For those curious about how much a documented M40 has sold for, check out this 2018 Rock Island auction:
Rare and Highly Desirable Documented U.S.M.C. Vietnam Remington Model 700 (M40) Bolt Action Sniper RifleRare, original, Remington Model 700 sniper rifle with Redfield 3-9x telescopic sight manufactured in 1966 as part of the original U.S.M.C contract for 700 rifles to replace the M1C, M1D and...
www.rockislandauction.com
And the realized price was sans the 25% buyers premium.
Last year I sold one of my original USMC M40's for even more than that auction rifle with the added buyers premium. One of my other USMC M40's is probably worth double the price of that auction rifle. Real, verified USMC 6 digit M40's are extremely rare and they sell for a lot of money, and they've DRASTICALLY increased in price in the past decade. It's always good to keep up with current prices, and I always discuss price trends with my fellow collectors. Sometimes the discussion goes from current prices to "how the hell is everything M40 related so expensive right now?!" From what I've seen, there's the usual stuff that causes price increases (more people collecting = more demand, original sniper rifles are ALWAYS a sellers market, inflation, etc., etc.), but there's also a much more important and deeper factor to the price increases in the past decade.
Original M40 rifles and take-off parts have skyrocketed in price, mainly due to what we have done within our own collecting community, and it all boils down to 1 single word - information. This information educates collectors and drastically increases their level of knowledge about M40's, which in turn has led to a massive increase in confidence buyers have after verifying the original rifles/parts that come up for sale. High definition color photos, detailed descriptions of every known M40 part, comparisons between parts, detailed clone threads, etc. have all helped the collector community in recent years, and this massive increase in information is directly related to very well educated potential buyers being confident in potential purchases. Essentially, the more you know, the more you're willing to spend. And right now there's a lot of people with a lot of information who are actively trying to spend a lot of money acquiring original M40 rifles and take-off parts.
Before these detailed threads with beautiful photos of original rifles and parts existed, all we had were a few old reference books (amazing books and I still recommend that people buy copies of them) that only had grainy black and white photos and missing a great deal of research that we know have. Now it's extremely easy to pull up a reference thread, and check the photos/information against an item that pops up for sale. It's also very easy to shoot someone a message on a forum and ask them about the authenticity of an M40 rifle or part. I'm currently at 18 pages of messages (20 conversations per page) on just this forum alone! The vast majority of the conversations on these 18 pages are forum members who reach out to me with questions and need help. But I'm not alone, there are many, many, MANY forum members here who are willing to help others, and they get private messages as well. There's a ton of information posted, and if anyone needs further assistance, there's tons of people they can immediately contact. So, legitimate M40 information is extremely easy to come by these days, and there's not that much left in question (and we're currently discovering the missing answers to those few remaining questions).
This M40 community has come a long way since those well known books were published throughout the 1990's and early 2000's! All of these amazing photographs, detailed descriptions of parts, and new research have rapidly changed the entire field of M40 collecting. It wasn't anything like this 10 years ago, and it's 100% because we've spent a ton of time in this community discussing these historic rifles and educating each other. We did this
together, and look at how much information we now have! Look at how much discussion takes place and how much people are willing to help out their fellow community members! So, I blame all of you guys for everything that's happened with M40 collecting, lol.
Also, this isn't the only field of firearm study/collecting that has exploded like this, just look at the entire Mk13 market as an example. Mk13 collecting didn't even exist in any relevant manner prior to 2016, only a few random Mk13 Mod 5 clones existed and that was essentially it, nothing more. Now Mk13 collecting rivals M40 collecting, and this relatively new area of sniper rifle collecting might even surpass the M40 series in collector interest and demand! As with the M40 market, information is one of the main driving forces for what we're currently seeking with this market (the availability of original Mk13 take-off parts is another massive driving force).
After seeing
@RTESantaFe's post, I just wanted to help explain the changes that long-term M40 collectors have seen in the past decade. And it gave me a chance to write another one of my usual rambling posts, lol.