well, my friend just got three cool rifles:

1) a Winchester 1894 that is a "U.S. Marshal" special edition-w/ sliver bb and polished and engraved reciever w/ 16 inch barrel
2) a Winchester 1894 that is a Wells Fargo and Co. (the bank) special edition w/ 2o inch barrel --the 125 year special edition one --1852-1977 is engraved on the side of the reciever w/ other engravings
BOTH have NEVER been fired and still IN the BOX(loooks its well taken care of age)
3) a Ruger #1 single shot in .416 Rem. Mag. that is a special edition (1of 100) [He got NUMBER 5] --it is some sort of special edition for some sportsmans club or organization commemorative

i wish i could have toys like that

what you think about these???

I think he wasted his money. Blue Book & collecters will both tell you "limited editions", with a few exceptions, never hold their initial high cost. I'd bet 98% or better will sell at no more than a like model with out the fancy lettering as long as both were unfired.

They look pretty & there's a lot of them I want (1911 Marine commemorative) but I refuse to waste my money. Having said that, I do admire his taste in rifles!

My .o2

true, but dang they were pretty, but i still want an AK and ARand....you get the picture

Ditto on the special edition models.
I dont know why it is,but it seems to take forever to gain enough value to make them worth the initial investment when they were new.
There are exceptions,but most of the ones Ive seen for sale are alot higher than BlueBook.(I wonder what is becoming of all those gold inlay 1911s and Thompsons you see dedicated to the armed services or wars and such?You know......the ones in American Rifleman you buy on payments?)
Im not big on anything I would feel bad about pulling out of the safe and shooting.YMMV though.If its priced reasonable,and in limited numbers...........why not?

Quoted: Ditto on the special edition models. I dont know why it is,but it seems to take forever to gain enough value to make them worth the initial investment when they were new. There are exceptions,but most of the ones Ive seen for sale are alot higher than BlueBook.(I wonder what is becoming of all those gold inlay 1911s and Thompsons you see dedicated to the armed services or wars and such?You know......the ones in American Rifleman you buy on payments?) Im not big on anything I would feel bad about pulling out of the safe and shooting.YMMV though.If its priced reasonable,and in limited numbers...........why not?

   The reason they take so long to go up in value is that everyone never shoots them and if you have a run of 5000 in 50 years you still have 4700 that are NIB. Now that said I do have a couple to include the WW1 reissue 1911 from Colt, but that was not so much for resale/collectability as it was for my own personnal gratifacation. Worth every penny of 900 bucks too.