For those who don’t know, or who didn’t assume it, the FAMAS has been on our “to-buy” list for a while. But since there aren’t many examples in the US, the need to have one as a reference gun has always been low. And with that scarcity, the prices are artificially high.
It’s a vicious cycle.
In recent memory, I have seen them in the 12-18k range. Now mind you, we are discussing semi-auto only guns that are NOT on the NFA. And 2-3 years ago, what kind of NFA gun could you have bought for 18k? Or possibly two NFA items?
So when one popped up for sale, I was immediately interested in bidding on it. If for no other reason to see what it actually sold for.
The seller’s description is pretty nice. Extra parts and rail covers so the owner can mount different optics and accessories and generally have a fully tricked out FAMAS rifle. Very cool. But what really caught my eye was the statement that a semi-auto FAMAS recently brought $43,000 at auction!
Wow! Is that before or after buyer’s premium? If before, add possibly an extra 20% to the sale price. And was this gun an outlier? Maybe NFA? Belong to the de Gaulle family? Ok. I kid on the last one. But now I am really curious.
So what happened to the rifle in the listing? We bid on it. As did many others. It did NOT meet the seller’s reserve so remained unsold. The bidding reached….$30,025.00.
Sweet Baby Jesus! That settles that. I can’t see a situation where we can justify $30-40k on a reference training gun, when the chances of someone seeing one in the wild and needing to know the manual of arms are statistically up there with winning the Power Ball!
Play this game long enough and eventually you’ll see a gun hit a certain price and look back and say, “I could have bought X, for Y, back when we were Z”. It’s official. For me, that’s the semi-auto FAMAS. I should have bought one when they were $12,000.00.
Sincerely,
Marky
www.John1911.com
“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”
Areas of focus: Defense and National Security, Modern Light Weapons, Small Arms, Weapons Training.
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