How did mail order guns work?

[protoolman]

Who can remind me how mail order guns worked in the 1970's and 1980's? I remember looking at 30-30s and Savage 30-06 model 110s in the catalog for Wards and Sears I think. Did you have to fill out a 4473 at the store when you picked them up or what?

 

[Biggfoot44]

If you actually meant mail order guns, you mean up until 1968.

I wasn't old enough to buy guns myself then, but as I understand - You mailed in your check or money order , usually with the order form with a statement to the effect of there were no state or local laws prohibiting the sale, and then the mailman delivered your gun.

 

[Bear Paw Jack]

Bigfoot is right. That all ended in 1968. It was called the gun control act of 1968.

 

[protoolman]

Nope I was born in 64. When I was a teenager around 1980 I remember guns in the Wards or maybe Sears catalogs. Must have been some procedure to fill out the appropriate paperwork. store pickup only maybe?

 

[daveg.inkc]

Who had the Ted Williams line? Sears? Western Auto sold guns ,too.

 

[daveg.inkc]

Oh, the Good Old Days. My Granddad carried a rifle or two in gun rack in Ford pickup. The models with the gas tank behind seat.

 

[Goldstar225]

The guns in the catalogs in the 70's and 80's were not true mail order guns. They had to be picked up at the store and a 4473 completed then.

A mail order gun occurred prior to the gun control act of 1968 as Biggfoot44 has already said.

Prior to 1968 you mailed your money to sears or other dealer and they mailed the gun directly to your home. No different than any other mail order purchase. Remember this was pre-internet days

 

[beemermark]

I don't think there was a 4473, each state did it's own thing. Anyway there was 3 short questions in Ohio. Are you mentally deficient, have you been dishonorably discharged and are you a felon.

Bought my 1st rifle (Win 94) pre-1968 at Sears and a Ruger Single Six around 1970. Wish I still had that one.

 

[Fox Mike]

Don't know about mail order but do remember the stack of 'war surplus' rifles that could be found in the sport section of the Five and Dime at the local mall. Pay your $$ and walk away with the rifle. This was in the mid 80s.

 

[daveg.inkc]

I don't think there was a 4473, each state did it's own thing. Anyway there was 3 short questions in Ohio. Are you mentally deficient, have you been dishonorably discharged and are you a felon.

Bought my 1st rifle (Win 94) pre-1968 at Sears and a Ruger Single Six around 1970. Wish I still had that one.

Do you remember price on those 2 pieces?

 

[m657]

Canadian border story:
circa 1966 a youngish & certainly naive m657 attempted to visit Canada, driving to the Idaho/BC border crossing.

The nice young man there asked about firearms. Pondering whether he meant the Mk I Ruger buried in the trunk, casual inquiry prompted revealing all the sordid details of my attempted invasion of Canadian sovereignty. He agreed under the circumstance, since I hadn't actually penetrated deep into Canadian territory & didn't seem to be intent on some horrific subterfuge, I could box it up & mail it back to my home address down there in south Idaho.

Chagrined still a few days later returning thru the same small border check point, I was interrogated by a US guard. He advised of the dire consequences should they discover undeclared illicit items, especially firearms, among my possessions...which he proceeded to drag out of the trunk and expose to the ample sunlight along with my spare underwear carefully tucked away.

Not discovering any contraband I was waved back in to my Native Soil. I was struck by the difference at the time between the 2 approaches, almost a Good Border Guard/Bad Border Guard, although they were independent of each other.

So while I didn't mail-order any firearm, the 'ship it to yourself' was present at that time at least.

 

[daveg.inkc]

Wonder if the draft dodgers of that time had any trouble getting across?

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Drove into Canada in 1965 for a vacation week. Had a rifle and a shotgun in the trunk. Canadian customs guy made note of them as he gave the trunk's contents a cursory once-over. I seem to recall he gave us some document noting the guns, which was presented to the USA customs guy when we returned home. Don't recall any hassle.

 

[Bob Wright]

If you actually meant mail order guns, you mean up until 1968.

I wasn't old enough to buy guns myself then, but as I understand - You mailed in your check or money order , usually with the order form with a statement to the effect of there were no state or local laws prohibiting the sale, and then the mailman delivered your gun.

Even then guns, of any kind, could not be sent through the mail to non-FFL holders. A firm called Railway Express Agency delivered your gun. You also had to sign an affidavit that you were twenty one years old. I had to have my Dad buy the gun for me.


Bob Wright

 

[protoolman]

That explains it! I was thinking in the 80s you would have had to do the 4473 somewhere. I guess I didn't order things from Wards delivered to my house I picked them up at the store.

 

[phonejack]

My Sears store sold Colt's pistols in those days.

 

[CGDustDevil]

This thread got me to thinking...

In 1984 I went home for a vacation, and my dad and I went to a local dept store... Can't remember which one... But I bought a NM Single Six convertible 9.5" and a No. 3 chambered in .223 during that visit. I have absolutely NO recollection of filling out any paperwork at all... I'm sure I must have, but I'll be darned if I can recall it. Dad died in '88 so I can't ask him...

Curious...

 

[gramps]

In 1968 I was away at a "boarding academy" in North Ga. The local Western Auto had a used Remington single shot rifle with a peep sight for $17. I had a friends mom buy it for me with my money. My first gun. Those were the days!
gramps

 

[Ducky2002]

Ah for the good ol' days. In the late 1950s I was living in Texas and bought two guns from Klein Sporting Goods in Chicago. The first was a 1903 Springfield with a 4 groove barrel and the second was a Webley in .38 S&W. Each purchase required only a check for $29.95 and watch for the mailman for 2 weeks. I still have the 03.

 

[Ray Newman]

I also recall the pre 1968 Gun Control Act days. Funny thing though, the anti-firearms groups claim that it has never been easier and to buy a firearm than right now....

 

[exavid]

I had a Savage 110L I ordered by mail back in '62. Came to me in normal parcel post. I ordered a Sears Ted Williams autoloading .22 rifle by mail around that time too. I've purchased several guns both handguns and rifles in various stores just like buying bread. Put your money on the counter and walk out with your purchase. Lee Harvey Oswald brought an end to that.

 

[daveg.inkc]

Days gone by - when you could pick up a gun at the hardware store.

That was the place to buy a firearm and ammo. I remember having to sign a list, log book when I bought .22's. Never worried about stocking up, just buy a few boxes and not worry. Besides Sears, Wards, the hardware store, with the oil finished wood floor, was it!

 

[Bob Wright]

Yeah! The local hardware store. Twenty-two L.R. were like eighty five cents for a box of 50. Dynamite caps were twenty five cents apiece. And .45 Colt cartridges were $5.55 box of fifty. And they would sell you five or six cartridges at a time.

The street where the hardware store was located was the boundary of the city limits, which ran right down the center of the street, the hardware store being just outside the city limits. There was a big vacant field across from the hardware store, and we could detonate our bamboo pipe bombs there without any interference.


Bob Wright

 

[Critch]

I still have the Model of 1917 rifle that my brother-in-law ordered through the mail, it came with a sling and a bayonet, I still have both.

My brother bought a Chilean Mauser through the mail in 1965, beautiful rifle.

In 1972 I ordered a Ruger MK-1 through Monkey Wards in Cheyenne and I had to pick it up a the store..he took my DL and military ID and wrote some stuff in a notebook..

 

[Pal Val]

A friend of my wife, lady in her '80's, gave me last year her father's Marlin .22 that had been in her basement since 1949. I fixed it up, and it's a really fine shooter. I asked her if she knew where her father had bought it, and she told me it was mail-order. She remembered when she was a teenager, her father waiting for the mailman to deliver the package.

Good ol' days!

 

[mohavesam]

I remember my Grandfather unwrapping a brand-new Colt Woodsman pistol the delivery guy had just handed him. I still have that one.

 

[LGC42]

The ACE Hardware store in Naches, a small town about 15 miles from me sells guns & ammo.

 

[Ducky2002]

The Ace Hardware Store in Highlands, NC stocks a limited number of guns and ammo, but the guns are not ones you would bother to keep in the safe.

 

[exavid]

Now that I think of it in 1963 I ordered a NOS '03 Springfield 30-06 from Sears still packed in the original wood box filled with cosmoline. It was a good one two four groove, milled parts. It cost me $36.00 along with an 840rd bandolier of ammo also old army surplus for about $25. The total cost me around $70 for the rifle with sling and cleaning kit and the ammo plus postage.
It took me almost a week to get that rifle out of the box where it had languished for over forty years and clean up the cosmoline. That old rifle got me several moose and a bunch of caribou.

 

[exavid]

Traveling from Alaska to Washington State in our airplane back in the late '60s and early '70s we used to be able to stop at the first Canadian port of entry and get our firearms sealed and transit with them 'in bond'. You did have to check out of Canada at the port of exit to show you still had the guns and they were still sealed.
It was unfortunate that a goodly number of American guns that came into Canada didn't leave when the Americans did. Apparently it was too tempting for some people not to sell their firearms on the black market in Canada which eventually resulted in a ban on Americans passing through Canada between Alaska and the lower 48.