Damned Expensive Lottery Ticket

Rereading the CMP's list of hoops to jump through to "purchase" a surplus M1911A1.

The thing I'd missed in the initial reading is that this isn't a purchase of a gun.

It's purchase of a lottery ticket.

You are guaranteed to win if you're lucky enough to be among the first 10,000 entries received!

Win.

Then two drawings occur, not sure of the order.  A person's name will be drawn from the 10,000 entries and a pistol will be pulled from the pile.

Then, sometime later, the winner will discover if their ticket purchase was worth it.

In a world where a pristine WW2 Remington-Rand gun goes for $2,500, getting a similar gun for $1,000 is a deal.  If there are more than a couple that nice in this pile of guns I would be shocked.  Never mind there's credible rumors that the people working at CMP skim the cream for personal enrichment, subverting the intent of the place.

CMP probably reset the basement value for beater parts guns.

Coming soon to a gunshow near you!  Pieced together parts guns for $1,000!  Good luck finding the provenance on that.

I just wish that CMP had seriously done the research on what the market was before setting a price.  They don't need to charge any money for any gun they have.  They're fully funded outside of sales, their form 990 confirms this.  They pulled a value out of their ass that was about 30% too high for what these guns surely are.

While we're here; let's talk about the term "fair market value".  You might notice that it's three words.  That's because it's distinct from the term "market value".

Fair market value is what something should cost when all distortions are removed from the price.  Market value is what someone paid and others could be expected to pay.  Personal value is what you're willing to pay.

Free pistols which would have been worth $750 in an open market being priced at $1,000 is a distortion.  Remember, the supply of $750 pistols is a lot smaller than the surge being dumped on the market by CMP.  A sudden increase in supply of 10,000 of these guns should have a chilling effect on price, not a warming.

I am reminded of tulip mania.  I predict that there's going to be heap big buyer's remorse soon; once people see how messed up these guns are.  I know it's been thirty years since they were packed up and lots of us have forgotten how bad they were.  I remember, and we were thrilled when we got new M9's (and pissed when they got taken away because they needed to be inspected mere weeks before heading to the Czech-German border).  Thrilled to have new guns that none of us really liked.