True original garands that are correct as to part series, barrel/reciever combinations are quite rare, and can get into the ten thousand dollar and up range easily. Most of the internals etc of a garand were intended to mix and match, and no armorer in the field was concerned about who made the part, just that it worked. Also as production continued into the 50's, a lot of the parts were modified. You find very few that are correct as they left the factory. You see them come up on cmp periodically at auction and demand high prices. Most are a combination of parts. Having said that there are many things that drive collectibility to people. Some want WWII years, some want a certain manufacturer such as IHC, some want certain no ranges and so on. Some of the better made ones were high number springfields, made after korea was winding down. Then once in a while you find the arsonel rebuilds, done in the later 40's, or 50's, often called white bag, because they were put in white bags, that were rebuilt and put away and never used/issued again. I have seen a few.
I got one of the M1D's from cmp too, but it was a earlier m1 in some of the parts made into a m1D at the ogden utah army base. Whats cool other than that is i have a carbine with elmer keiths cartouche on it from the same base, and a m38jeep that spent it's life there. I would say the earlier guns sold by dcm before cmp came into being were high end quality wise rifles, but not original as from the manufacturer. There are plenty of garands around, just getting harder and harder to find an example with mostly correct parts with a proper and correct barrel that is somewhat less than a golf ball in the bore.
There are in the hundreds of thousands of garand stranded overseas, thank hillery for that. A deal was signed, sealed, and ready to go to bring back quite a few, as well as carbines, and 1911's from south korea, some of these stored since manufacture in 50gallon drums. It was ready to go when the state dept under her squashed it.
if it would have happened i would be spending my retirement knee deep in cosmoline, picking through them. They all have their stories. One of mine is a prewar springfield by serial number, pre WWII that is, with a 1943 replacement barrel. You know that one didn't spend it's life in a armory. A rifle like the one in this post in europe, you have to wonder what the story is. I believe from memory the winchester equipment was sold to beretta, who made them for the italian army, and was for sure a parts supplier to denmark who was using garands up until the 90's. You can find beretta marked garand recievers. And other countries used them too. Cmp recieved back from italy a bunch of carbines a few years back refered to as F.A.T. carbines, because of that stamp on the wood. And the carbines that patton turned over to germany were returned to. They are a hoot because they were kept in much the same condition they were in 1945. I want to stress to look at everything on that rifle. A good piece of wood with the right cartouches and stamps alone can bring over 500bucks, not to mention some of the other parts.
It's hard not to drool on them, particularly when you see a collection of somebody that started collecting in the early 50's.
There is a guy in town here, if still alive, a lot of his toys are in pictures in the referenc books by canfield, ruth, and others. I use to have drool running down my chin going into his shop. I did buy a few items from him, i wish i would have used the home equity line of credit.
