The Number Produced
How many of these guns were originally manufactured? Most rare guns are rare for a reason: they weren’t very good, so there weren’t many bought, so there weren’t many made.
Production numbers are now available for almost all antique American firearms. They’re based on historical records and recorded serial number data. Not all production numbers are accurate, and numbers change as better information becomes available. Some of this is based on recently discovered historical records, but most are based on the collection and analysis of serial number data. Collectors have been collecting serial numbers on old guns for many decades.
U.S. government data are usually quite good, both for guns made by the government and those bought by the government. While a government sales contract has always been the holy grail for most firearms inventors, even those who were successful also made guns for state militias, foreign militaries, and the civilian market.
Highest known serial numbers are extremely important in estimating total production for the less studied models and those with little or no historical manufacturing data. However, serial number data are not always definitive. The numbering of some 19th-century guns didn’t start at one. Some weren’t serial numbered in sequence; some had duplicate serial numbers; and some had mixed numbers. Also, some firearms were either batch-numbered or not serial-numbered at all in the 1800s.
Production estimates can, and do, change. The iconic Henry rifle is a good example. It was long thought to have a total production of about 14,000. But it’s now believed that only about 5,000 were made. The number has been revised dramatically because of its relative scarcity, and because there are large blocks of gaps in the serial numbers of known survivors.
The Number Surviving
The second major factor that determines rarity is the number of guns that have survived. Antique guns are lost to natural disasters like fires and floods, shipwrecks, and to other catastrophic events. Many were sold for scrap, especially after the Civil War and during 20th-century wartime metal drives. Historically important guns have also been lost to 20th-century government confiscation or buy-back programs, like those in Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, and the United States. The biggest source of loss, however, has been on battlefields domestic and foreign, from Gettysburg to Gallipoli.
Some survival rate estimates are better than others. The least accurate are for high-production guns like the Model 1860 Colt Army. Over 200,000 of these were made from 1860 to about 1873. Even though the serial numbers of many thousands have been recorded, the vast majority have not. We therefore have no solid evidence on which to base a quantitative survival rate estimate for this model.
The most accurate survival estimates are low to very-low-production guns that are in especially high demand. The limited number of these have been sought for so many years, by so many collectors, that virtually all the survivors have been recorded. A new one may occasionally turn up in Uncle Henry’s attic, but the number still to be discovered is extremely small, and declining.
A good example of this is the famous Walker Colt revolver, with about 1,100 made. We have a pretty good idea just how many of these survive – around 200 that are in pretty much original configuration. That generates a current known survival rate (KSR) of about 18 percent. Because so few remain, the KSR closely approximates the true survival rate for this model.
The Number Available to Collectors
The third factor that determines the rarity of an old gun to the collector, after total production and survival, is the number of survivors available to the collector.
To the extent that rare guns are locked up in museums and private collections, their “effective rarity” goes up. Institutional museums are more or less permanent repositories of antique guns. Some smaller and private museums, however, have dissolved, and others have de-accessioned parts of their collections to raise funds. The residence time for rare guns in private collections is shorter than for museums, but it can still be on the order of decades.
For higher-production guns, a bigger factor is shipment overseas. Many American gunmakers in the 19th century sold in volume to overseas militaries. A good example is the Type II Remington split-breech carbine. The U.S. Army ordered 15,000 of them for use in the Civil War, but they were delivered after Appomattox and went straight into storage. Around 1870, all but 242 were sold to France for the Franco-Prussian War. Some were later repatriated by collectors, but today they are quite difficult to find in the United States.
Some models that were made specifically for foreign militaries are rare to extremely rare here. The Smith & Wesson Russian 1st Model revolver is a good example. About 20,000 were made for Czar Alexander II and shipped off to Russia in the 1870s. You can see the Smith & Wesson markings in Cyrillic on the top strap. These guns served imperial Russia for decades, both at home and abroad. One that I brought back from Afghanistan is among the very few that found its way back home.
Rarity and Firearm Value
Everything else being equal, a rare gun will bring more money – sometimes a lot more – than a similar gun that isn’t rare. For example, a brass-framed Henry rifle, with about 5,000 made, starts at around $20,000 for a decent specimen. An iron-framed Henry, however, with only about 335 made, starts at several times that and can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The value of an antique gun is driven by demand, rarity, and condition – in that order. Demand mostly drives the basic price, but demand changes over time. After decades of preferring guns that show signs of a long and colorful history, collector emphasis shifted in the mid-20th century toward high quality and top condition guns. At the same time, there was a gradual shift in demand from handguns to long arms – and, more recently, away from early American muskets toward other long arms like carbines.
Younger generations enter the market today with their own collecting priorities, which may be driven by family military history, successful Hollywood films, or even by the guns used in popular video games. Regardless of what drives it, demand is always more important than rarity in determining the value of an old gun.
Consider the Winchester Model 1866 “Yellow Boy” carbine. These aren’t rare at all, with over 125,000 produced. But today it’s hard to find a decent one for under $5,000. Conversely, a Palmer Civil War carbine, with just around 1,000 made, starts at only about $2,000. The same is true of handguns. Colt made about 1,100 of the Walker Colts. Today, they start at around $100,000 in original configuration. An 1851 Springfield Double Trigger Navy revolver, on the other hand, with only about 125 made, starts around $1,500.
Final Thoughts
For hunters of old guns, the fact that demand trumps rarity every time is good news. Not only can we find rare and historically interesting antique American firearms, but we can still buy them at relatively modest prices.
