I would go with your max of $520.00, it is a great pistol and you will like shooting it, even if you have never used a .40 Cal before, and you said you have so that's good. But Ol Tex and chfields are correct about everything they said. Now if it was a ColtZ40, the CZ 40B, and CZ 40P's big brother than it would be about half again as much and I saw more than one (the ColtZ40) sell for $1,000.00 and more.
If he won't go for it then it's a jump call on your part, but I think you will see another one come up for sale at some point on one of the Auction sites. How much is hard to say.
OK, here's "the Deal": Back in the 90's Colt asked CZ to make them a .40 Cal pistol, with a couple of provisions if possible. One of them was to make it look like the 1911 if at all possible, and make a couple small changes in the guts (Don't remember exactly what those were, sorry). The entire thing was basically a verbal hand shake "would you, can you, do this?" sort of deal.
CZ did and sent the first 800 to 850 (things are not to clear as to which number got sent, but it was at least 800) to the Colt Factory. Colt unfortunately went under yet again and the deal was cancelled. Most of the 800 if not all (most likely why there is no data about how many since they went to Colt directly and from Colt to CZ-USA. some could have been used, or miscounted, etc.) went to CZ-USA to be sold here in the States. In the meantime CZ wiped all the slides that and been rolled with the Colt name and re-rolled them as CZ 40B's. Then when they finally ran out of the parts (Frames I believe since they were about the only thing that CZ didn't already make since they never used the 1911 design in any of their pistols, they used the Browning design and did things their way.) they went back to the basic CZ design and renamed them CZ 40P's. There is in fact one other CZ 40 Cal that was made before the ColtZ or the B and P Models went into effect and it's called the CZ 75 .40 cal. NOT the CZ 75B .40 Cal. but the CZ75 .40Cal
There are a lot of different stories about this pistol and the design, mostly they only vary by the number that made it into the US. But what I just put up is what the folks at CZUB and Angus (Owner CZCustom, and CZ-USA Shooting Team Captain) have posted as the facts. I have 4 of the ColtZ NIB in my safe and another I use as a carry weapon, I also have the B and the P all used to some extent, and the CZ75 .40 Cal also used. Oh and the ColtZ40's NIB I got last year (2011) so they really aren't that rare as to be Really collectable, and CZUB made more CZ 40B's than the original I believe, so that makes them slightly less rare, but strangely not that easy to find sometimes. Not that I can afford them anymore but for a while I was Really trying to find NIB of both the B and the P models just to have a NIB set, hasn't happened so far.
Oh and I nearly forgot to say Welcome to our Forum!. It's a fun place and we try to keep it that way, so if you have any other questions we will try to help you or if we can give you some suggestions on where you can find the answer to your question.
