That’s some expensive Grease
Milestone’s Premier Firearms Auction in suburban Cleveland recently chalked up $1.4 million smackers across its 1,206 lots. That’s not really unusual.
What caught my eye was the highest-selling piece.
A transferable and intact U.S. M3 “Grease Gun” submachine gun made sometime between 1943 and 1945 by General Motors’ Guide Lamp Division in Anderson, Indiana, the exclusive WWII manufacturer of the M3 and M3A1.
While Guide Lamp cranked out a whopping 606,694 of the plain Jane M3 variant, they only produced 15,469 of the improved M3A1s during the war.
The gun retained 95 percent of its metal finish, had a bright bore, and, as noted, was fully operational.
It came with an impressive selection of like-new support items in their original packaging: 12 mil-spec magazines, a complete parts kit, 29 rubber magazine covers, an oiler and sling kit, a 3-cell mag pouch, a canvas weapon cover, and two technical manuals.
It surpassed its estimate of $30K in selling for $40,950.
To keep that in perspective, during the war, the M3A1 was produced for a final adjusted cost of approximately $20.94 per unit.
Talk about inflation!