C&R prices will vary based on both ammo and commonality of a given firearm.
The Czech VZ-52 SHE rifles were dirt cheap when cases of steel-cased 7.62x45 were being imported alongside the guns.
Then both the ammo and guns thinned out as the importers sold everything they had.
Now, the ammo is rare as hen's teeth, and I've got a side business going making reloadable 7.62x45 brass on my mini-lathe.
It's basically cyclical in nature, as the import scouts find caches and then sell out.
In the early 2000s, genuine, non-Fibbs No5Mk1 Lee-Enfield Jungle Carbines were commanding a decent price, because it had appeared they were all in private hands, with no more coming in surplus.
Then the import scouts found a cache in Malaysa, left over from WWII British operations in Burma. All of a sudden, you could get a nice Jungle Carbine, albeit with some additional varnish on the wood, for less than $300!
That deflated the prices of all Jungle Carbines for a while, until the Malaysian cache also dried up.
Surplus 174gr Greek .303 ammo was also flooding in, and eventually sold out.
And so it goes.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, a bunch of Soviet-held Mausers, Walthers, and Lugers started coming in.
These were guns that were captured in the disastrous German winter offensive of Stalingrad, when Hitler left Paulus' 6th Army to wither on the vine.
The Soviets collected the K98k Mausers, P-38 Walthers, and P-08 Lugers and sent them back for refurbishment in the event they needed them for another German offensive.
The Lugers even saw VOPO usage in East Germany for years afterwards. (Mine is so marked)
These imports brought prices down again, but not so much on collected firearms because of the obvious Soviet refurb/refinish.
You could get a shootable 1918 DWM Luger for cheap, but it would be re-blued, have Cyrillic numbers stamped in the frontstrap, and wear black ribbed plastic grips.
The K98k Mausers were similarly refinished, with really nice laminated stocks, matte bluing, but missing the guard screws for the actions. (Easily lost or dropped by cold Soviet hands?)
That cache sold out fairly quickly, too.
The K-31 Schmidt-Rubins were actually quite surprising, because they came in over a longer period of time.
I never bought one, because I have a gorgeous full-length 1911 rifle stocked in what looks like French Walnut. The later K-31s just never appealed to me aesthetically.
The surplus ammo and those cardboard/metal chargers flowed freely for quite some time. Again, I didn't partake because I had a stash of Norma 7.5x55 ammo and brass, plenty for my own rifle.
Then there was the Swedish Mauser invasion. Again, prices low as they were coming in, then they dry up and prices climb.
Blue Sky Garands?
Russian and Bulgarian Makarovs?
Czech CZ-52s?
Nepalese Martinis?
Austrian Straight-Pull Mannlichers?
Argentinian Ballester-Molinas?
They all show up in waves, then dry up. Prices vary accordingly.
I don't really expect Mosin Nagants to dry up for a while, though.
They made so damned many Noisy Magnets that they're probably being used for tomato stakes over there still. (Another gun I never took a liking to, but we all have our tastes...)
