Ran across one local,bright shiny blue,in oil finished GI stock.
Has 3 or 4 mags with it.Very clean,but i know little of them.
He wants $500....worth it?
Thanks!

$300

Thanks, i think i will pass on it then.

if its an early Inland that mostly uses GI surplus parts and is in mint condition, $500 is probably the going rate.  Maybe even a deal where you live.

But if the recoil op rod is commercial with two slots in it, its worth about $50 and that is only so you can sell off the parts.

The very early Universal carbines had GI trigger housings, and they transitioned to a GI style trigger housing made from aluminum. The later ones have the Universal designed aluminum trigger housing that is slab sided (mag well width front to back), and that change appeared as early as about 18,000 and was the norm after about 44,000.

However, Universal didn't stray too far from the original design until after SN 100,000 and I'd pay $500 for one under that number.

This is the best site I've found for information on he huge number of commercial M1 carbines.

http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbines.html