Non Original Box W/ Model 61|Winchester .22 Rim Fire|Forum|Winchester Collector

Many of his listings have been suspect. “Guns by Sally” type stuff. Many new in box guns

Fagin lives and has taken up gun sales!

I recall Jim Supica writing, in his co-authored book on Smith & Wesson, that neither author could understand why anybody was willing to pay so much for moldy old cardboard. 

Of course, they did understand that such things are the inevitable extension of a “100% gun.”  But what he was really saying was a warning. Where demand exists, there WILL be a supply and the Artful Dodger will help supply it. 

Any collector who fancies himself able to distinguish between a genuine and a really good artificially aged, expertly produced and stamped new cardboard carton……. is Fagin’s meat. 

There is enough money in this game to attract a few very well educated,  technically skilled, and mechanically adept forgers. There is a black market for their stuff. They don’t go to gun shows or sell guns. 

Yes, a lot of the phony hang tags and boxes are poorly done and readily distinguishable. 

But the sign of a great forgery is it’s invisibility.  And the gun auction or the gun show is an ideal environment — because the avid collector WANTS it to be true. His initial skepticism is a thin shield, easily penetrated by the seller because THAT seller typically believes what he’s selling is real.

The forger’s first buyer is Fagin, who assembles the package with guilty knowledge. The forger knows Fagin and will deal with him and not the public. If accused, the forger will defend his innocence by asserting Fagin represented himself as a collector. 

[For those in the insurance industry, this layered distribution of the fraudulent good is analogous to re-insurance, laying off a portion of risk by giving up some of the premium. ]

Fagin needs an initial “mark” a/k/a “rube” or “john” or “sucker” before the forgery goes public. He takes a lesser but safer profit from the mark and disappears. 

By the time the as-NIB gun appears on a gun show table or at auction,  both parties to a sale are likely innocent. Not always.

One of the questions to be asked and the answer verified is WHO SOLD IT TO YOU? For the kind of money involved, any hesitation on the Seller’s part to disclose and allow investigation is a big red flag with a skull and crossbones. When it doubt, do without. 

The capitalist in me wants to raise the price of my legitimate “picture box” 62!  I’m way under market at $3,895….   

Ben said
The capitalist in me wants to raise the price of my legitimate “picture box” 62!  I’m way under market at $3,895….   
  

It’s these sellers and items that devalue ones like yours…people start becoming thoroughly distrustful since they (usually) don’t have the knowledge and experience to cull through the slop.

Ben,

If I had thirty eight hundred to spend on a .22 rifle, I would buy your Model 62 without hesitation. Provided you could tell me how to keep a cardboard box from consuming itself with its own acids. 

I know enough to keep them out of over-arid safes but cardboard was never an archival material. The silvery Kimber of Oregon sleeves and even the foam containers that held the rifles, I used to have that dated to the Nineteen Eighties, were beginning to weaken and delaminate. All gone down the road now but they went from new to very iffy in about 30 years. 

It was shared with me that a certain Winchester author from Kansas has been associated with questionable individuals responsible for “rare” Model 61 rifles in the past… so Kansas may see a larger percentage of these.  I’ve seen several questionable “Boxed” Model 61’s at the Tulsa show on the lower level, middle of the room near the food vendors… Caveat Emptor