Never bought any during the ban so I never really looked at them. Guns such as The AR, M1A, FAL, AK, HK,  and such. What was the average price on them? I mostly shot 1911s and such and only owned one AR which I bought before the ban hit. I never really looked at the prices and have no idea when they peaked. I never looked at any prices of mags either except for AR ones. Thanks.

$1400 prebans were not uncommon

Quoted: $1400 prebans were not uncommon

Yep, that's a good figure.  When I first saw the title of the thread, my first thought was that very nice condition, LNIB, AR's----from the major makers----seemed to sell in the $1300-$1400 area, with LNIB Colts up around $1600-$1700, dependent upon model, with Colt Carbines abit more than that.

NIW AR mags were 2x-3x in price what they are now; betas 3x-4x currrent prices.

It was "sky's the limit" for a while there, 1400$ sounds like a good average.  I sold a heavily used Colt Sporter for 1800$ to some frantic gentleman when things were hot.  It was a great time to clean out duplicates from the collection and buy even MORE guns.  By my guess the AWB enabled me to buy 18 long guns and a half dozen pistols.

I had 7 Beta mags. I sold them from between $600-$700 dollars. At the right time, I could have sold them all day long for $700.





BTW- Ruben Mendiola sold them until he sold out, back in 99-00ish, NIW,  for $401 shipped complete. They were never released to the public, and had always been that price on he open market iirc.

They just kept climbing until spring before it died.





I sold not one "Assault Weapon". I was more than happy to lose any markup they had acquired.

$1400 for verifiable pre-bans sounds about right. However, there were scads of $1200 "Franken-ARs" with mismatched uppers, lowers, barrels and furniture, all of suspect lineage. The all were pushed by gunshow commandos as "pre-ban" but I doubt if any of the really were.

In 2000 I paid $1385 for a standard Colt 20" HBAR A2 blue label NIB.

It was my first black rifle and I've still got it.

Quoted: I never really looked at the prices and have no idea when they peaked. I never looked at any prices of mags either except for AR ones. Thanks.

Some of the more common mags for pistols were about $65 for Sig 226 mags, Glock 17/19 mags were about $100, Glock 20/21 mags were about $125-150, Glock 18 mags got up to about $175.
As mentioned above Beta CMags were $700+.

Outrageous prices but it's all supply and demand.  Mag prices were actually pretty decent the first year or so after the ban

Roughly double.  For some, triple.  Stripped lowers went for a 500 to 700% markup. $100 Stripped lowers were $500 for a cast, beat up no-name.  $700-900 for a Bushmaster or Colt.    And they sold like wildfire.  Literally, in minutes.  

It was a great lesson in human psychology, and supply and demand.  The .gov said we couldn't have the "evil" features, and so people wanted them BADLY.

Another observation I picked up is that gun owners are such a law abiding lot.  They all felt it worth while to pay the extra $700. rather then put the "evil" features on a post ban.  Even though any charge or conviction for doing so would have been highly doubtful.  Others cheaper or wiser (like me) just did without.

We better all concentrate on politics, because civil disobediance is not an option.
If the Black people of the '60's were like todays black gun owners, there would be no civil rights.
Not one of us had the courage to go to the front of the bus.      

I sold a Bushmaster lower and a Colt 16’ HB flattop upper upper with ARMS Swan Sleeve for $1850 here and had to beat off offers. So I figure I got $1700 for the rifle.

I paid $1250 for my Olympic in 2001.

Ashamed to say I bought a Blue Lable Colt Gov't Carbine in 1999 for $1550......Oh well....

California during the closing months of 1999 the prices jumped to around 2300 dollars for an original Bushmaster preban.

Y2K and the looming California ban had demand absolutely sky rocketing.

Fortunately I bought all my post-94 guns during 1998 when they tried to get it passed with Pete Wilson in office.    Managed to sneek an AR10 in during early months of 1999 before things really took off.


Magazine prices were 35-45 dollars for magazines in most areas, Ebay was selling Black Teflon Labelle magazines for around 60 dollars new in wrapper.

It was quite nuts.

I had a chance to by a CAR clone for $1250 at a gunshow.  I passed it up because I wasn't sure it was a legit pre-ban and not a modified post-ban.

How about other "evil" rifles and their mags? I see so many foreign mags that only cost 5 to 15 bucks anymore like FAL mags and so on. What were they going for, or did they not rise as much as most were surplussed and made before the ban. How about M1A mags? Were they higher or about the same. What were preban AKs going for and mags?

Don't ask what I paid for my pre '94 domestics.

I don't regret it though hindsight being what it is...  1,000 more Gore voters in FL and it would have seemed like money well spent.  Regarless of the Republican house, Gore would have beat the drum loud enough and the media would have carried the story long enough that every Rep or Sen who didn't vote for a renewal would have been seen by John Q. Public as a baby killer.