History
In 1970, Auto Mag Corporation president Harry Sanford opened a factory in Pasadena, California. The first gun was shipped on August 8, 1971 and the factory declared bankruptcy on May 3, 1972 after making fewer than 3000 guns. Production guns were made in .44 AMP (Auto Mag Pistol). Experimental pistols were made in .45ACP, .30AMP and .357AMP. Except for the .45ACP guns, changing calibers required only the additional barrel and cartridges. The same frame, magazine, and bolt could be used on both.
Auto Mag Corporation was short-lived for several reasons. The design team, which took the Auto Mag pistol from a fully functional and working Chrome-Moly steel prototype designed by Max Gera, to a more complicated and less reliable stainless steel pistol, disagreed with Harry Sanford about how the company should proceed. The design team was convinced the Auto Mag pistol was not ready for production and could not be produced at a profit. The design team believed that even with the correct finished design, the wholesale price of the gun had to be greatly increased or the company would go bankrupt. The design team was unable to convince Sanford, and they all resigned. The pistol was then rushed into production by a group that were not concerned with the gun making a profit but only that it got into production immediately. This led to expensive manufacturing processes, and later Pasadena guns were not fitted well as there was a constant push to get product out the door.
Severe underpricing of the Auto Mag pistol to indicate huge market demand to potential investors made success impossible. A final analysis showed that the Auto Mag Corporation lost more than $1,000 on each pistol (as was predicted by Max Gera when he sold his stock in the company over one year earlier); each pistol sold wholesale for around $170. The pistols originally sold retail for $217.50 (about $1200 in today's dollars). Used Auto Mag pistols now sell for around $2,000.
Read more about this topic: Auto Mag (pistol)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)