Friends,

I posted this on another forum on the 24HCF, but I thought that it would get more "hits" here.

Hey, join in and let's remember the days when you could just send a Money Order to Ye Olde Hunter and get a Swede M94 Carbine in the mail.

Blessings,

Steve

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Those who have gray hair, like me, remember the glory days of buying Swede Mausers from Ye Olde Hunter in the early-1960s.

The M96s were $22.50, but nobody wanted the longer barrel. M94 Carbines, selected ones, were $29.95. Just send in the money and they sent you a rifle.

I even had a Norwegian Krag in 6.5X55 that I bought absolutely mint (for $19.99 postpaid) and that was an elk killing SOB. I remember shooting one big bull right up the ass with a Norma factory 156-grain steel bullet ... the bullet ended up right next to his windpipe and it had expanded to 1�-inches; looked like a propellor.

Just as bad, when I was fourteen, I ordered a 50-pound keg of "4350 Data Powder" (H-4831) from Bruce Hodgdon. The cost was $14.95 postpaid and shipped by Railroad Express Agency. When the keg came in at the Portland train depot, I got a call.

Me and my friend, Ted, stole my dad's car and drove down to the train station. Heck, the old guys there even loaded the keg in the trunk of the car. One of the guys asked, "Steve, are you old enough to drive?" I answered quite truthfully, "Sir, I'm a lot more familiar with a Ford tractor, but I'm doing OK."

Can you imagine a skinny and very gunny 14-year old ordering and taking delivery on a 50-pound keg of powder in today's world? Frankly, we have lost our innocence and our trust and that is a very sad thing.

To put things in proportion, I started working at age ten to support my gun habit. I went to school and worked until 7 or 8 at night in an Associated gas station (remember the flying red horse). Gas was 17.9 a gallon and I worked for sixty cents an hour.

When Karen and I got married in 1964, I was working in a gun and reloading shop for $1.00 an hour; my boss gave me a raise to $1.25 the day we got married. We were both going to college and we bought our home the month before we were married. I'd go to PSU from 7AM until Noon, then work at the shop from 12:30 until 10PM. Then, I'd dive home and study. We finished university with no loans, totally paid for my job at the gun shop.

Then Dad & I started the jewelry store in 1966 (he died shortly after) and the rest is history.

God Bless,

Steve

PS. You might have fun with this. Scroll sloooowly down to Page 2:

http://www.gunsmagazine.com/1958issues/G0758.pdf

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The world has surely changed since those days and definitely not for the better.

i always wanted a .303 british enfield model 4, jungle carbine, hand picked for about 49.95. lack of money was the limiting factor.

back then, everything was priced right, but dollars to purchase such was in short supply.

Sears Roebuck catalog offered good value, as well.

When you go to the Ye Old Hunter ad, hold down your <Ctl> key and hit the + key on your Num Pad a few times ... that will magnify the ad and you can read the small print.

Prepare to puke.

But then, also imagine working for $1.00 an hour before taxes. Prices were kinda in proportion to what they are today.

After college, I inquired at the Oregon State Fish and Game Commission. With a four-year university degree, starting wages were $125 a month.

That's why I defaulted and started the jewelry store. Oh, one more thing; gold in 1966, when I started, was $35 oz.

Different world, different dollar.

Blessings,

Steve

as an add=on comment, in our part of poor Appalachia, we saw land prices double from $100 an acre to $200 dollars an acre as the demo's began the war on poverty, and the dirty little se asian war at the same time.

yep, the train was beginning to jump the track. President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and President Lyndon B. Johnson are ALL to blame.

We bought our home in 1964. It was brand new, 1500 sq/ft, one level on a 110'X120' lot. Price was $13,500 and we still live in it, 49 years later.

I had the loan paid off in 1972 ... worked like hell, but it needed to be done.

God Bless,

Steve

I lost it in hurricane Charley but I had a box from Weatherby with a picture of a rifle on it and the postage stamps and cancellation ON THE BOX!

yep. all this change in one lifetime is difficult to digest, for sure.

my mom, a rosie the riveter type, just swears that the japanese are behind it all. lol.

seriously, my first cousin a few years older than me, bought a house in 1964 while doing shift work at GM. low interest rates and low cost house. by the time i got out of the military in 1972, housing prices and interest rates were on the increase. gun prices were escalating also.

some neighbors had 14 percent mortgage rates. land prices were loose and floating skyward.

how best to intrepret this mess remains job one.

I remember a $25 NRA 03-A3. It was my start.

the last one of those offered to me was about 20 years ago, and they wanted $150 for it at the time.

i passed. probably shouldn't have, though.

Lee Harvey Oswald purported obtained his 6.5 Carcano throw the mail, and that is responsible for no more mail order guns. See Gun Control Act of 1968.

I bought a 1917 Enfield (Winchester) from J.C. Whitney for $9.95 delivered by mail. Had the ears milled and barrel shortened to 22 inches and put in a stock for another $10. Bought a Savage 20 ga single shot from the Fuller Brush Man. Graduated to a Win 70 (pre 64) in 270 win with 4x Leupold for $110.

I think I still have Guns and Ammo magazines with those mail order ads in them..If not G & A some others for sure..Along with those ads I remember visiting the local gas station where the guy traded guns along with selling gas and tires..His gun room was lined with rifles and shotguns..Model 12's for $55-65...Krags were about $20 as I remember..Springfields $25, model 94's $35-50..Model 70's were around $60-65..Very few rifles had scopes on them..days gone by.....

Did not do mail order firearms, but I remember flying from SeaTac, Wa to Washington DC with three rifles I brought along as carry on.

Back then, when I was maybe 13, a friend showed me an add in Shotgun News for a sxs 16 ga French shotgun sold by Vic's for Guns somewhere in the south. NRA good was $35 and very good $45. I saved a bit more ($45) and shoved fives and ones into an envelope bound for Vic's. My friend, now departed, opted for the good model. A couple of weeks later the postmaster saw me and said he was sure he had something I was looking for. He then just handed me the box and all he got in return was a thank-you.

After shooting the gun for quite a while, I broke a striker. I promptly contacted Vic's and they had them but wanted the outrageous sum of $7.50. I sold the gun for $35 to one of the town kids whose dad had a machine shop. His dad ginned out a pin for him.

After I had graduated from the 22nd grade, I returned to my home town and bought a house next to the guy to whom I had sold the gun. During the last couple of years of my formal education, I became almost obsessed with getting that gun back. I had so many fond memories of jump shooting ducks and bagging sharptails with it, I became almost paranoid that it might be long gone or never for sale.

One day I summoned up the courage to ask the neighbor what had happened to the gun. He said he still had it and if I wanted it back I would have to pay him as much as he paid me. Couldn't get the cash out fast enough. He threw in four of five boxes of shells, a few good stories and a cold beer. Happy day.

I later spent twenty times as much to have it fully restored. I thought it was a boxlock, but discovered it was a trigger plate gun. I still have it. I believed it was magic, cuz it would hit anything I pointed it at. It would be a fair number of years yet before I learned about gun fit.

I well remember Ye Olde Hunter. My Old Man would let me "read" his American Rifleman mags before I was in kindergarden. I absolutely loved them. To see the changes of the last 60 years could make a gray haired old man cry.

I'm not quite that old, but my father-in-law bought an 03 after he got back from his second tour as a Ranger in the Korean War. Restocked it himself with a Herter's stock. I'd listened to many hunting stories when I was dating my (now) wife.

I wished with all my heart I could have taken him hunting later in life. Although his two sons have his guns, I have the flag from his funeral - my MIL gave it to my wife, said, "Bob will know how to care for this."

Bob

The loss of freedom and liberty in this country has happened gradually. We really are the boiled frog and it will only get worse.

When I was shooting smallbore in the 50s and 60s, we often had DCM rifles come to the club and members could buy them. Over the years, I bought a couple of Springfield 03-A3s for $12.00, two M1 Carbines for $25.00 (I still have one) and two Ruger Mark 1 target pistols for $20.00 each.

All were in cosmoline and wrapped in that brown oil paper.

I remember learning that my buddy's dad owned a cleaning shop and that the "live steam" worked magic on that damned goopy cosmoline. Blasted the stuff all over my jeans, but who cares about that???

Andy & Bax Surplus Store, down on Union Avenue, used to have some cool stuff back in the late-40s and early-50s. I remember walking in there with my dad about 1952 and they had several 55-gallon oil drums with British SMLE rifles shoved in like cordwood ... $15 each ... you pick.

Hell, we each had to buy one, mine was in better shape, but Dad gave up after checking out ten or so. I prolly handled 50 and came up with a real new one. Bax gave me 100 rounds of .303 ammo when I bought the SMLE with a bunch of my shoeshine money.

Dad asked, "Where's MY ammo?"

Bax said, "Ammo is for KIDS ONLY" and gave Dad a big grin "

Different world. Almost all of the men were Vets and they had no time for queers, pedaphiles and weird [bleep]. A better world in many ways and I miss it.

God Bless,

Steve

Last time I sent a pistol to S&W for service I found it left on my front porch - and I lived on a fairly busy road. It wasn't that long ago at all.

I worked at a lake resort near our home, started at 25 cents an hour and quickly moved all the way up to 35. That was the meanest boss I ever had and the hardest I ever worked, I doubt the owner is in a good place.

as I mentioned in another thread, my first gun purchase was with a coupon out of Outdoor Life, and delivered to me at the Railway Express Agency office in Jacksonville.
I was 15, and there were no questions asked.

I used to put my shotgun or rifle in my car and take it to school so we could hunt after school and lo and behold I never massacred anyone. If a kid took a rifle to school these days they would call out SWAT teams from 10 different counties and storm the school.

Well the GCA'68 was and is unconstitutional- CT Senator Thomas Dodd was pretty much the guy on that piece of crap legislation and they only manage to do it because LBJ decided not to run and it would not cost him politically. Dodd was censured the only one so far. The GCA'68 is pretty much a carbon copy of the 1938 Gun Control laws enacted in Germany, Dodd had the original copy of that law, he spoke german and use the 1938 German Law to craft the GCA'68. If anything it needs to be repealed. As for buying guns mail order, those were the days, we sit here and look at 29 dollars for a Swede in A-1 condition, but we do remember how long one had to work in order to spend that 29 dollars. That amount would have been about 33% of my mom weekly income in 1964. In other words a lot of money. On thing is that in 1964 the Swedish Government had a few warehouses full of them, now well they are becoming hard to come by. Some times I wished I was born and was done living by 1960 at the age of 65 or 70. I don't even recognize the country that I was born in anymore, and I am just 58!

You're not alone. I'm 47 and I don't recognize it.