Well, came across a deal I couldn't pass up the other day.  Picked up a preban for 600 bucks.  It is an Olympic Arms lower with a colt upper.  I think it is an A1 upper (old sights, no shell deflector).  It has a 20" pencil barrel, with an old style 3X28 handle mounted scope.  The little thing is a tack driver, but shows just a bit of wear on the outside.  The guy said he only qualified with it 3 times, and shot it very little otherwise.  After a good cleaning, the rifle looks pretty good.  The wear on the internals is definitely very minimal.

Now question, what is it worth?  I don't care one way or the other as far as pre/post ban.  If I could sell this and buy a tricked out post-ban, I would just as soon do that.  If it isn't worth too much more than I paid for it, I may do some work on it to make it more like what I want.  Anyhow, I guess Q is, would you keep something like this?  Sell and run?  Or did I get zapped?  Didn't figure I could go too wrong with a preban for 600 bucks.

Thanks for any input
Doc

600.00 is cheap for any tac driver. A pre ban with low wear at that price is cheap insurance that you are well covered if something wierd happens[again]. Sounds like all pluses to me.

the lower itself is worth around $600.  good deal!

I think the lower is worth even more.  A Colt or Bushy preban lower can fetch up to $1100 (Less for Oly or others though).  A Colt upper can fetch from $450-$850.

I would think $1000 is not unreasonable for what you described IMO, but I don't know that much.  I would sell the upper for $350-$450 (collectors like those old configurations), then get a high speed upper, but that's me.

I would say you got a good deal all around, but the lower is not worth $600 alone (unless of course somebody is crazy enough to pay for it) Prebans like the one you bought will go in the toilet in terms of value (and rightfully so) as we near the end of this stupid legislation. 6 months ago there would be no way you could have paid what you did for that, but 6 months from now you'll see a million of these. I think the best find is your upper.

Can't comment on what the lower is worth, since I don't follow the preban market, but the upper is worth no more than $350, which would include all the parts, bolt, carrier, etc. Bought a practically new GI A1 upper, complete, from a dealer at a gun show last year for $325, and I'd expect a private individual would have to look for at least a bit less.

Remember, the market is now full of GI Surp A1 stuff, with all the old A1s being A2'd and M4'd by the Armed Forces.[:D]

I agree.  I would only pay $350, but I mentioned $450 because you might get lucky and find someone who would pay that.  It's a sellers market.  There are times it is difficult to find the old GI upper, and that's when you can command a higher price.  However, fairly recently there has come a flood of original GI uppers.

I don't know if he was refering to GI uppers alone or preban rifles in general. In the preban rifles dept however, it is anything BUT a seller's market (if you don't have primo stuff). This explains the deal you got in the first place & it's about to get a whole lot more interesting. As far as the GI uppers go I don't know how hard/soft the market is.

i sold a complete dpms cast preban lower for $650 in july.