Chuck,
To answer your poll, I look to at least break even. Amateur buying, selling and trading guns is a great way to rid yourself of money. Very few new guns are going to make short term gains. If they did we'd all be dealers, right? There are exceptions. Among those exceptions are the Ruger gold label and the RBL launch 20 Ga. sometimes the 28. CSMC's renaming/price increase removed any hope of profit, much less breaking even. None of these are considered fine guns by many.

I think the OP was looking up to the next tier. I could be wrong.

Chief