GEEZ_--Is the Sky Falling? I am overrun with MP5's.......

[johnthedford]

NFA Sales have been in spurts. Now, no uzis for sale, no factory M16A1 for sale, no converted 16's for sale, no Reisings for sale, no MACS for sale, NO SWD M11 for sale, no MP40 for sale, etc. Sitting on a few AC556 and MP5 but that's about it. Been sitting on some HK MP5 for some time and the calls just aren't rolling in. Well, just bought MP5 #8 yesterday. Someone know something I don't? I posted a K gun on UT, with a 1K discount off of website price, and no bites. Everyone priced out of the market?

 

[Captain murrica]

I think your last sentence probably has a lot to do with it, I don’t know too many folks that can easily part with or justify hk money. I don’t know it to be true, but I’ve got the vibe that tube guns are popular at the moment.

 

[johnthedford]

I think your last sentence probably has a lot to do with it, I don’t know too many folks that can easily part with or justify hk money. I don’t know it to be true, but I’ve got the vibe that tube guns are popular at the moment.

I have offered one of the K guns to a couple very good customers at 31,200...they are doctors and can afford it, and still no buyers!

 

[Hey...]

$10k++ above what a Colt M16 brings is crazy money for a single gun. When I have an auction on Gunbroker pulled up and hold my hand over the price and ask someone to guess the price, people are floored when they find out and all I'm showing them is an Uzi.

$35k buys a lot of other fun desirable toys from used Dodge Vipers, Corvettes, boats, etc.

A guy that buys an MP5 usually has other MGs. Why pop $35k when literally the entire rest of the market is over 10k cheaper, and you already own other MGs to check that off your list?

Personally, I could sell a toy and buy an MP5 instead, but I can't justify that its truly better than the toy(s) I'd sell/trade.

 

[MPA guy]

Yeah, I'm priced out of the market. Have been for a long time. I can't justify that kind of cash. I paid less than that for my daily driver and it was brand new.

Once the market reaches the peak of what it'll stand, it corrects itself. Or sits and becomes stagnate.

 

[parrthed]

A friend of mine ,who is a doctor , finally just sold his Fleming sear gun. Then bought an M16

I toyed with buying it but bought 3 other machineguns instead

Just couldn't justify 35k for a gun/sear when I can get a m16 for 10k less

 

[rybread]

Priced out and fewer for sale- somewhere someone is hoarding!

 

[johnthedford]

Priced out and fewer for sale- somewhere someone is hoarding!

Well...I have eight in stock or incoming....but not hoarding by willingness

 

[rybread]

Well it will be interesting to see where it goes from a economic standpoint, given the uniqueness of the market- maybe a post surge ditch after the run up to the Trust changes?

 

[wanneroo]

The prices are so extreme now for one gun, what's the point? There are enough FFLs doing machine gun rentals with pre and post samples that why bother with ownership? I can spend a couple hundred bucks a few times a year to shoot a wide variety of MP5s, including a former 10mm FBI gun. I don't have to lay out $35-45K and deal with paperwork or other hassles.

About 15 years ago I was talking to this one wealthy guy about finances and ownership and as he explained he rented everything that had a high cost of ownership and that he didn't use often. That philosophy has served me well and I rent everything from Ferraris, vacation homes, race cars, machine guns, boats, etc and live a varied and free life as I'm not paying taxes, bureaucratic government costs, maintenance, storage, security, etc.

 

[rybread]

Yep good points, MG rental is far more accessible now. Really the only legit reason for ownership is collecting or competition... if you don’t have a home range what is the point? I’m moving to a city and only plan to keep my MAC for competition.

 

[nklf]

I think the market has topped out temporarily on HKs. I wanted a RR HK for a while, but I have a sear so no real need for a RR. At $30k+ for an HK I just don't see the price going up that much more. As a result it is hard to justify it as an investment. Other things are going up in value faster than HKs over the past few years. The sear gun shoots just as good as the RR. The only reason to buy the RR is for collector value or personal satisfaction of knowing it is closer to true military spec. I realize if you can go back in time to 1985 that $100 HK sear they were selling at the gun shows would have been a great investment. At $32k for a sear, I'm just not sure there is much room for the price to continue to increase. Just because someone can afford to pay $50k for a machine gun does not mean they are willing to.

From time to time I see BARs on the market. But they just do not sell. I think it is not that no one wants them its just that no one is willing to pay $45k to $50k to buy them.

 

[MG34_Dan]

I think the market has topped out temporarily on HKs. I wanted a RR HK for a while, but I have a sear so no real need for a RR. At $30k+ for an HK I just don't see the price going up that much more. As a result it is hard to justify it as an investment. Other things are going up in value faster than HKs over the past few years. The sear gun shoots just as good as the RR. The only reason to buy the RR is for collector value or personal satisfaction of knowing it is closer to true military spec. I realize if you can go back in time to 1985 that $100 HK sear they were selling at the gun shows would have been a great investment. At $32k for a sear, I'm just not sure there is much room for the price to continue to increase. Just because someone can afford to pay $50k for a machine gun does not mean they are willing to.
From time to time I see BARs on the market. But they just do not sell. I think it is not that no one wants them its just that no one is willing to pay $45k to $50k to buy them.

Yea, we've heard all this before. I paid under $2K for my Fleming RRPP MP5 is '87. When the market for them hit $10K at around 2000, I decided to get a less expensive subgun to play with. So got a Vector Uzi for ~$2800. Time marches on and so will prices. You need to pay to play.

As an aside; I would never, ever, rent out a transferrable machine gun for others to play with. Dealer samples only get rented out and I'm looking for BATF to put a halt to that someday.

 

[rybread]

Time is marching on however MGs have appreciated much faster than other comparable “toys” so your value proposition of a sports car versus an Hk has fundamentally shifted versus the “old days” where it may have been a car versus 3 SMGs.. then 2 and now one of you can find a good deal. At some point price exceeds demand thresholds and too many buyers peel off. On the sales side I still think we’re is a post surge ditch- a lot of those are still clogged up in the system.

 

[Mr.Maim]

I think the market for the HK platform is topping out, finally. It's been on a ridiculous rise for years. It's getting to the point where people are paying so much for MGs that they're unwilling to shoot them and that is unfortunate.

 

[wanneroo]

Yep good points, MG rental is far more accessible now. Really the only legit reason for ownership is collecting or competition... if you don’t have a home range what is the point? I’m moving to a city and only plan to keep my MAC for competition.

I actually own my own range with gated access so if I was going to start spending tens of thousands I'd rather open up a business with the appropriate FFLs and do NFA sales/transfers and rentals with pre and post samples from May to October.

 

[wanneroo]

I think the market has topped out temporarily on HKs. I wanted a RR HK for a while, but I have a sear so no real need for a RR. At $30k+ for an HK I just don't see the price going up that much more. As a result it is hard to justify it as an investment. Other things are going up in value faster than HKs over the past few years. The sear gun shoots just as good as the RR. The only reason to buy the RR is for collector value or personal satisfaction of knowing it is closer to true military spec. I realize if you can go back in time to 1985 that $100 HK sear they were selling at the gun shows would have been a great investment. At $32k for a sear, I'm just not sure there is much room for the price to continue to increase. Just because someone can afford to pay $50k for a machine gun does not mean they are willing to.

From time to time I see BARs on the market. But they just do not sell. I think it is not that no one wants them its just that no one is willing to pay $45k to $50k to buy them.

There are two types of moneyed people out there, those that build wealth and those that temporarily have a high income(nothing lasts forever). People don't get wealthy by throwing money around. I know some people who could write out a five figure check for a machine gun, no problem, but they don't see the value, nor believe that past gains on value will necessarily continue. In fact I know someone that loves BARs and wouldn't mind one, but not at those prices.

 

[wanneroo]

Yea, we've heard all this before. I paid under $2K for my Fleming RRPP MP5 is '87. When the market for them hit $10K at around 2000, I decided to get a less expensive subgun to play with. So got a Vector Uzi for ~$2800. Time marches on and so will prices. You need to pay to play.

As an aside; I would never, ever, rent out a transferrable machine gun for others to play with. Dealer samples only get rented out and I'm looking for BATF to put a halt to that someday.

The ATF is always capable of anything and everything but I think it's one of those government things where it's a controlled situation as post 86 guns are in the hands of a few FFLs and as long as people can have their fun, there is less pressure on the 1986 ban being in the spotlight. If they came out and found some sort of regulatory fix with standing in the law that prevented everyone from touching a sample under any circumstances, a lot more people I believe would begin to question the 1986 ban a lot more and put that in focus. I don't think the ATF wants that.

 

[Hey...]

M11/9 values are about to see a sizable jump after 2 years into the pending release of the m11/15 upper.

 

[MG34_Dan]

I think the market has topped out temporarily on HKs. I wanted a RR HK for a while, but I have a sear so no real need for a RR. At $30k+ for an HK I just don't see the price going up that much more. As a result it is hard to justify it as an investment. Other things are going up in value faster than HKs over the past few years. The sear gun shoots just as good as the RR. The only reason to buy the RR is for collector value or personal satisfaction of knowing it is closer to true military spec. I realize if you can go back in time to 1985 that $100 HK sear they were selling at the gun shows would have been a great investment. At $32k for a sear, I'm just not sure there is much room for the price to continue to increase. Just because someone can afford to pay $50k for a machine gun does not mean they are willing to.
From time to time I see BARs on the market. But they just do not sell. I think it is not that no one wants them its just that no one is willing to pay $45k to $50k to buy them.

There are two types of moneyed people out there, those that build wealth and those that temporarily have a high income(nothing lasts forever). People don't get wealthy by throwing money around. I know some people who could write out a five figure check for a machine gun, no problem, but they don't see the value, nor believe that past gains on value will necessarily continue. In fact I know someone that loves BARs and wouldn't mind one, but not at those prices.

It's clear that nklf wants to transition from a meat hunter to a trophy hunter. In this case it's not about being moneyed or not. It's about the personal desire to move up the perceived status chain to a higher level of toy collector. What's the old Hallmark Cards advertising slogan - “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best, only the best will do.” And I quote from his post above 'The only reason to buy the RR is for collector value or personal satisfaction of knowing it is closer to true military spec.'