45Badger wrote:Guns are hit and miss. My active collecting for last 20 years has handily beat inflation, but probably not cumulative market (S&P or Dow) returns since 1993. Ammunition has proven to be a clear winner.
I have taken a few aggressive "positions" in guns and ammo at what appeared to be no-brainer moments and turned almost triple my money in a few months. This gets rolled back into he collection. Rules of thumb-
Be a cash buyer in tough times
Don't get greedy
Buy when others are complacent, sell when they are desperate
Your first loss is your best loss- don't hang on to a pig
Bears make money, bulls make money, hogs get slaughtered
Act quickly and decisively
Folks got excited and paid stupid money for ammunition in last few months. If you had excess ammo, you should have sold. Even if you sat on .223 ammo for last 5 years and sold it for double your original cost, you made 15% annual return. Not bad for something you like and can use if you want. If you bought .223 ammo for more than .35 per round, you made a financial error. You should sell it now a a possible small loss and jump back in when it is .30/round. Just sayin......
All good advice.
I could have made a small fortune probably on my .22LR ammo, but the thing is, I don't need the money that badly. Unless I was going to make 10x what I paid for it, it's not worth it to me to sell because I'd rather have the ammo than the money. Right now, you can't find .22LR, and if you can, it's still not near normal prices and it may not be for awhile. To some people, another $1,000-$5,000 is huge, but to me, it'd be nice, but it's not going to make a huge difference in my life.
I think the key is to sell the pick axe and not dig for gold; because whether the person you sold the axe to strikes gold or not, YOU still got paid. I think guns are a hit or miss deal, so if I were going to invest in them, I'd say ammo is where it's at, along with tools, dies, loading supplies, the consumables, the things you need to not only maintain, but make the guns. Sure, buy some well-known and always popular guns like a 629, .357, revolvers, AR-15, have parts, mags, etc for them, if you can.