Triggering the Time Machine

Vintage Gun Ads Are A Treasure Trove Of
Now-Collectible Classics And A Window To The
Past Glories Of The Shooting Sports.

By Payton Miller

Here’s a sure-fire antidote for the ammo-shortage blues. All the tiny type you could possibly squeeze into the most densely-packed full-page, black and white ad in the history of gun magazines. This 1957 exercise in vastly entertaining, outrageous hyperbole could have only come from Ye Old Hunter (aka Hunters Lodge of Alexandria, Virginia). Advertising copywriting hasn’t been the same since. I don’t know about you, but ads like this are what make reading vintage issues of GUNS such a gas:

AMMO MANIAC’S NIGHTMARE! 100 Rounds 7mm Mauser… $1.50! Ye Old Hunter rocks the world with this less-than-scrap-price bargain. Aged and selected 7mm guaranteed to be mostly unshootable, but an absolute treasure trove for the reloader-salvager. All brass cases and all beautiful full-patch bullets. The ammo offering of the century! Load up now as this bargain cannot last for long! MINIMUM ORDER 400 ROUNDS, please, to save expense. Others talk low prices but Ye Old Hunter delivers!

Looking for plink-able presents? The Christmas theme
livened up this colorful Hi-Standard ad from 1957.

The Weatherby Mk V was running strong in 1960, as was the
company’s line of proprietary magnum cartridges. At the time
the rifles were being made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn. If the tiger’s
face looks familiar to you old timers, it also once decorated
the 20-round boxes of Weatherby’s Norma-loaded ammo.

Besides the opportunity to gaze longingly at new-in-box examples of out-of-print classics or highly-desirable milsurp bolt actions having made the transition from battlefield pickup to investment status, however, the first thing to generally grab your attention are the prices. Younger readers fantasize “If only I’d have been around then,” while older ones reminisce “If only I would have known then…”

It’s a fun exercise in “what if” conjecture, but things aren’t so simple. Here’s an example: In a 1965 issue of this very magazine, an ad for Hunter’s Lodge lists a “Very Good-Condition DWM Artillery Model Luger” for $89.85. Enough to make you wish for a Wayback Machine with room for you, an empty rain-barrel and your checkbook, right?

Well, the actual purchasing power of a 1965 dollar would make your wished-for Luger cost the equivalent of $675 in 2014 dollars. Still a darn good deal, seeing as how the 34th Edition of S.P. Fjestad’s Blue Book of Gun Values lists the value of a 90-percent specimen at just north of $2,500. The sad and unavoidable factor here, in our current Internet age is, of course, availability. And scarcity is the driving force in setting real-world cash value—what you are actually going to have to pull out of your pocket and pony up. They just ain’t making Artillery Model Lugers any more. And if they were, the retail price of even a scrupulously exact CNC-machined replica would most likely equal—or surpass—the value of an original in anything resembling desirable condition.

High-country drama of the feline kind was the theme of
this 1957 Ruger ad featuring the now-classic .357 Blackhawk.

DEWATS (Deactivated War Trophies) were the rage back in
1950’s and early ’60’s—and one of the few ways you could
get your hands on full-auto classics. Getting a functioning
specimen of one of these SMG’s today—once you had your Class
III—would be a pricey proposition indeed.

Lugers, Lahtis, French MABs, Rubys, Brownings and Stars
were all there for the taking in this 1965 Hunter’s Lodge ad.

Although Lugers did have the “collectible cachet” pretty much cornered back in the very early 1960’s, today’s shooters would probably find the prospect of getting a minty Colt, Ithaca, or Springfield GI 1911A1 for under 40 bucks a fairly drool-worthy proposition. If you’ve seen military-issue beaters going for around $1,500 lately, you’ll understand.

Fantasizing about the prices is, of course, a perfectly socially acceptable guilty pleasure. But it’s also fun to see a model you lusted after as a kid and had maybe forgotten about. With me that covers a fairly eclectic assortment of models—Remington’s Model 600 and 788, Marlin’s “half-magazine” Model 336 in .219 Zipper, Browning’s Belgian-made Superposed O/U, Hi-Standard’s Supermatic and so many others there’s no room to list them here.

One other benefit in perusing old ads, however, is an educational one. Younger shooters may be surprised to discover the old saying “There’s nothing new under the sun,” actually has some merit. For example, if you thought interchangeable choke tubes came full-blown onto the scene in the mid-1980’s—and shotgunners back then were sentenced to either fixed chokes or bulbous external “Poly-Choke” devices—there’s the Armalite AR-17 Golden Gun. This was an ultimately unsuccessful autoloader featuring individual choke tubes, not to mention a synthetic stock. Year of introduction? Nineteen sixty-four. Weight? Five and a half pounds.

Unfortunately, time machines aren’t a reality yet. But next time you’re in a Golden Oldies frame of mind, you can give the next best thing a try by visiting gunsmagazine.com/classic-guns-magazine-editions/

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