I found some old Guns and Ammo mags from the early 1980's yesterday.
one, (Jan 1983) had an interesting article on the first AKs imported into the USA by steyr, made in Egypt and selling then for $1250 which I would imagine would be at least $2500 in 2007 money
ammo was only available from Midway at the time, no surplus...................
A Steyr Maadi is still very expensive as a collector rifle. I do not know the curent market price. More competition these days but still a high cost rifle I'm sure.
i had one of the first in 1984 of the steyr maadis i still have the original sale slip for 429.99 from the distributor it came with 3 maadi made in egypt marked mags the fit and finish was superb. never fired it and was sold a few years later to an other major collector
Along with Clayco it was one of the first AK type rifles to be sold in this country. If I remember ammo was around $1.00 a pop. It would be a couple of years before the Chinese copper washed steel ammo would show up. I paid $55 for my first case. Wish that price would come back.
I have Maadi ARM thats every bit as nice as any Styer Maddi I ever seen, except for the tac weld muzzle cover,(threaded barrel) ground bayo lug and thumbhole stock.....even back in the day, I thought the Styer's were way over priced, so my first AK ever was a black poly Clayco underfolder.
I remember when that issue came out. (still have it) I wanted an AK real bad but $1,200 was too much for me at the time. Saw some Maadis at the Columbus, Ohio show and was not impressed. Receiver was painted black. SOG was starting to dump them for $500 since the Claycos were starting to come in. Compared the Clayco to the Maddi and without hesitation, bought the Clayco underfolder for $500.
Actually, they still sell for their original $1250 price tag or even less in a few cases. I saw (2) mint condition ones sell quickly in the last five months for $900 and $1100.
The Steyr imports were marked "Steyr, Secaucus, NJ" on the right side of the receiver. Only about 2000 or less were imported before they were banned. These are the only true pre-ban Maadi rifles. All other Maadi rifles are post-ban rifles.
They are a neat find for the AK collector, but I still prefer the Chinese pre-ban rifles!
I too can remember walking into a local gunshop circa 1984 and seeing a Steyr-imported Egyptian Maadi ARM hanging on the wall for something in the neighborhood of $1,000.00 plus dollars, right next to a Chi-Com AK with a price tag of $295.00. Since you couldn't afford to actually SHOOT the weapon (no ammo available at the time), most folks bought the Chinese AK's. I remember a few buddies of mine buying Chinese side-folders on their birthday for the princely sum of $325.00 plus tax. They loved them. Still couldn't afford to shoot them for a while, until the cheap surplus Chinese ammo showed up by the boatload a year or so later. I remember thinking the unissued $75.00 Chi-Com SKS was a better buy for the money, but heck, what did I know! You could look through large green wooden NORINCO crates of them all day, just to pick-out a few with a blade bayonet, something that closely resembled the pictures of what a Russian SKS was supposed to look like.
Friend of mine once bought a Chi-Com SKS for every member of his family one Christmas around 1986. We spent DAYS cleaning off the cosmolene and test-firing every rifle the week before Christmas. I remember his mother didn't think much of her's but his father, brothers and sisters just loved 'em!
Had one myself, with a three digit serial number. Loved it, but about a year later saw a Clayco underfolder which appealed to me more. Both are gone, and I regret that.
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