Jun 30, 2009 Colt Models 1 and 1A Serial #1-384 Colt Model 2 Serial #476-25000 Colt Model 3 Serial #0 Colt Model 3A and 4 Serial #1-2400 Colt Model 5 Serial #2401-8000 Colt Model 5A Serial #2401-8000 Colt Model 6 and 6A Serial #8001-11074 Colt Model 7 and 7A Serial #0 Colt Model 1855 Sporting Rifle, 1st Model Colt Model 1855 1st Model. To help you determine the year made, find your serial number and then select a link from those below to sites that offer serial dates. The Blue Book of Used Gun Values offers serial numbers for the following makers: AYA, Boss & Co., Ltd, Browning, EJ Churchill, Colt, Colt Black Powder 2nd Gen, John Dickson & Son, AH Fox, German early Date Codes. Remington - Navy Single Shot Pistols, Model 8, 81, 24, 241, RB Pistols (Types- not serial), RB Rifles- 1870, 71, RB Rifle Models- 1866-1933, Contract Lee Rifles, Pistols and Revolvers 1857-1918 (incomplete serial number for some), Rifles 1866-1933 (ditto), Shotguns 1874-1910 Serial numbers unknown. Remington Firearms; Remington 1921-present. Enter the serial number, without spaces or dashes, to search the database. If multiple models appear for your serial number simply match the date with the appropriate model, as certain vintage firearms can share serial numbers between different models.
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Pardon the mess. We are working to make the website more mobile friendly.
Welcome to the Firearms Price Guide, the free online gun price guide. This site is constantly under construction, so please be patient. I am currently working to fill up the database with the most popular manufactures first, then I will move on to the more obsure makes. Feel free to look around and get a feel for the place, but understand that we are still working on the mechanics of the site.
FPG will be totally, and completely FREE! No sign-ups, no subscriptions, no BS. This site will be about sharing information, protecting our 2nd Amendment rights, and broadening our knowledge base.
I hope this site will help you determine the value of the guns you possess, or hope to acquire.
Where will the prices come from on FPG? Prices will be determined from actual sales of firearms throughout the country, not the opinion of some gun expert based on what he THINKS a gun should be worth.
What makes me an expert on gun prices? NOTHING. I am a novice to the gun world by many people's standards.
So why would I start a price guide? Because it needs to be done and I have ample experience in price guide construction, operating, and maintaining.
Please stay tuned, check back often, and I will get this site up and running as fast as I can.
The Firearms Price Guide is a free online price guide for guns, as well as a free online price guide for firearms, free online price guide for hand guns and free online price guide for used guns. The free gun price guide is available to everyone, no matter whether you are looking for gun prices, firearms prices, handgun prices, shotgun prices, rimfire prices, centerfire prices, lever action prices, or pump action prices.
Within this website you will find price guides for the following firearms:
- Smith & Wesson Firearms (Work in progress)
The Firearms Price Guide reflects completed sales of firearms and guns, shotguns and leveractions. Firearms Price Guide is a Gun price guide as we as a Handgun Price Guide and Used Gun Price Guide. Used Gun Prices are tracked as well as New Gun Prices.
Ken 'The Alleydude'
Maybe you’re perusing the offerings at a local gun show, or one of your neighbors is hosting an epic garage sale. Or perhaps you’ve been shopping for gun deals at one of the online broker or auction sites. Whatever the scenario, how do you know when you’re paying a fair price for a used gun?
It’s easy to figure out if a new gun price is correct or not. You can just price shop a few different local store and online options and quickly get a clear picture of the going market price. But when it comes to used guns, there are a seemingly infinite number of possibilities.
Consider thousands of manufacturers, each making dozens or hundreds of models over a century or so, and it quickly becomes apparent that no human can catalog that much information in their head.
Determining the value of a gun is 50 percent research, 50 percent judgment, and 90 percent pure voodoo, but there are some tricks to the trade that serious buyers use. Let’s take a closer look at the two factors that determine a gun’s value.
First, you have to know what it is by identifying the company, model, and year of manufacture. Once that’s determined, you’ll need to make an accurate assessment of the condition.
Modern car buyers are armed with more information than ever before. The KBB or Kelley Blue Book continues to be a staple for savvy buyers. Just as with cars, there’s a “blue book” resource for guns too.
The Blue Book of Gun Values is currently in its 38th Edition, having kept up with the changing market and new products introduced each year. The publication will do a couple of things for you as a buyer.
It contains over 180,000 price point listings that cover tens of thousands of gun models. Somewhere over 30,000 of those contain descriptions, so when you stumble across something interesting on the used market, there’s a great chance you can learn the basics quickly.
You can get all 2,512 pages of the printed version of the Blue Book of Gun Values, or you can sign up for an online subscription that allows you to look up guns using a computer, tablet, or smartphone. As an example of how it works, let’s take a look at one of my previous gun show finds.
The Colt 1903 pistol shown in the photos below caught my eye at a local show close to 10 years ago. I’ve always found the 1903 model stylishly elegant. It’s slim, well-rounded, and was technically advanced for its day and age.
Looking it up in the Blue Book of Gun Values, I get lots of information about the pistol. The basic description tells me features to expect like grip types, barrel length, safeties and how different model series varied.
I see that the 1903 pistols were manufactured from 1903 to 1946, and during that time there were six different series, including Types I, II, III, and IV, a U.S. Property Parkerized version, and a General Officer’s Pistol.
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I can tell mine is a Series III model not just by the features but because the serial number is 301xxx. This particular gun was manufactured sometime between 1910 and 1926. Additional notes in the listing tell me that some models were made with nickel finishes and pearl grips, so if we run across one in that condition, it could be original too.
Armed with this information, the next step is to determine the value. To know that, we have to understand the condition of the pistol.
Fortunately, there are some reasonably objective industry standards for evaluating and communicating the condition of a used gun. Subjectively, most sellers will always want to describe their offering as “excellent,” but how is a buyer supposed to know what that means? For years, the industry operated on a descriptive system that defined a half dozen or so condition categories.
For example, The Blue Book of Gun Values describes the NRA Modern Gun Descriptions like this:
New – Not previously sold at retail, in the same condition as current factory production.
Perfect – In new condition in every respect, may have previously been sold at retail.
Excellent – Near new condition, used but little, no noticeable marring of wood or metal, bluingnear perfect (except at muzzle or sharp edges).
Very Good – In perfect working condition, no appreciable wear on working surfaces, nocorrosion or pitting, only minor surface dents or scratches.
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Good – In safe working condition, minor wear on working surfaces, no broken parts, nocorrosion or pitting that will interfere with proper functioning.
Fair – In safe working condition, but well worn, perhaps requiring replacement of minor parts or adjustments which should be indicated in advertisement, no rust, but may have corrosion pits which do not render article unsafe or inoperable.
While each term contains some specific descriptive elements that help one categorize a given gun, there’s still quite a bit of subjectivity in the process.
More recently, a new system has come into vogue that offers a more objective way to rate the condition of a firearm. Based on the amount of original finish remaining and the original status of parts, the system more specifically defined categories such as excellent, very good, and good.
Here’s how the Blue Book of Gun Values redefines the traditional NRA category system.
New/Perfect – 100% condition with or without box. 100% on currently manufactured firearms assumes NIB (New In Box) condition and not sold previously at retail.
Mint – typically 98%-99% condition with almost no observable wear. Probably sold previously at retail, and may have been shot occasionally.
Excellent – 95%+ to 98% condition.
Very Good – 80% to 95% condition (all parts/finish should be original).
Good – 60% to 80% condition (all parts/finish should be original).
Fair – 20% to 60% condition (all parts/finish may or may not be original, but must function properly and shoot).
Poor – Under 20% condition (shooting not a factor).
The Colt 1903 pistol shown here was originally finished in a charcoal blue color. Being about 100 years old, the finish on this one is both worn and aged. Higher use surfaces like the front and back straps of the grip have almost all of the bluing worn off, so they have an appearance more like raw steel.
Areas that get less direct contact like the sides of the frame and slide still have original finish, although over the years the color has turned from blue to more of a brown. There’s also a bit of pitting on the front sides of the slide.
Pitting is rough or pockmarked texture on the metal surface, usually resulting from corrosion. Given the location, I suspect the pitting is there from sitting in a leather holster for years or even decades. If I was to rate this gun using the newer “percent of finish” system, I might place it in the 40% to 50% range, which would put it in the “fair” category.
Given its age and the fact that all internal parts appear to be original, one might make a case that it approaches the lower end of the “good” condition band, but that would be a stretch given the wear and pitting.
Gun Value Lookup By Serial Number
With this information, I can easily check a current edition of the Blue Book in either the print or online versions to find an approximate value. In fact, the current online chart shows the estimated value at $325.
In my experience, the Blue Book values tend to be on the low side for most guns. In other words, if I ran across this gun at a show tomorrow, I’d have to do some aggressive bargaining to get it for $325, but that’s OK. I’ve got a solid benchmark from which to haggle.
While condition has a lot to do with value, recognize that other factors come into play too, so street prices may or may not reflect what’s shown by the Blue Book condition rating. After all, supply and demand is the ultimate price influencer.
There’s a similar process for antique guns. Given the potential for historic importance, that’s a topic for another day, but we can list a couple of important tips here.
• “Original finish” in the ratings means exactly that. Be careful not to confuse that with “pretty” finish. If a gun has been re-finished somewhere along the line, that can make it desirable as one to carry and shoot, but almost always decreases its value.
• Boxes and packaging are important if you are looking at something older. You’ll be amazed at the potential price difference between two identical guns, one with original packaging and the other without.
• Dealing with fakes. While rarely an issue with guns in the three-figure price range, forgeries are a real issue at the higher end of the market. If you’re into surplus military guns, be cautious about models described as “all original parts.”
Most surplus guns have gone through arsenal refurbishing at some point in their lives, so finding one that has all original parts installed at the factory is a very rare thing. The odds are better that someone has found the “correct” parts and rebuilt the gun to the original configuration.
• Don’t pay for stories without proof. Someone saying that Jesse James, John Dillinger or Audie Murphy carried the gun you’re looking at means absolutely nothing without evidence. If you ever go to resell such a gun to a collector, they’re going to expect documentation like a bill of sale or affidavit from that famous original owner.
• Many gun companies operate archive services. For a nominal fee, you can request factory records on a gun based on its serial number. The process takes some weeks, but you’ll get a factory letter that specifies everything the company knows about the original sale of the gun. Who knows? You just might get back a bill of sale proving that your gun was shipped to a historical figure.
As with any other product, used guns are a buyer beware scenario. The more you invest in research and double-checking, the more likely you are to get a fair deal.