1958 Luger Ads...
 

Just imagine them at these prices...

http://i27.tinypic.com/24e95le.jpg


This RARE one. 7 inches???

http://i27.tinypic.com/1zflwdi.jpg

Johnny, good to hear from you. I'll take 10 of these, each ;)



Ed

http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/

In 2006, $49.85 from 1958 is worth:

$347.50 using the Consumer Price Index
$283.48 using the GDP deflator
$464.59 using the value of consumer bundle
$435.25 using the unskilled wage
$817.68 using the nominal GDP per capita
$1,407.87 using the relative share of GDP

..I'm still confused..

NOW you're getting smart!

Notice that the smaller LP-08 add is offering nickel finish models for $10 additional.

Joe

I wonder how many of those are vet bringbacks now?

Only the nickel finished ones.

I wonder if anyone complained about the price back then? lol it would be funny to hear that now, with the current prices...

"Those holster prices are outrageous, I'm not paying $5.50!"

I remember a gun show in Yuma Arizona, my first, in about 1966-7. One of the things that most impressed me was one dealer with a huge quantity of Lugers. Propped upright they were two guns deep and two or three tables long. Don't remember what I thought of the prices as that was a time when many/most of us had unkind thoughts about anyone who would deal in things "Nazi" related.
Now Jay Leno can ask random young people on the street who it was we fought in WWII and NO ONE(!) knows. Very scary indeed.

That Dealer was probably Ralph Shattuck...

Johnny, please check your PM's.

That never occurred to me but you are probably right.

I remember "back then" quite well, though I was a lad.
Answer is that $50 was a lot of money.
Holsters stayed at 5 bucks for a long time.
Prices at shows were cheaper than the ads.
Tables full of lugers were common, and most were bringbacks.
I remember a guy who used to "white" all the markings and thought they looked cool. Some folks got to thinking this was original.
Guy down the rioad gave a souvenier Luger to two friends of mine for a day's work when money was tight.

I think generally folks had less spending money.
Biggest differnce is there was no need for fakery, or humping and there were so many varieties available.
Including all the really neat nickled ones with stag or plexiglass grips.

Yes in 1958, 50 dollars was a lot of money. I had recently been discharged from the Navy and was in college (GI bill ). I had a matching 1940 luger in a near mint holster. Needed money so I sold it at a local gunshop for $45. That paid my wifes and my rent for a month. Bill

Picked Blue Lake green beans every summer to help pay for school clothes. At the end of the season we would get a check for about $75- $95 if you were a good and fast picker at 2.5 cents per pound.

The old Eugene Surplus store had Lugers for $35-$50 each. And a wooden pickle barrel full of M-1 Carbines, marked "Your choice $12". After buying school clothes all I could do was look.

Okay, a trip down memory lane.

I remember an older boy, probably repeating what his parents had said, speculating that an oilfied supervisor in our rural West Texas area probably made $300 a month (he also was furnished a house). I had no idea whether that was a lot or not in the late 1940's or early '50's; it was said in such a way that it was a staggering amount. I didn't even know how much my dad made. I do remember my father picking cotton on his days off to supplement income. He'd drive 20 miles or so to where the picking was being done and make a few dollars per day.

We were poor I found out later, but no one was a lot better off, so I didn't notice.

For some reason I saved a Shot Gun News from 1965, of all the ads, the one that get me the most is for a 1928 Thompson for $675.00.....and Luger tools for $1.25....some new luger collector in Michigan, Ralph something....

Back in 1981, my tuition at Villanova Shool of Law was $7k to $10k in 1981 my best investment ever. My first lesson was a third of anything and everything. PS I paid back my student loans.

But the guns were only 20-40 years old then! Now they are 65 to 90 years old.