Browsing online, it looks like there are just dozens (or hundreds) of similar-ish JP Sauer & Sohn, Sauer & Sohn, etc. shotguns for sale. Mostly 16s or 12s, mostly choked tight.

Is there a particular reason so many are showing up on the US market? Have they always been here and I've never noticed? Or, has there been a legal (or social/cultural) shift in Europe which is causing a lot of them to be exported to the US?

Some nations, like Sweden, limit the number of guns you can own. Last I heard it was six. More could be had with a special permission. I think that has made lower grade guns much less attractive there so the low end market is almost zero. Other nations have somewhat similar restrictions.

Then on top of that there is the decreasing number of younger hunter. Some of the European birth rates are so low that their entire population is just getting old. As a friend of mine likes to say "Snowflakes don't hunt", here or there I suspect.

WWII veterans brought many home and they have been passing at a high rate the past many years - if the next generation does not hunt they get sold

that is where mine came from- the old gentleman died- the person who got the gun did not want it

I agree with the above reason. In Canada, there are a couple of retailers where the majority of their firearms are lower end guns brought in from Europe by the boat load. Lots of Sauers, Merkels, Simson, Husqvarna, Feg etc. Sometimes you can get a decent deal if you get one when inventory is first "restocked, otherwise many have been rode hard and put away wet.

If you have to comply with a limit on the number of guns you can hold, and prove a need for each of them, you can be sure that it is the pitted, broken, rusted or cheapest that go first. Not that there are no good ones. You just have to choose carefully to find the diamond in the dross.

What to us is a right to many is difficult or impossible. Unless prohibited by law you can own as many guns as you want. Compare that to a country where you must be approved to own even a single gun and even then your basic maximum number you can own is six. And Sweden is fairly liberal in gun ownership I’m afraid. Any above that requires another determination of need and fitness, plus I’m sure a minor fee. In this country it would come down to rich, corrupt or those breaking the law as possible gun owners. A working stiff or poor person would either not be able to afford gun ownership or be deemed by others as not needing one.

So all the low grade doubles are coming into this country at what to us seems a very low price. But over there those guns have almost no value. So they get sold in job lots, imported to the US, sorted and sold for what seems like great deals. The good stuff never lacks for a local market so it does not make the trip.

Indeed, the desirable ones move fast.
Just a few months ago, I barely missed a well used Sauer & Sohn .45-90 DR that had everything on it I wanted (plus a few dings and scratches), but it was quickly purchased by an in-country Swede. It would have been a great moose rifle.

That loss so frustrated me that I had to settle for this Beretta .45-70 !

I wonder how many of them passed through the hands of Russians.

I’ve noticed that same things. I’ve seen lots of nice guns but being a lefty the cheek piece always turns me away.

Woody402-Removing that cheek piece would just be a few hours of pleasant work.

+1. That is what a rasp is for.

Best,
Ted

A vendor at the Southern a few years ago had 30 or so GDR and earlier Sauer/Fortuna/merkel type SxS. He sent a buyer to small villages in former East Germany with elderly populations where the demand for hard currency was great, bought them, and imported them in batches. Interesting business model.