Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Anyone pay attention to those reblued pre-64 M70's sold by RIA the other day?

Lots of rare calibers - 7.65, .35 Rem., .300 Sav. 9mm, .250, .257 Roberts, 7x57, .358, .35 Whelen, .284, .25/35, .219 Zipper. Many in rare configuration too, such as some of the rare calibers in carbines, .375 H&H in carbine and so on. Most reblued (they don't use the term reblue). I viewed them more as shooters rather than collector rifles. All purportedly originally chambered by Winchester and unaltered other than the finish and some with tap holes. I'm not so sure... but... a .300 Savage sold for $1600 - how wrong can you go? Oh, and a .358 featherweight went for $1200 (add the, "juice" of course).

Checked the catalog out in early April....have never even heard of 70's being chambered in some of these calibers and then an auction with a large number of supposed "one-offs' with a lot being professionally refinished....from the realized prices, looks like the bidders were rightfully skeptical. Would have been interesting to see the extractors, followers, springs and mag boxes used on those 'one of a kind' 70's.

I've bought a couple rifles through RIA and find they over rate the condition of their items.

I forgot to mention, there is also a M70 carbine in .32 special. If you want to search for these, they are from Day One of the Rock Island Auction. Lot number starts at about 235 and they are sequential from there.

From a rarity perspective, I would think this is about as rare as you can possibly get with M70's. I would be interested to hear if anyone was able to view and look these over in the flesh. It seems nearly all of them were refinished - must have come out of one collection? It would be interesting to know their history.

I'm not surprised buyers seemed to be skeptical. To me, several looked like they would be very interesting shooters. A guy could probably have a lot more fun with one of these vs. a high dollar original and pristine safe queen Safe queens can drive a guy crazy.

Let me add that the Super Grade in .35 Remington that sold for $2750 (with an auction estimate of $3500-$5500) looks like a nice looking rifle.

I didn't see them but if a 35 Remington SG only went for $2750 then there was something majorly wrong with it! And it appears that the buyers knew it. I to would like to look at the magazine box and ejector on that rifle.

I saw the RIA booth at the NRA show last week in Indy and there were a couple nice M70's there. A pre-war 7.65 and a 3 digit 375H&H that looked in perfect shape. They also had a 220 SG that had a standard barrel with a scope block on the barrel that they were saying was factory?

Was the 7.65 Argentine reblued? I assume what they were recently displaying at the NRA show was the same as what they auctioned the other day? They advertised the 7.65 as reblued with an auction estimate of $4500 to $6500 and it sold for $5000.

What would you say a reblued Supergrade in .35 Remington is worth? Speaking of .35 Remingtons they had one in a featherweight (reblued of course) with an auction estimate of $4000 to $6000 and it sold for $6000. Oh, and another .35 Super Grade .35 Remington with an auction estimate of $3500 to $5500 sold for $1900

Another rare one, a .220 in a featherweight (reblued). Sold right at the high estimate of $2500.

I've never seen a group of M70's like this and I'm just trying to make sense of it. It is an intriguing group of rifles. I would think the reblue factor alone would keep prices down. Yet, some sold at the high auction estimate.

I mentioned I am trying to make sense of it - and I've made little progress in that regard. Other thoughts would be appeciated.

Good luck

I love to view the Winchesters up for sale and I tried my dead level best to buy Mr John Olin's personal 52C sporter that spent most of its life 45 mi up the Flint River from me on NILO plantation, I was able to see the gun and many other 12's,42's,21's you name it he had them in the Plantations 'gun room' .I was in the farm supply bix in the mid to late 70's and sold them fertilizer and farm chems,the farm manager knew I loved Winchesters and hunting and was nice enough to give me a walk thru.
Dealing with RIA was a pain in the azz, another very advanced Win 52 collector was able to buy the gun and he will tell you the trade,buy was a pure goat rodeo! very best WinPoor

THe 7.65 didn't appear re-blued and looked all original but who knows for sure? I find it VERY odd that all these one offs were re-blued. One has to ask why were they all re-blued? I'm not a concpricy theorist but something seems very wrong here. something like a 220 Featherweight selling for the price of a using gun tells me that the buyer didn't think it was authentic.

I agree reelman..

It is either right or wrong. We all know they are the most made up Winchester's.

I know they are the best Winchester bolt guns ever made. I also know to only buy from guys I trust and know the history of the rifles. Unless I can get them for dirt cheap: Then it's not as much of a concern

Most plausible explanation by a member on another forum is that the fakers are making fake barrels in rare calibers....brand new barrels look really out of place even with high condition 95%-98% stocks....solution is to refinish the stock and offer the entire rifle as 'professionally refinished'.

I agree this is plausible. It also seems a lot of these sold low enough to not make it worth the effort. I think the vast majority of guys with a focus on, "collector" items are not interested in reblued guns. I have one reblued vintage lever rifle... and it bugs me. It is rebored and rechambered too. And I shoot it. It still bugs me.

I've never done business with RIA but I always thought that they were to reputable to put questionable rifles in their auctions, especially an entire "collection" of them.

Was this the one that sold with the group of M70's I referenced the other day? I looked at the description of an unusual looking M52 sporter for a long time. I found it more curious than any other rifle in that auction. I noticed the auction estimate was $800 to $1400 and it sold for $4250! There was no mention of the providence of the rifle and to me it looked like it had been customized after it left the factory Many this collecting world can get crazy.

As I think of it, if some of the rifles were done up this way, advertising them as, "reblued" would be making a false statement. At least with regard to the barrels

Different rifles in different auctions. The John Olin sporter that winchesterpoor referred to is a factory-customized 52C; it was auctioned off a couple of months ago.
The $4250 rifle this past weekend is a sporterized Pre-A target rifle. Someone must have really liked that stock or perhaps there is a story behind the gun that the buyer, and whoever he was bidding against, knew to justify that price.

3Dub - thanks for the information and clarification. Sorting through the collector world can be be very confusing at times. Often, there are those that have significant information and those that don't.

Many years ago I owned a gun shop in upstate NY, at that time there were a couple of high profile dealers that seemed to frequently have M/70's in the rare calibers. It seems that the roll mark dies had somehow found their way out of the factory and had fallen into the hands of the fakers. I have recently seen ads for newly made M/70 barrels, also Super Grade stocks cleverly advertized as "custom stocks" when they are clearly knock off copies. Humped up M/70's are still out there, the buyer needs to be wary as ever when considering the purchase of a rare M/70.