The last three months may have been the craziest when it comes to the prices of Glock collectibles. Prices for even standard guns have gone up as much as 60% but the prices of collector guns and even early manuals, boxes, or brochures have skyrocketed. Yesterday an early box with manual and mag loader sold on ebay for $1126… bringing more than the gun might have. Some of this can be attributed to ebay buyers just not having common sense (lol) but I think a lot of this is driven be the panic around the Corona virus. A standard Gen 3 31C sold on gunbroker this afternoon for $1225 which is more than twice what the same gun would have brought prior to the pandemic.

So what is it about a national panic that would cause a steep escalation in collectible firearm prices. Here is my theory: The pandemic has definitely cause an increase in demand for all firearms. Some of that is traditional panic buying whenever there is uncertainty, but an interesting aspect of the COVID panic is that the crowd reaching for firearms includes many new left-leaning faces–the ones who would never have thought to buy guns before. Article after article have been written about outrage liberals have experienced their first time trying to purchase a gun. They are discovering that there are significant barriers to purchasing a firearm, it’s just that the pro gun-control media has never reported this truthfully in the past.

A portion of the increased demand can definitely be attributed to a whole new crowd purchasing firearms for the first time. A portion can also be attributed to the fact that many factories have shut down completely for the safety of their workers. Glock took several months off and distributors’ shelves have been wiped clean since March. But I think the largest piece of the increase in demand for collectibles comes from these in-experienced buyers just not being familiar with the cyclical nature of the firearms market.

If you’ve been around long enough, you will have been through many panics cause demand to surge and then come crashing down the next year when the general firearms public realizes that the 2nd amendment is still standing. You can almost count on this happening every four years with election cycles. Corona isn’t unique in that sense, but it is larger than even the panic when President Obama was first elected in ’08. Combine this general panic with new buyers entering the market and you have the recipe for huge increases in prices. These new buyers don’t have the track record to know that the inflated prices aren’t going to last. Even with collectibles, they would see this as the start of a never-ending upward trend. This really is the only reason that you can justify paying over $1000 just for the tupperware box and manual from an early Glock.

For the seasoned collector, it is likely a good time to take a step away from the buying–by this time next year, the liberals will change sides on the gun debate again and I suspect there will be many MANY bargain opportunities to pick up these same pieces that sold for escalated prices this year. Only time will tell…