The Good Old Days

Dwight Gruber · 01-01-2003, 04:36 PM

Was cleaning out a closet in my folks house and dredged up a mid-60s catalog from Service Armament Company. Deep in nostalgia mode (I remember the back-of-magazine ads, Lugers for $35) I wandered through its pages until I came upon their Luger items.

Service Arms Big Left Page
Service Arms Big Right Page

My, how prices have increased!...or, have they? These prices are almost 40 years old, I began to wonder what they would be in money with today's value? So, I found an inflation calculator, and began to plug in figures.

Service Armament 4" barrel Lugers, grade 1, $54.95 in 1965 dollars, would be $301.89 in 2001 dollars (the closest year I could find figures for). An LP-08 at $79.95 would be $439.23 in current figures.

A drum magazine, $24.95 = $137.07; loading tool $29.95 = $164.54.

Magazines at $4.95 = $27.90, extruded mags at $8.50 = $46.70.

An ERMA .22 converter kit at $34.95 = $192.01

A pre-WWI 9mm collector's cartridge for $.75 would be $4.12 in today's money, and Remington 9mm ammo $4.00/hundred would be $21.98.

I recalled seeing other catalogs and prices posted here in the past, so I did a quick search to see if I could find them and do the same calculation. I found a few (frankly I didn't search exhaustively), came up with the following:

Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, 1904
Model 1900 Luger $25.00 = $434.11
Same with Ideal shoulder stock $31.00 = $586.65
Magazines $1.00 = "18.92

P. von Frantzius catalog, 1924
4" barrel Luger new, $24.50 = $245.16
Same used, $17.50 = $175.00
Artillery stock rig, $6.50 = $65.04

Interarms 1972
New mfg. Mauser Parabellum retail $290.00 = $1,219.65

My $35.00 Luger of nostalgic memory in, say, 1960, would be $204.50 today.

Without drawing too many conclusions, it appears that over 100 years the average common Luger has only gone up %100 or less in real purchasing dollars until fairly recently--"average" "common" and "recently" being arguable concepts.

This brief exercise has interesting and pretty revealing. If you have your own copies of old catalogs you can carry on yourself, here is a link to the inflation calculator I used, have fun.

--Dwight

01-01-2003, 04:36 PM	#1
Dwight Gruber User Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 3,893 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1,288 Times in 426 Posts	The Good Old Days Was cleaning out a closet in my folks house and dredged up a mid-60s catalog from Service Armament Company. Deep in nostalgia mode (I remember the back-of-magazine ads, Lugers for $35) I wandered through its pages until I came upon their Luger items. Service Arms Big Left Page Service Arms Big Right Page My, how prices have increased!...or, have they? These prices are almost 40 years old, I began to wonder what they would be in money with today's value? So, I found an inflation calculator, and began to plug in figures. Service Armament 4" barrel Lugers, grade 1, $54.95 in 1965 dollars, would be $301.89 in 2001 dollars (the closest year I could find figures for). An LP-08 at $79.95 would be $439.23 in current figures. A drum magazine, $24.95 = $137.07; loading tool $29.95 = $164.54. Magazines at $4.95 = $27.90, extruded mags at $8.50 = $46.70. An ERMA .22 converter kit at $34.95 = $192.01 A pre-WWI 9mm collector's cartridge for $.75 would be $4.12 in today's money, and Remington 9mm ammo $4.00/hundred would be $21.98. I recalled seeing other catalogs and prices posted here in the past, so I did a quick search to see if I could find them and do the same calculation. I found a few (frankly I didn't search exhaustively), came up with the following: Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, 1904 Model 1900 Luger $25.00 = $434.11 Same with Ideal shoulder stock $31.00 = $586.65 Magazines $1.00 = "18.92 P. von Frantzius catalog, 1924 4" barrel Luger new, $24.50 = $245.16 Same used, $17.50 = $175.00 Artillery stock rig, $6.50 = $65.04 Interarms 1972 New mfg. Mauser Parabellum retail $290.00 = $1,219.65 My $35.00 Luger of nostalgic memory in, say, 1960, would be $204.50 today. Without drawing too many conclusions, it appears that over 100 years the average common Luger has only gone up %100 or less in real purchasing dollars until fairly recently--"average" "common" and "recently" being arguable concepts. This brief exercise has interesting and pretty revealing. If you have your own copies of old catalogs you can carry on yourself, here is a link to the inflation calculator I used, have fun. --Dwight