Would your spouse let you spend a quarter of a million dollars on guns? That’s obviously a rhetorical question, so let’s rephrase it. How outrageously wealthy would you have to be before the inevitable answer of “no f***ing way” might start to become a “maybe?” No names are listed, but some lucky (if misguided) man seems to have married himself the perfect wife, at least as far as guns are concerned. With her blessing, or at least her acquiescence, he’s spent $250,000 of their retirement savings on collectible guns . . .

That’s a lot of guns. Clearly the Little Lady has a few reservations about this enterprise, since she wrote to CNN.com’s Money column, asking whether her husband’s investment strategy was a good idea. Conventional wisdom (and CNN) says no, but maybe this investor knows something we don’t about a viral outbreak at a secret underground zombie research laboratory. Or maybe he just knows guns.

At the top level of shotgun collecting, $250k for a pairs of rare firearms is more common than you’d imagine. Here’s the official description of the guns featured in the images above from csmcspecials.com:

Inv#20505, 20506
S/n#3584, 3585

MATCHED PAIR Fabbri O/U 12ga 28” Mod/ Imp Mod 7lbs., 1oz 14 ¼” x 1 ½” x 2 ½” – Matched pair consecutive serial numbers, gold one and two matched wood blanks. Gold ovals, unbelievable copy writed miniature scroll engraving to the very highest lever by PELI. In the middle of each gun there are two game birds on each lock plate on the bottom done by Fracassi. These guns are pictured in the “Modern Engraving book” by Nobile. Sold ribs these are very special guns and they are in the original leather case. They are new and unfired with many special features. These are new style pin less guns they are available immediately at far less then replacement cost. By one of the world’s best engravers Fracassi who is virtually untamable for someone who wants the very best.

On sale now for $285k. Times being what they are, I bet they’d entertain an offer at $250k. And . . . done. The question then becomes: how much does it cost to insure them and how much money would you lose if you fired them? FYI: you can buy them online.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. Would your spouse let you spend a quarter of a million dollars on guns?

    I’m still not married…but I won’t ever let someone else tell me how to spend my money. Maybe that’s why I’m not married?

    I want to have collectible guns be maybe 1/4 of a percent of my assets at most, so I would need 100 million to afford this. On the other, I want shooting guns to be as much as 1/4 of my assets, so I only need to get a mere million bucks to afford to spend this much on guns. (Many would say that would mean I would be a millionaire, but if you account for inflation a millionaire is someone with at least twenty million bucks, and someone who only has a million possesses only a fraction of a fortune).

  2. Having spent well over $250,000 on a wife (or two), I’d say that guns are a better investment. For one thing, guns would never leave you for a guy with more ammunition. Second, guns won’t get upset if you wear ear protection. Finally, if you take proper care of your guns, they will always go bang.

    I rest my case.

  3. In the best of 2010 edition of the Shotgun News there is an article about buying Class III Title 2 firearms (the dealers are Class III, the guns are Title 2, as I will readily admit I just learned from that article). He currently owns ~100 transferable machine guns and has owned many more. I don’t know how many of them he has purchased in the last 25 years but that is a lot of cash no matter what. Just think of the ammo costs if you ever actually ran them.

  4. Hmmm…I know I had problems with the EX when I spent $500 on a gun. I can’t imagine spending that much. I have a shooting buddy that probably has spent half that in the last 5yrs on guns. His wife doesn’t give him too much of a hard time. He even bought her one the other day. A very nice Colt 1908. Nickel. With the box, and papers!

  5. I can answer that insurance question if your insurer is State Farm. It’ll cost $2,500.00 a year for a full replacement value policy.

    I am just speculating here. By taking the respective numbers from what it costs to insure the Fritz collection and applying them to this guy’s purchase. Of course my collection is a little more modest. Did I say little? Teeny compared to this guy.

    • Is that an actual rider for firearms? So $10K would be $100 a year? That sounds better than the NRA policy.

  6. My spose would if we had that much. She sees it like this: If I can have ten Coach purses and five pair of Coach shoes to go with my ten non-Coach purses and my twenty non-Coach shoes (Nordstrom Rack if not Coach); my husband can have a $700 handgun (or two), a $800 dollar shotgun (or three) and whatever else he wants.

    All I have to do is get a better paying job. Suck it up boys!

  7. This article from Time is fairly interesting: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2048229,00.html

    Basically, some of these very expensive guns can see a fairly regular increase in value because the gunsmiths cannot keep up with demand.

    Personally, I don’t think I have a ceiling when it comes to guns. It won’t always scale the same, but I don’t know of a point where I would stop regardless of income.

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