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I bring this up because, other than the Super Bowl, I cannot think of anything I actually look at for the ads, other than a gun magazine, namely, in this case, the Spring 2025 WACA magazine. It’s a fine issue, no doubt, but the issue is largely advertising, especially upcoming auctions.
And so, my question. I pick these years as prior to WWII you really likely had few collectors and before WWII was the Great Depression, and, before that, if you wanted one such Winchester, you would purchase it new. After about 2005, the internet became commonplace, and you could purchase through on line sites, or at an auction house. These firearms auction houses have exploded in growth, and few, if any, existed before 1995.
It seems every auction has more and more stuff of higher and higher quality, and there’s more of it than ever. This last statement is actually true, between faked and enhanced stuff, there really is more of these seemingly newly discovered goodies out there. So how was it done prior to this?
You had Shotgun News. Just print ads, and I assume if it was truly a fantastic find you missed out on it sending for photographs. And, given the debate sometimes with regards to actual photographs and a refinish or enhancement, it’s doubtful Shotgun News advertisers always got it right, knowingly or unknowingly so.
You had gun shows. Even in the 1980s and 1990s when I started attending, they were hit or miss. Even the good ones might have a smattering of high end stuff, but nowhere near the pages and pages of this stuff in every gun auction lately.
You had gun shops. But even these might have one or possibly two high end examples for sale at any time, and that was few and far between usually.
You had the private dealers, many who advertised in Shotgun News. But it doesn’t seem like anywhere near the number of Winchesters out there to account for now.
And you had brokers like R Larry Wilson. Who brokered a deal on a rare firearm for you, you hoped you weren’t being fleeced (and Larry had a tendency to do this), you hoped it wasn’t faked and all original, and, I assume, if you could afford Larry’s number, you bought it, not knowing if it was a bargain or a ripoff as there was nothing to compare to.
And, rarely, I suppose you might hear of this old widow in church who had her husband’s magnificent Winchesters that belonged to his grandfather and it truly was, but for every one of those, there’s 50 magnificent Winchesters that are reblued with a cracked stock.
So what’s the answer here? Or maybe as folks generally become less interested in firearms, these fine Winchesters are moving out of family conditions when computer savvy heirs decide to get rid of heirlooms and, in short order, they are directed to Rock Idkand, Poulin’s, Amoskeag, etc and convert that old family heirloom Winchester into cash.
What say you?
Don’t forget the Gun List, as well as Shotgun News! Back when I started in 1973, I found my level of Winchesters in gun shops and then came leads to a few “collectors” that were upgrading and letting lesser pieces go at prices I could afford. Then I found local gun shows and again much the same. Around here there were “farm” auctions and an occasional collectible Winchester, tho most were barely parts guns. Then the gun auctions appeared. Started out with RIA as they got started and were using a Canadian auctioneer family as Pat watched and learned. At those early days, once again I rarely could afford auction prices. Cody has always been good to me. But it mostly had to wait for me to retire to be able to attend. I don’t like what the gun auctions have done to the hobby but it is what it is. Adapt or die. Tim
November 5, 2014
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Hi Ian-
I have been collecting (Model 70s) since my mid-twenties, over 40 years now, but my Dad was doing it for quite some time before that. Hence many of the rifles in our current collection have been there for nearly a half Century.
After my Dad retired and built a house here on the farm, he obtained an 01 FFL as a way of keeping himself entertained. These were the days before 03 C&R FFLs and NICS checks. While he never had a brick and mortar Gun Shop, like one of my Uncles did, he would on occasion find various (modern) firearms for trustworthy individuals. But his favorite activity was locating collectable C&R Winchesters for his own collection. It was quite convenient for me, as a neophyte collector with no money to speak of and no time to attend gun shows, as I could just say, for example, that I’d like to find a pre-64 Model 70 Super Grade 375 H&H Magnum and he’d eventually track down a good one.
A mainstay at the time were the trade publications like Shotgun News and Gun List. He always paid extra for 1st class mailing on the theory that he’d get the latest issue sooner, and always cussed when, as often happened, he’s call on a particular gun only to find it had already been sold… 
In addition to developing a relationship over time with certain dealers, some more trustworthy than others, who would call when a certain gun came in, several of the larger dealers, like Randy Shuman, Dave Riffle, and others, even Roger Rule for a time, periodically sent “catalogs” to a mailing list of potential customers. Often these would have >100 pre-64 M70s available for purchase. I think Leroy Merz may be the only one still doing this, although Shuman (who doesn’t sell on-line) was still doing mailers as of a couple years ago. Naturally, without photos, you didn’t know what you were getting until it arrived and it was not uncommon to send a gun back, which he often did…
Another source, of course, was gun shows. Back then, between the Shenandoah Valley, Eastern VA, Maryland, and Southern PA, you could attend a gun show within 100 miles almost every weekend if you chose. This before the days when gun shows were dominated by “black” (and pink) guns and beef jerky. When I was starting you could still find high condition Model 70s in medium rare calibers, e.g. 220 Swift and 257 Roberts, at local gun shows priced in the $600 range. I bought several at the local (Winchester VA) gun show they used to hold in the National Guard Armory. Finally, there were local advertisements, e.g. the Valley Trader, and my Dad got several nice guns from the families or original owners. Not as much fun as Lewis and Leyton Yearout had checking out all the old ranch houses in Montana, but I still have two guns, an 1892 vintage Colt SAA (the only bona fide “antique” firearm I own) and a mint pre-64 Model 70 22 HORNET Super Grade with less than half a box fired through it since originally purchased, that he found that way. Yes, the Colt “letters”… 
There was also the LGS… A couple in particular that I recall, one in Winchester and another in nearby Stephens City, always seemed to have a few interesting old guns on the wall, especially my favored M70s.
Sure, that all changed with the advent of Guns International, GunBroker, and the Auction Houses. Now I can see more guns (on-line) than ever before, but prices reflect the increased exposure to potential buyers. Since I started doing it in 2019, I’ve been able to record about (12,000) pre-64 M70s for the survey, as many as the (11,300) Bob Porter surveyed between 1975 and 2010 attending all the big gun shows.
Just my feeble recollection ,
Lou
WACA 9519; Studying Pre-64 Model 70 Winchesters
Dont forget about the Gun Report magazine. Lots of ad’s in those.
Growing up and with my dad promoting shows in San Antonio (Alamo Gun Collectors) in the early-late 70’s, you would see a long list dealers from all over the country in attendance, by today’s standards a relatively small show with maybe a couple hundred tables. It was a place where regionally, the best of the best firearms were likely to show up and made for easy pickings for national dealers, traders, and collectors. There were always competitive displays for cash, trophy, or other prizes, and the sometimes scandalous pick of the “Gun Show Queen”. Your “List” dealers were at them as well, either buying inventory or buying on requested order for a client.
There still exists that network of collectors who turn up or offer a gem from time to time. But, the internet has altered the course by opening the door to a larger audience of collectors, speculators, and dealers, not so much making firearms harder to find (although some get locked up in collections for decades), but also driving prices based availability and demand for select firearms in its offerings to a larger audience. Not to mention, the internet facilitated the ease at which auction houses have come to play a larger role in the public offerings of highly collectable firearms, that can be browsed by catalog without ever having to leave home.
Chris
1892takedown @sbcglobal.net ......NRA Endowment Life Member.....WACA Member
"God is great.....beer is good.....and people are crazy"... Billy Currington
I was lucky to have an auction house near me. I started hanging out there and met a local dealer. He and I started traveling to gun shows together. We went to more than a dozen collector shows a year. This went on for more than 20 years. Now I’m lucky to go to 4 shows a year. I also bought a lot of guns from the local auction house. At first I was lucky to buy one gun a year. I did get all the magazines too but only bought parts from them.
I don’t look online for guns. Way to many fakes and problems. But I have bought a few in just the last couple years. I just bought my plane ticket, set up a rental car and made my room reservations for Greeley. It’ was never cheap but I always had someone to split the costs. Since we were hauling guns we split the cost of the gas, meals and the rooms. While I was working and couldn’t get off work I’d fly in on Friday after work. Not really sure which way was cheaper? 2 days on the road to get there and another 2 days to get back racked up extra hotel expenses. That expense along with the extra meals and a whole lot of gas adds up.
I agree with Tim about the negative effect the auction houses have had on the collectors.
I’m in full agreement with you guy’s as you’ve hit on all of the topics, as resources that we had and now have.
Some nice personal stories added also. 
Anthony
The above posts take me back to my early days. I became a subscriber to the Shotgun News as a very young man – may have been a teenager. I never felt I had the extra money to pay about ten times the subscription price to get the faster delivery for the Shotgun News- but considered it often. This was particularly true when I would spot something of great interest, only to find out it had already sold (likely to someone who did pay for early delivery). My other source was dealer catalogs. Leroy Merz, Larry Orr, Rudy Dotzenrod, James Jasken, James Georgen, Ed Kukowski and others I’m not remembering. Later, the Gun List. Also the CADA Journal. It was all these publications that when they arrived, they would be the highlight of my day.
After treading this forum, I guess what is largely different then vs now are the following:
Now: The obvious proliferation of auction houses, auctions, and private sales dictated by the internet.
Then: It seems like this has been addressed in various posts above, and my original post. Printed material from vendors, paid publications like Shotgun News, and gun shows. I think what I didn’t realize, or had forgotten how fun shows once were. You could attend one many weekends if desired. Now, local entities no longer want them, and the ones that do exist are often new firearms and non firearm stuff.
Still, it seems there is way more of this high end stuff out there than there ever was.
November 5, 2014
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Ian-
I’m not entirely sure that there’s really all that much more “high end stuff” out there, as opposed to it being more VISIBLE than ever before…
Sure… Fakery, “restoration”, and generational redistribution of long-time collections, is playing a role, driven by the $$$ motive.
But a point I was trying to make earlier is that in (5) years of surveying pre-64 M70s, I have been able to “see” as many M70s as Bob Porter “saw” in (35) years of attending big collector gun shows and reading Shotgun News. And most of this has been without leaving home!!!
That’s the “internet effect”… Since I’m talking about pre-64 M70s in general, not necessarily “high end” guns, most of what I’m looking at are not fakes. Just guns I’d’ve never “seen” were it not for the proliferation of on-line venues. Instead of traveling the country and walking gun show aisles, a prospective buyer can sit in their easy chair and check out GB, GI, and a whole host of auctions. You don’t even have to search the auctions individually, as Proxybid, Invaluable, etc. will send a weekly list of upcoming gun auctions by e-mail on request.
You are right, of course, that, at least in the M70 world, the recent profusion of “super rare” guns turning up for sale is the result of forgery driven by profit… Just entrepreneurs (con men) taking advantage of the marketing opportunity the internet provides…
Just my take,
Lou
WACA 9519; Studying Pre-64 Model 70 Winchesters
November 7, 2015
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Changing times and money. These big auction houses and modern technology let us see and study, maybe even buy, guns and other items we likely would never have seen thirty years ago. At the TGCA show this past weekend they bought around 15 tables and also placed prominent ads in our semi-annual magazines. They were also enthusiastic bidders at our benefit auction. Their online sites are great educational and entertainment opportunities. They’re investing big money in our hobby! They also have huge marketing costs. Like many of you I’m a hunter. I love seeking out (or stumbling upon) my next big (or little) prize and I don’t mind putting time and effort into the pursuit. I cast the bullets, load the ammo and occasionally put together a rifle. I’ll also help fill the feeders and maintain the lease. If the hunt is successful I’ll process the game and always wind up making at least a few batches of my almost famous sausage. I also have a local butcher who makes sausage I like. Cruising the gun shows, gun shops, estate sales and even flea markets is like hunting. Logging in, calling or attending an auction is like walking into my local meat market. Both sausages are good but I enjoy mine more. I enjoyed and learned quite a bit from the gun shows 30-40 years ago. Those days are gone. Big auction houses are the present and in some ways they are good for our hobby, whether we like them or not. The game has changed and if we’re going to play we can either change or be marginalized. I hope to have collector shows to attend as long as I’m able but I’m well aware of the current demographics of like-minded individuals.
Mike
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