Reading the ranking thread made me wonder. What type of average annual appreciation have some of you seen from your doubles? I realize that's probably not consistant and variable by make but I kind of wondered whether some very well to do folks actually used doubles as an investment vehicle like many did collectable cars when other investments were down.

Probably depends on the make of the DR.

As with your example of cars being an investment, a Toyota Corolla is probably not a good investment, but an early Rolls Royce maybe.

The only doubles that may increase in value are one's that are no longer in production.
How much they "may" increase is a good guess. Doubt it would be worth the risk unless you are willing to buy and hold for 7-10 years

Unless it is a collectible or historical double rifle, you'll do better investing your money in a well managed portfolio.

Wife: You want to spend how much on a gun?

Me: But baby it is a great investment, the stock market is down and English doubles hold their value.

Rusty,

Do not ruin my argument!

Sorry, Mike!

Jim,here is a better investment,ask Coop if you have any doubts.
A year ago a 100oz. bar of pure silver was $1230.00,look today.


http://www.kitcosilver.com/charts/24hoursspot.html

And Gold.


I think the big increases in value of English DR's has gone.


But, if you are using them as well, then the equation is still good IMHO as you get the best of both worlds.

A bit like old, collectable cars / motorbikes etc.

.

quote:

Originally posted by 500N:
I think the big increases in value of English DR's has gone.....But, if you are using them as well, then the equation is still good IMHO as you get the best of both worlds.

I don' t buy that for one minute. If you're looking for an investment I'd look elsewhere. If you're looking to buy a double and don't want to loose money and POSSIBLY maybe even make a buck in the event you end up selling it then English doubles are a great buy. I just don't buy there's no more up side to them. They've made as many pre war English doubles as will ever be made. The poor condition/poor quality ones probably won't go up much. Nice guns though.....forget about it. It's a finite number that keeps getting smaller. Weather they go up a bunch in the next year I don't know. Long term absolutely!!!

Brett

quote:

Originally posted by Brett Adam Barringer:

I don' t buy that for one minute. If you're looking for an investment I'd look elsewhere. If you're looking to buy a double and don't want to loose money and POSSIBLY maybe even make a buck in the event you end up selling it then English doubles are a great buy. I just don't buy there's no more up side to them. They've made as many pre war English doubles as will ever be made. The poor condition/poor quality ones probably won't go up much. Nice guns though.....forget about it. It's a finite number that keeps getting smaller. Weather they go up a bunch in the next year I don't know. Long term absolutely!!!

Brett

What you said is 100% correct.

I said BIG increases. like from $4-6000 to $10 - 12000 in a year or two.

Of course you can buy a bargain or buy really well and luck it but across the board,
the BIG increases have been. Now it will be No loss if not incremental increases.

Just my HO.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike70560:
Wife: You want to spend how much on a gun?

Me: But baby it is a great investment, the stock market is down and English doubles hold their value.

Rusty,

Do not ruin my argument!

I use that exact argument when adding to my antique map collection. So far, so good!

Double rifles as investment????????????????

There was a time when all English double rifles were extremely good investments! It didn’t seem to be a factor that they had been refinished as long as it was a reasonably well done restoration. This was because the ammo was just about gone, and these were bought , initially very cheaply because of the rifle becoming illegal to own in places like India for all but the very rich. Once these rifle got to the free world mostly in Australia, and the USA, and a few companies started to address the ammo problem, suddenly the
Prices when through the roof. This gave the owners a 200 % return on their money. Far above the average stock market gain!

This rocked on for a while, and we started to learn to recognize the little things we had not been aware of earlier, and then only the top of the crop was making the gains and the lesser ones not so much. The double rifles started getting popular with hunters as well as collectors, and investors, so new ones started popping up all over the globe, and guys started buying working double rifles at a fraction of what the English one were selling for. This tore into the supply of the lesser valued English doubles, that required some very expensive work to become as solid as the new ones now on the market for the guy who simply wanted a double rifle for hunting. This for a short time increased the price for a collector valued double rifle from the UK, at that time most of the top doubles went into collections over the world, many back to the UK at very high prices. Many of that short supply have been pulled from the market permanently. That left the refurbished, and the pure junk on the used market for UK doubles.

Hunter being what they are, started moving more and more to the large market of the European makes from Germany, France, and Italy, as well as a couple from the USA, which further dug into the price for the not so pristine, refurbished older UK doubles by taking a large share of the market away from the UK rifles, so that the rate of gain was severely diminished. With that said I think the only very good investment gain will be with the very pristine UK rifles, and much of the supply still on the open market today will not see that very large gain again, and there is some real “DOGS” out there for those who are not very knowledgeable on these rifles!

Everyone seems forget that even the best of the old UK rifles, when ten years old and the same rifle could still be bought new, were simply ten year old USED rifle, and sold as such, far lower than a new one. This is a fact that once these rifle of that quality were not being made that is when the prices made people big gains. The new double rifle made today , once they are 90 or 100 years old they will be desirable as well, and will not be simply looked on as USED DOUBLE RIFLES , when new ones are no longer available, and will be selling for far more than the cost new just like anything that is out of production, or has slipped in quality the value goes up.

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