Eli Whitney introduced (if a bit dishonestly) the notion of building firearms from interchangeable parts in 1801. So 120 years ago was almost a century after th

Eli Whitney introduced (if a bit dishonestly) the notion of building firearms from interchangeable parts in 1801. So 120 years ago was almost a century after that, so the item in question certainly wasn't hand-made. Unlike most other products, there is really no room for cost-cutting of parts on a firearm. A dishwasher or vacuum cleaner may be cheaply made and still satisfy use for upwards of a decade until it breaks and the owner, with only mild annoyance, replaces it (speaking from personal experience of late); solid steel components both durable and replaceable progressively give way to breakable & irreplaceable parts, tolerated by society because prices drop. A firearm, however, has serious demands for durability and safety (breakage can gravely harm the user, directly or indirectly), necessitating solid steel parts meticulously milled (or comparably advanced polymers molded to likewise high standards); it still takes about the same amount of work to make one today as 120 years ago, with little room for cost-cutting. That durability also means they don't really wear out (taking decades/centuries instead of months or years), so older items retain their value and stabilize the price of new ones. Ergo, the cost - relative to other invariant standards like mundane labor or precious metals - has remained largely unchanged.