The Pre-'64 Winchester Model 70 isn't as popular or valuable today as it once was. I'm at the head of the last generation of hunters and shooters who had any reverence for "The Rifleman's Rifle" and I'm too old to have any use for it, just like a lot of people who might have found it desirable, once upon a time.
The .308 chambering doesn't do it any favors. The is no such thing as a "short action" Pre-'64 Winchester, Buying one in .243 Winchester instead of .257 Roberts or .308 instead of .30-'06 didn't make much sense when they were new and that continues to influence value today.
Back in 2007, there was a guy with a table at the Wanenmacher Gun Show in Tulsa who was trying to shift two Savage Model 1920 rifles, one in .250-3000 Savage, the other in .300 Savage. He was asking $2,000.00 for the former. I see him at the same show every year, still trying to sell the same rifles, Last year, he had the one in .250-3000 for sale for $850.00. I expect to see that rifle again in a couple of weeks.
There was a period of time when having a Savage 1895, 1899, or 99 was like sitting on a gold mine, if you had one you were willing to sell. You wouldn't see one priced below "One Large" then but last year, I saw dozens in .300 Savage for around $850.00 and plenty of sellers willing to deal on them.
Back in 1983, on the day that I turned 18, I inherited a Griffin and Howe, made in 1935 on a 1903 Springfield action, in .30-'06. It was the same grade as the one Hemingway wrote about in "Green Hills of Africa" and there was a time when it was worth over $20,000.00.
I took it on a pig hunt on California's Santa Rosa Island once. Boarding the plane in Oxnard with me were two Major Leauge baseball players and two motion-picture stars. When I pulled my rifle out of the case to have my turn on the 200 yard gong, everybody in our party knew what my rifle was and how much it was worth and they thought I was nuts for hunting with something that valuable.
I saw one like mine at the big Tulsa gun show last year. The seller was asking $9,000.00 for it. It didn't sell. I'm not surprised.
What something was worth "back then" isn't necessarily what it is worth in a current buyer's market where people at the peak of their earning power don't give a solitary shit about controlled feed, polished blued steel, high-grade walnut, or anything else that "Boomers" valued in a hunting rifle. The same people who will dump thousands of dollars into an AR-15 won't even look at something like a Newton in .256 Newton, no matter what price tag is on it, and something like my old Griffin and Howe might have had their attention if Messers. Griffin and Howe never touched it, and it remained a mil-spec 1903 Springfield sold through the Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship.
When you say you want to sell your Pre-'64 Model 70 to finance the purchase of a piece of farm equipment, what you're really saying is that you THINK you know what your rifle is worth.
The problem is that they're basically worthless to hunters and shooters who are in their mid-30's today. The Baby-Boomers who did value them are dropping like flies, flooding the market with Pre-'64 Winchester collections. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. The supply is surging in the face of rapidly diminishing demand and that combination only drives prices in one direction, which is down, and not up.
You see a wide variety in asking price for rifles like yours now because some sellers are stuck on yesterday's valuation while others are motivated to sell while there is still some microcosm of a market to sell to.
If you want to part with it fast, the Wanenmacher Gun Show is happening in Tulsa April 11 and 12 at Expo Square on 21st Street between Harvard and Yale. It is the biggest show of its kind in the country.
I doubt you'd get more than $1,500.00 for it, though. In all honesty, I doubt you'd get more than $1,000.00.
The other option is to advertise it locally on some state-specific board like this one, and wait forever until the right buyer meets you where you want to be met, price-wise, but I personally think that will be a long wait.
Sorry if that's not what you want to hear, but the market for guns like yours isn't the gold mine it was just five or ten years ago, and I suspect it will only get worse, following the trend of the side by side shotgun market in the U.K., where you can now buy side by side guns for pennies on the pound versus what they'd have sold for twenty years ago.
to finance it i would like to sell a gun i have owned for over 40 years and never shot it. It is a 1950s mod. 70 308 featherlight in very nice condition. Internet searching i can't find one for sale to compare it with. How and where would be the best place to get the most out of it. How would you go about advertising it?
