While cleaning the house out, we came across some guns and ammo in Pawpaw's closet. Nice Winchester-97 12-gauge pump open-choke duck gun, still had a hunting license from 1927 tucked into the stock behind the butt plate. There was a .22 rifle, and an old German bolt-action rifle with a broken-off trigger and the barrel sealed, probably used for drills and marching.
There was a brick of Monark .22 ammo -- a brick being ten boxes of fifty rounds each -- up on the closet shelf. I wound up with that and the guns. This .22 ammo was made in Minneapolis, probably in the late 1940's or early 1950's.
I figured the ammo, after sitting in a Louisiana closet for thirty or forty years was probably bad, so I took a box to the range to try. I think I had one dud, the rest shot just fine, so I stuck the rest of the brick in a lockbox.
Poking around on the net recently, I came across an antique ammo collector, and a little more research showed that this stuff was selling anywhere from five to twenty dollars a box, depending on the condition. Worth more if you have a whole brick in the original carton. Could be worth a couple hundred bucks that way.
Thus making that box I shot up the most expense .22 ammo I ever cooked off ...
I don't know. Ammunition that hasn't been fired is a like a bottle of wine that nobody ever drinks. What's the point?
ReplyDeleteWell, if you replenish your brick from:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sportingcollectibles.com/22_ammunition.html
(for $10) and then sell it, we'll never tell.
Though I kind of agree w/ Mendur --- one of my Uncles, when WWII started, went to every store that sold ammunition that he could find and cleared them all out --- he was still shooting the stuff when he passed away in 1980.
William
I have heard that the ammo companies are making the gunpowder so it will only last a few years now, presumably so people can't stockpile it.
ReplyDeleteLot number would be different, William -- any good collector would notice.
ReplyDeletePlus it would be fraud and all ...