As of this writing, Colt Single Action Army revolvers have never been more valuable. Browsing Cabela’s online Gun Library, GunBroker, ArmsList and more, prices range from the tolerable to ridiculous—some in the ballpark of $25,000.
As you can imagine, this market is littered with fraud, and many sellers are complicit, knowingly or not. In many cases, you can accurately assess your skill as a Colt collector by the ones you don’t buy.
I’ve collected, bought and sold military surplus rifles for most of my life. This was fostered by their comparatively low prices during my youth; Mosin rifles could be had for as low as $65, and a case of 440 rounds, in a sealed tin, came in at a whopping $40. I fondly recall spending virtually all my money in late high school trying to collect various stamps and markings: Each gun show was like an archaeological dig and I was a fossil hunter.
Those days are now long gone, and the surplus market has since dried up in many ways. The average Mosin is now about as expensive as the next gun, with most military surplus
