the reinforced follower, a lot of grease in there. And I mentioned that this is a dural. Now they probably didn't do the push button on a dural because that definitely would weaken the frame. And the dural frame, which is another word for aluminium, this aluminium frame probably would not hold up real well with the impact of a 9-millimeter bullet. I pulled the slide off you can see how this aluminium frame, the finish it's actually an anodized paint, look how red that is in there. But that's not what I wanted to show. Actually a researcher told me about this feature.
The Hold-Open
This is the hold-open. The early ones had the regular hold-open but what they found is with the additional charge or the power of a 9-millimeter continually hitting that hold-open when the slide slammed back it had to be reinforced so they actually changed the hold-open. This is the part where you guys learn something new I hope, because this is something I didn't know about. So this is a 9-millimeter it has the standard hold-open that you see in every PP and PPK, and this one which is from about 1938, so by 1936 they realized they had a problem.
Idiots in Both Worlds
There is an idiot scratch. You think only 1911s have idiot scratch but there's a little spring in there and to remove this and put it back in you have to depress that spring and somebody took a screwdriver and made an idiot mark. So there's idiots in the Walther collector world as well as the Colt world, but look at that, it's been reinforced.
Regular vs Reinforced
Let me show you the two here's your regular hold-open and there's the reinforced hold- open. They were trying to reduce the stress fractures that might happen on the frame. Now I have bought a lot of guns and I haven't seen damaged 9-millimeter frames, so I don't know how big a problem it was. But certainly the metallurgist were experimenting with this and trying to make sure that these were as safe as possible which is why they went with the bottom release mag and the reinforced hold-open as well as the reinforced follower for the 9-millimeter.
Inspecting a 380 marked push-Button
Silly me I was about to move on and I never showed you the one in the box. There's the number on the box, again bow tie label. Fairly early gun, this was made in '35, right around the same time that they were making RZM PPKs not PPs. This one is, they say 380 which tells me this was exported to the United States because in Germany, or in any other European country, it would have been 9-millimeter.
This was made for export, although it is not Germany stamped. Look at the beautiful high polish finish, crown N, front strap. It's early enough. So again 1935, early enough that it was push-button, which makes it rare. 380 marked instead of 9-millimeter which makes it especially rare. So if 9- millimeters are only 4%, this one is like .01%. I've only seen one other that's marked 380 as opposed to 9-millimeter. And then the magazines are early, not reinforced follower, not 9-millimeter marked except somebody added that to the back. And in this case it does say 9-millimeter. So this was probably done in Germany because they obviously got confused, which is 9-millimeter and which is 7.65. So they added that and it has two magazines, both magazines marked 9-millimeter.
See the Crack
Now there are a couple internal features. First of all, I would guess that the hold-open is not reinforced but I wanted to mention, see the little separation right there. This is an absolutely stone mint gun and yet, people would say up, it's cracked. Well, that just tells me that the metal reinforcements, heat and cold again separated and cracked the plastic.
Now the internal features of the 380 Marked Gun
Let's take a look inside, we'll see if it has a reinforced hold-open, I actually haven't looked. But let's check it out. And I'm going to guess that it will have the standard hold-open. Okay, so it has the standard hold-open. And by the way, when I hold-open was strengthened it actually takes a notch out of the frame. And you can't really do that with the push button either. So there's a couple engineering design things that had to change. The button and the hold-open, it changed the look of the frame.
Only the 9-millimeter had these Pins
There's one other piece, these two little pins. Now I've heard about these pins before as an early feature on 9-millimeters. Some of you will write in and tell me a little bit more about it. But my understanding is they served as a guide to feed the bullet into the chamber. I could be wrong about that, but those two pins are not found on any other gun other than the early 9-millimeter PP or PPK and I'll show you another one just to show you the difference. All three 9-millimeters. So this one, no pins; this one is the dural, no pins, you got red but no pins. This one fairly early, and it has the pins. So those are some differences with the nine millimeters and I'm sure you learned something because I'm certainly learning things every time I open these up.
A Double Stamped Sauer 38H
Okay, quickly to non-Walthers. This is a Sauer 38H, it's very early. You can see it is 272. It does have the eagle N proof here and up here. What's unique about this one is the earliest ones. This is military proof, this is a double stamp. So the earliest ones had two proofs and of course, most of the ones that you will see that are Waffen stamped, it only has one proof. This is a rare double stamp and worth a bit more money.
In terms of investment value, rarity is a big feature, so this is a great investment gun because it's very rare, double stamped. Also, you know its original finish, and I'll show you how. You see this is a high polish finish. Well you can kind of tell just because it's worn, but if this was not worn and in perfect condition, you would say I wonder if it's been refinished. One way to tell is the back is a matte finish. So these early Sauer's had a high polish finish, but the back and the rail was matte, and that was to help with aiming so they wouldn't get glistening with the high polish finish. It just helps the aim, supposedly, but that's how these were made.
I think this feature is Bomb!
One cool feature about the Sauer, I love the takedown feature, you just pull that and this comes right off. But we'll leave it on because I wanted to show you the other feature, which I think is a better design than the Walther PP or PPK. So this feature when the gun is cocked, the trigger is back, and you can pull the trigger light, it's a light trigger pull. But you can decock it by doing that, that's the decocker but you can also cock it, so it's a decocker and a cocker. Go like that and you can cock the gun without racking the slide. So that's a unique feature for the 38H and a favorite among collectors. These are still relatively cheap compared to the Walther PPs and PPKs.
Gun Collectibles under $1,000
I mentioned in a video that these --not this one because it's a rare variation, but these Sauers are selling for under $1,000. And we got a bunch of them in that will be around $995 some of them a little over some of them under but you can still buy a very collectible Nazi era gun for under $1,000 with some really unique features.
1917 Artillery
And just to close out the gun portion. This gun came in from a different collection, not Andrews’ collection but I just wanted to show you the quality of this 1917 artillery. So these were made from 1914 - 1918. The rarest is the 1914, the most common is the 1917. These were made by DWM. They are known for having the longer barrel and the adjustable front sight. And so you can adjust this according to the meters, how far out your target is. Every part is numbered, so there's a 22 here, there's a 22 here, there's 22 under here. Every part is numbered to the gun. And that's one thing that is really special about Luger's. Notice the straw parts how they discolor over time but you know that these are all original. They do very slight halos you can't really see them but there are very slight halos on this and that just means this gun was almost never fired. The bore is absolutely mint. So this is like brand new condition 9-millimeter artillery Luger. The magazines would have come as a rig. This did not come as a rig; this magazine doesn't match. But originally it would have come with two extra magazines and a complete rig.
Let me Show You a Rig I had Lying around the Place
I'll show you a rig that I happen to have but it did not come with this gun. This would be the complete rig. Of course it has the straps that goes around your shoulder and the holster which would have a tool inside, there you see the tool. They often are dated in here. In this case, it's maker marked and dated right here, that's 1916. And it comes with a board, which is imperial proofed here. And then normally, this is called the boot. If you take this off, normally, if it came together as a rig, then this stock lug for attaching would be matching to the gun. And if you've seen me do this before, it's a very simple process of sliding this on to the stock lug on the back, I'm not going to force it because they are made the fit, they are custom made the fit. This one's a little tight, I'm not going to jam it up in there and cause some damage. But this is what the entire rig would look like. And they often came with a magazine pouch with two spare mags. So two spare mags, and one in the gun would make three magazines altogether.
Great Investment Guns
Again, these are great investment guns. When I started, well, just recently, I was selling these for about $2500. When I started collecting these were about 15,000. Then last year, these were about $2500 - $2800. This year, this gun is going to be about $3500 - $3800 and that's without the holster and the board. So you can see how the prices have gone up. If you own a collection, that's great news; if you're trying to buy, it's very disappointing news. But they tend to move where guns will go up and then kind of plateau for a while, that's what my prediction would be. These will now plateau for a while, stay at these high prices. And then next big event where people aren't buying guns a lot or collectibles because they're uncertain about the future, then the prices continue to go up again.
Wrapping up
So to wrap up the investment part of this video, unlike stocks and things, I really believe in dollar cost averaging where you're buying stocks on a regular basis like through your 401K or your retirement plan because the prices go up and down. With collectibles, they tend to go up and kind of plateau for a while and then go up and plateau for a while, but I still think it's a good idea to buy quality guns and just buy a little bit at a time. And that way little by little and some of you written to me and said I'm young I'm just getting started. I only have one gun and that's a great place to start.
Actually buy a book would be the better place to start. Buy a book, watch the videos, know what you're getting and just buy quality investments from people that you can trust. If you hold the gun for a year and then want your money back. You may not get your money back, especially from a wholesaler who's going to buy it at a price where they can sell it and make a profit. That's what we do. We buy our own guns back but if they haven't gone up much, we're not going to pay you what you paid for the gun. But if you hold them over a long period of time, this is long-term investment, 20 years from now, I'm sure that these guns will be significantly higher than they are today. They're not making the originals anymore.
Your Special Treat
Okay, now it's time for your special treat. I want to say thank you for watching the video and I want to end with this salute to our veterans.