Saginaw SG

Just thought I would share my Saginaw SG . DCM gun from 1967. Cam from Red River in Tx. Everything 

I think I speak for everyone who collects carbines. Had we known way back in the "Good Ole Days" that prices would be what they are today we would have bought a box car full of carbines.   

USMCdoc67 and Smoky1,

I started collecting carbines in the 1970s, and so I love to torture beginning collectors on how inexpensive and easy-to-find factory-original carbines were. But in 1970-1980 dollars, they weren't necessarily cheap.

But they WERE far easier on the pocketbook than today and with little risk of a bad purchase. There weren't any fake parts or cartouche stamps until the mid-80s or so.

My first carbine was a mixmaster Underwood for $150. Prices for carbines hovered between $200-250 for several years. My first factory-original carbine Inland 141314 with 1-43 bbl and type 1 extractor cost $225 at a Lakeland, FL gun show.

My first M1A1 was a great looking put-together. A complete minty factory-original Inland in the 500,000 range in a real nice low wood folding stock. $400, which was about twice what a common carbine sold for.

An absolutely mint Type 2 WRA, also for $400. I debated with myself for several days before "caving in" to that price. It had sat on a table at a Wheaton, Il. gunshow. No one who walked that popular gun show was willing to pay that kind of money for a common carbine!

At that same gun show, a dealer had a presentation Rock-Ola in the wooden case, but all of us wannabe experts passed on that gaudy polished blue carbine. It must be a commercial copy! Ugh!

Later, in the 1980s, I paid the exorbitant amount of $1000 for a minty original Irwin-Pedersen from the estate of a WWII Navy officer who served on an LST. A local dealer had purchased both this carbine and an M1911A1 from the widow.

Enough bragging...to put these incredible deals in perspective, these were 1970-1980 dollars, I had a mortgage and two kids, and I was also interested in M1 Rifles, M1911A1s, 03s. Both M1s and .45 pistols averaged $500, 03s and 03A3s were cheap. Nobody really collected 03A3s.

But yes - anyone with deep enough pockets to amass a large collection of all these firearms would've made great investments!   It's all relative. What will be worth a ton of money in 30-40 years? Figure that out and buy them up!

Enjoy your collecting and learning!

Regards, mb

I retired a year before you. I know exactly what you mean. I first noticed an Inland carbine in a shop for $120 a few years earlier but couldn't afford it at the time. My pay was a huge $7200/year at the time! I also paid $169 for my first DCM M1 rifle back then. I still have it and the original paperwork that came with it!