When you look in the classifieds you will see 25 Mak90s, 25 Arsenals, and a whole lot of other aks for sale but you don't hardly see any Maadis for sale. People with Maadis don't sell their guns very often. Why? Is it that they are in small numbers or that they are that valuable? Just thinking because I just don't see any for sale.

Honestly they’re nothing special. I’ve owned several over the years and all have needed lots of tlc to make them look good.

Maadis have a cult following because they're the only commercially-available Middle Eastern AK, the Soviet tooling provenance, and of course the Red Dawn connection. Their not-very-durable painted finish can range from awful to halfway decent, but fans consider that part of the rifle's character. Like 'em or not, they have a strong following on the collector's market.

They tend to pop up on GB in waves and never get any cheaper.

Simply because not that many Steyr Maadi’ were imported. I recall their introduction very clearly. Folks cheered that we were finally going to get a “real” AK to buy and about one second after we saw that their MSRP was $1250.00 it got real quiet. $1250.00 in 1982/83 was a TON of money and and an FN-FAL didn’t cost all that much more.  Also there was literally NO cheap ammo for it (the super cheap Chinese imported stuff was two plus years in the future) pretty much killed 99.9% of the interest folks had in getting one. Consider the fact that in early 1985 I walked into an LGS and plunked down $299.99 MSRP for a Clayco AK (I coulda bought a Hungarian folder but that was more expensive at $379.00) shows you just how expensive the Maadi was. Frankly nobody wanted to pay even $600.00 for a used Maadi AK in 1985 when you could buy an NIB Hungarian AK for far less and it was MUCH higher quality rifle. Honestly in 1989 when the Bush assault weapon import ban was enacted if somebody had told guys like me that in 2022 a used Maadi would sell for much more money that a used Polytech Legend AK we’d would’ve called you crazy in the head.

I own a Maadi which I bought in the late 1990's for about $400.  It was one of the 1994-2004 "gun ban" guns, so it has a goofy thumbhole stock, no bayonet lug, etc.  Dang, I guess I can't do any drive by bayoneting with it!  LOL!  

It's a pretty decent gun, but it had one serious flaw when I first got it.  The bolt carrier was not machined properly and it would occasionally jump the rail on the receiver and jam while recoiling.  Yes, I had an AK that would jam!  They're not supposed to do that.  So I ordered a new bolt carrier from Numrich Gun Parts to replace the old one.  Of course, it still has the original bolt which I just put into the new bolt carrier.  Now the gun runs fine.  The grooves on the back of the original bolt carrier are a lot smaller than those on the Numrich bolt carrier.  It seems to me that the Egyptians have not done a good job of quality control in the plant they received from the Russians years ago.  

This AK has no modifications whatsoever, no scope and everything (besides the bolt carrier) on it is original.  I still haven't figured out what sort of wood makes up the stock and forearm grips.  It has a sort of light brown stain applied to it.

My uncle was the SOT that won the bid to convert the Maadis for use in Red Dawn.
I saw his receipt and it was about 899.99. He purchased over 100 of them and then worked with Marty Pearl to have them converted to full auto.

Red Dawn and Stembridge wanted over 80 to be full auto but he ran out of parts so I think less than 36 was full auto and the rest was semi auto.
Many of the parts was all hand custom made as their wasn't any AK full auto parts back then.

He had it driven to Stembridge and they paid him to deliver to the Red Dawn film location in New Mexico.

In the end, the Maadi was the only AK that looked the part when they needed authentic looking AKs.

They were expensive but it is what it is.

Let's not talk about AK ammo blanks and the movie blank conversion by stembridge.
That was another story and boondoggle.

In the end, Marty Pearl and my uncle said they didn't have to refinish the AKs after the conversion as their finish was pretty durable.

This leads me to believe that the Steyr Maadis and the early 90s post bans had great finishes on them and then it went to shit on later models.

Interesting!  I did not know that the Red Dawn movie used Maadi AK's.  Now that brings up the question:  which Red Dawn movie??  The one that was done in 1984 or the remake in 2012?  It sounds like maybe the 1984 movie, since you mentioned Steyr Maadis.  My Maadi's finish on the receiver and the barrel is not all that great.  It looks like it's just enamel paint!  Nothing at all like an AR with a nice phosphate finish.  Yeah, I think their quality started going down in the late '90's - not sure about what they're like today.  

If I were to buy an AK today, I'd seriously consider the ones made and sold by Palmetto State Armory.

https://www.tactical-life.com/guns/rifles/red-dawn-steyr-maadi/

https://laststandonzombieisland.com/tag/maadi-red-dawn/

Had two at one time. Still have one.

There were plenty of post-bans though. I thought the OP meant Maadis in general since he didn't specify. Post-ban values have been getting ridiculous too.

Great back story! You or your uncle should write an article about it.

I had Steyr Maadi, the finish was shiny and smoother than late Maadi's but not very durable and chipped easily.

I would like to have one. They look almost exactly like a Russian AKM to me. Their reputation however seems meh.

Mine has been rock solid and has a great finish.

It’s the last AK I’d ever sell.

A lot of people are talking about Steyr Maadis. What about one marked INTRAC?

Atlantic has or had Maadi kits a day or 2 ago.

I have one of the ACC INT/INTRAC marked ones. A buddy of mine had it and wanted to sell it in a ban state. So he gave it to me to to swap out the receiver to a DC Industries receiver. I carefully demilled and saved the receiver. I got one of the Egyptian kits that came in with the Arabic writing and built it on that ARM marked Maadi receiver. To me it’s just a typical AK with Arabic writhing, nothing special. But it looks just like the one in that Red Dawn meme.

Lotsa people consider them the next best thing to the Steyrs if for no other reason than they still retain threads under the welded muzzle cap. Every once in a while you'll still see remnants of the old Steyr import rollmark on one. The paint jobs are hit and miss, but that's pretty typical across most of the iterations.