There was one on either Gun broker or Auction Arms a couple of months ago. Give it a look. Mac :t

 

Thanks Mac.
I checked both, and nothing showed up.

 

I have one. It originally came in a fitted case together with a scope. They imported about 200 of them sometime in the mid 1980s. I also have the Franchi centenial model produced in 1968. The Franchi Centennial came in two versions, a blued receiver with a silver medallion, and an upscale model with an engraved receiver in the white. I have the later. I also had the former, but I sold it off several years ago.

I suspect that the Para was cobbled together from parts left over from the 1968 production. Franchi must have been cleaning out their warehouse, found a batch of parts and figured that they could dispose of them by making up a survival rifle. These Franchi semiautomatic rifles are pretty neat and the takedown mechanism works better than the mechanism on th Browning ATD rifles.


LDHare

 

kaynine, thanks for the info!!
I'm gonna take my camera to the gunshop tomorrow and get some pictures to post. This one was in the fitted case, and everything was original except the scope. Do you have any idea what the value of the gun would be??
I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

 

I recall selling a similar Franchi rifle in the early seventies when I worked in a gun shop. They were walnut stocked and standard blued rifles with loading through the side as a Browning 22 Auto or Remington 121. I don't recall seeing the para versions although I have heard of them. The standard rifles sold for $85-120 during that time. There was also a gallery version in .22 short, but I've never seen one.

 

I recall selling a similar Franchi rifle in the early seventies when I worked in a gun shop. They were walnut stocked and standard blued rifles with loading through the side as a Browning 22 Auto or Remington 121. I don't recall seeing the para versions although I have heard of them. The standard rifles sold for $85-120 during that time. There was also a gallery version in .22 short, but I've never seen one.

JB, I found a rifle like you are talking about on a website somewhere. This one is the same basic rifle, just a different version. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

 

Yes, identical.

 

That's the closest thing I've found to the one I saw today. It's the same basic rifle, but the stock was different.

 

I once had a Franchi .22lr that looked like a para troopers rifle. The thing was a mondo POS. It would fire in the safe position, would fire three to five rounds at a time ( just not when you wanted it to) and it had a missfire problem.
I took it back to the dealer and he said it wasnt the first time he had that kind of trouble from that model.

Art

 

Check Guns America also. Mac

 

Here's a couple of photos of my two Franchi rifles. The first photo shows the std and delux versions of the 1968 Centennial. The second, third and forth photos show the closed case, open cased rifle and disassembled 1980's limited Para survivor rifle.

HTH

 

kaynine, the "para" in your picture is the one I saw at the gunshop.
Any idea of the value of these guns??

 

With maybe two hundred imported about twenty years ago, the value on something like this is going to depend on whatever a buyer is willing to pay for it, and what a seller (shop) is willing to sell it go for. It's more of a collectors gun than a shooter and should be priced accordingly. Book, or market prices don't generally work too well with item populations this small IMHO. If you really, really want this one, and can afford the asking price, then you should buy it because you may never see another one for sale for a very long, long time. Then again you may see one tomorrow


LDHare

 

I picked one of these up about 25 yrs ago.
Had been doing some digging for info on the gun and came across this thread.
Was just curious if anyone had come across anymore info on the value of this piece?
I've had mixed results showing how many were imported (200-3000)
Anyway, I was considering parting ways with it, but would have to be a great offer...

 

if you want to look at posting on one of the gun auction/selling sites. If you want X amount of $$ for your toy then put that up there. You will find out real fast if you are living in a different reality.

I had one and sold it a few years ago no. And i dont remember what it went for either...

you can also breakout your google fu and do some googling. You may find some info, but it takes some time to do so.

Im not sure i found any numbers in quantity but if thats important to you, you can look/search/google for it.

good luck

 

Boy this thread came out from the past Actually from fifteen years ago to be exact. I guess it's true. Stuff never dies on the internet.

At any rate:

On something like these, you probably have two options:

1) Put a price on the rifle that you feel comfortable with. Shop it in a good venue, and then sell it for that, or...

2) List it on one of the on-line auction sites, put a small opening bid on it that covers your actual costs and then let it ride. At least that way it'll have a significant exposure rather than very limited exposure at some gun show(s), or consider putting it on consignment at a local gun shop. Unfortunately, you'll probably have it there subject to handling wear and collecting dust for some length of time.

As Doris Day sang to Rock Hudson in one of her movies, "What will be, will be"

 

What do you really think the worth is? I paid $400 for mine, only because I like odd stuff. It's hard to say where the market is on anything odd, being rare because there are so little of them isn't the only factor when selling/buying. Maybe they didn't bother importing anything that didn't sell out the first run fast enough to show profit was worth the hassle, or they priced it so high that they were lucky to move what they did import, or they figure the market for them was so small they only did enough to make sure they sold out. There are lots of reason why only small batches were ever made/imported. Just my take.