I would say 600.00 is a fair retail price for a VERY clean Romanian. I am in WNC too and have not seen an unmolested Romanian in several years. If you are buying from an individual it is likely they know a little about Romanians. If i were in the market now, for a Romanian, I would not hesitate to make the buy. If ya wanted to buy the finest sks, the Romanian is the ticket. There were not many top tier Romanians imported. Most of these were bought up at the distributor by people in the know.
I know a couple of collectors who visited a few distributors and hand picked their Romanians when they arrived. Maybe there are some clean ones floating around in the west, but the distributors here in the South and south east are kind to some known collectors. Visiting their facilities and hand picking some imports is not uncommon.
The shop in Canton was the last place I saw a Romanian for sale in the area. It was in a ramline folding stock and missing the original mag and handguard. If I remember correctly they were asking 525.00. I considered bargaining and restoring it, but I have to many unfinished projects as it is.
With Albanians selling in the 800.00+ range- 600.00 for a Romanian seems reasonable to me. Of course we would all like to find that sleeper on the rack in a back woods pawn shop. I used to tour a three/four state area hitting every gun and pawn shop i could find listed. Many good sleepers were found. But I believe those days are over.
It was not that long ago we were buying Moisins for 79 to 99 bucks. Look at the prices of a common Moisin now! In a year or so you will wonder why you were worrying about paying the price for the Romanian. Go for it ! When ya go to the range, let me know and I will bring a few of mine for a show and tell day.
