[Edward Tung]

I am probably one of the youngest members of this forum(23yrs old). I first got into lugers when my friends dad found out I liked guns and sold me a decent BYF41 for a great deal that was aquired through the family somehow. When I look around in my age group(21-26), out of all those people I know(~50 individuals), only 4 people own guns and thats because they are shooting buddies of mine. One guy is a gun owner because I took him shooting. Now the age group above mine(27-33), there are quite a few more gun owners but they are mostly into Glocks and Sigs and assault weapons type stuff. If you asked someone in my age group what a luger is, they would probably give you a blank stare. Now granted, I do live in Cali and most people are anti gun but I imagine individuals in my age group across the nation have this very little interest in the shooting sport and even less interest in collectibles such as lugers.

With this in mind, lugers are valuable due to low supply and high demand. Nice lugers are all in the hands of individuals who are roughly in the age group of early 40's to 70's. Once those individuals start croaking off(10-20yrs), there will be a rather large influx of collectible excellent condition lugers entering the market. Unfortunately, since there will be low demand due to lack of interest from the younger generations, these guns will not command nearly as much as they did before. I believe this applies for most old collectible guns.

Now why is there this lack of interest from people in my age group? I have a wonderful example to share which involves two individuals who frequent this forum. I was at the reno gun show back in I believe was march of this year. I had about 20k saved up from graduation presents and some stocks that I had cashed out and was looking to buy some nice lugers to add to my dismal collection. I specifically was looking for a minty navy with all accessories or perhaps a Kreighoff. As I walked around, I noticed a table with an older gentleman who had what appeared to be such an item. This navy had the holster, two mags, cleaning tool, and looked to be in pretty decent shape. I asked the individual if I could take a look at the piece. He looked me up and down as if I had just asked him to fornicate with a farm animal and replied tersely, "Do you know what that is?". I replied politely that I indeed did know and that it was a Navy luger and would like to take a closer inspection. Then in an arrogant tone but with a look as if I was a bum asking to wash his windows for change, "Do you know how much that costs?". I was pretty pissed by now and asked if this was twenty questions or did he want to sell the pistol. He replied that the gun did not belong to him and that he was merely watching it for the owner who had gone to look around. I looked over at my buddy as I pulled out the twenty grand I had in hundreds. I quickly flipped through it and asked my friend loudly if he thought I had enough to afford the pistol in question. The abnoxious gunsitter sat there with a dumbfounded expression on his face as I walked away with a smirk.

The point I would like to make is that I have faced this type of attitude as have my friends. I don't know if it's because were young and they think were poor or something. But the way I would look at it is, take some time and enlighten the younger generation. When we get a bit older, we will have more disposable income to buy all the cool old guns therefore continuing this great hobby.