m1 garand

Hi all
seen a garand for sale on the ww2 forum made by harvester which i believe is post war as only springfield and winchester made them during ww2,the seller is wanting 400 notes for it including the sling and a bayonet.
I have enquired about and was wondering if that is a fair price for it or should i try and get a ww2 issued one?

Well it's one of those things. I am guessing that most WW2 issue Garands are old spec. and likely to go for in the region of £1000 and the options of a Denix (not good) and the Hudson (way better but £500?) leave it up to you. I have a Harvester Korean M1 and I had to spend about £250 to make it up to scratch not withstanding the difficulty of getting parts with the current international hysteria about selling antique weapon parts. If it's in decent condition my vote is go for it unless you have £400 extra. In hindsight I would like to have an old spec. M1 but in reality it's still a lump of iron and wood that is pretty useless other than for display. It's just a damn shame we can't actually buy a proper M1 Garnad and take it to the range on a Saturday morning.

Old spec M1s now command extremely high prices, I think the record I saw for a good, WW2 example was £1500!

You're right about International Harvester, they only received the contract to produce these post-WW2. Most of the de-acts coming out now are either post-war contract examples or those which were rebuilt and distributed through the CMP programme.

£400 isn't too bad for a new spec, but like Murph said if you want it to be spot on you're going to need to invest some money putting some of the items back to their WW2 specification. For example you'll need a lock-bar sight, cast trigger guard and a couple of other modifications.

Your call, but you could hold out forever to try and get a WW2 one!

Cheers,
Ben.

ok thanks for the input was pm ing the seller and he said he would send me some pics went on to the forum earlier taday and it was sold,to say i am gutted would be an understatement

'He who hesitates is lost' Bide your time Nigel, they are always popping up from time to time.

shoukld have snatched his hand off with a bayonet costing £45 ish a sling, even repro £20, it was a bloody good deal. mine is a harvester and iam more than happy with mine.

soldier of fortune are doing em at £425, or you could approach x-militaria direct who had loads a couple of years ago, dont have their number though, there based in nottingham and advertise in gun-mart, i got mine from them for £295.

riz

Well I went to Stoneleigh last year and there were loads there I don;t know about this year???

£400 was a bargain in my opinion. I would suggest getting one even if it is post war just becasue having one is better than not having one. If your sad like me and must have a ww2 numbered one then look out for one part exchange or sell the post war one at that time and jobs a gudden!

I started with a Harvester one that we got as a group order that Vic dealt with and waited for my old spec to come up. Just looking for that dam lock bar now! People will always want to buy a M1 if it's the right price even if it isn't a ww2 spec one.

samharris45 wrote:Well I went to Stoneleigh last year and there were loads there I don;t know about this year???

£400 was a bargain in my opinion. I would suggest getting one even if it is post war just becasue having one is better than not having one. If your sad like me and must have a ww2 numbered one then look out for one part exchange or sell the post war one at that time and jobs a gudden!

I started with a Harvester one that we got as a group order that Vic dealt with and waited for my old spec to come up. Just looking for that dam lock bar now! People will always want to buy a M1 if it's the right price even if it isn't a ww2 spec one.

Just to add to that - this is only really personal choice. Ask most people and they wouldnt be able to spot the difference. I cant see why a non-WW2 is any different from a WW2 one. Apart from kudos who would really know? and at the end of the day its down to cash!

Vic wrote:

samharris45 wrote:Well I went to Stoneleigh last year and there were loads there I don;t know about this year???

£400 was a bargain in my opinion. I would suggest getting one even if it is post war just becasue having one is better than not having one. If your sad like me and must have a ww2 numbered one then look out for one part exchange or sell the post war one at that time and jobs a gudden!

I started with a Harvester one that we got as a group order that Vic dealt with and waited for my old spec to come up. Just looking for that dam lock bar now! People will always want to buy a M1 if it's the right price even if it isn't a ww2 spec one.

Just to add to that - this is only really personal choice. Ask most people and they wouldnt be able to spot the difference. I cant see why a non-WW2 is any different from a WW2 one. Apart from kudos who would really know? and at the end of the day its down to cash!

Agreed! I'm just sad! If you knock a lock bar on a past war M1 and have the WW2 trigger guard no one will be able to knock you.

I've been looking at Garands over here in DK too, and have only seen one wartime example for sale in the last year or so. I'd say take what you can get when you can get it, as supply seems to be drying up.

I wonder what happened to all the Korean surplus Garands they mentioned in the news last year?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8271041.stm