doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Auctions That Aren't

The fact that seller fees on GB and AA are not front-loaded, as BuckeyeSam has noted, fully explains the perpetual bandwidth for trapdoor spiders. UM, your intellectualization reveals that you understand auctions, as do most of us who've been to a desperation farm auction where the attendance did not reach critical mass on a rainy February Saturday. Sitting in front of a monitor sorting thru trash is a very comfortable, sedentary avocation. The fleas come with the dog and some of the dogs are dogs. You can scan the consignment racks, play the armchair internet game, get off the porch and run with the big boys to the sealed bid auctions, walk the gun shows, buy from your neighbor down the street. It's only used guns, dead men's guns, jewels in the rubbish of commerce. I don't expect folks to give me things because they're tired of them; I don't expect them or encourage them to give me things for a song because they're desperate (altho I know there are buyers who make a practise of nosing out the economic cripples and bragging about it).

For every carnivorous buyer, there's a carnivorous seller of course. However, a large portion of the clientele of AA and GB are casual or occasional sellers. You can take a peek at "seller's other auctions" and get a good idea of what he's about, what he's got invested, whether's he's a cull & discard collector, an ordinary Joe whose pre-occupations have changed, a shop with an oddball outside his area of expertise that he wants to move along. Often, the ad copy can help you spot the cranks. For instance, I don't mind a few sugggestions in the advert about how the seller conducts business but I run from flamboyant multi-paragraph statements of "my way or the highway" policies. Sucker pricing is pretty obvious to those who make an effort to study the "water seeks its level" pricing of guns WHICH HAVE SOLD. I don't want a 1910 "pin" SW for 39C when I can (and have) found one in better condition for 5C. I'm not a high stakes player but, even in my case, the game is about how to get a lot of gun for say another buck and a half rather than how to get a piece of junk for a buck and a half less. I will say that the best auctions for me are the "game called for lack of interest" where I put up the starting bid and get the gun.

jack

To go a bit further, I don't see that the ideal pre-bid arrangements in terms of a starting price and reserve are universal for all items or that they would be equally ideal for both buyers and sellers. As an eBay seller, I might take a chance on a penny auction on a nine dollor baseball cap (altho I notice that few eBayers actually do so). I don't think I would do the same on a 3K shotgun. I did (actively) observe the selling of a Merkel 201e at GB last week. Seller definitely trusted that the congregation would assemble as gun started in the low hundreds. I personally coaxed it along from 2100 to 2600 while probing the depths of someone else's "proxy" pocket. I don't believe for an instant that a confident, standup seller would have helped your position as a buyer one bit on that one unless you wanted to buy it for a couple thou less than the price tag at Cabellas. Of course, he could have priced to start at 4500, slapped on the reserve, and owned it for the rest of his life. Good buy if you "really, really have to have it in your safe next week". From the pov of seller, it's a rainmaker game; you seed the clouds and pray. As a buyer, you enjoy a drought.

jack

The trick on Gun Broker is to set your preferences at Highest Number of bids first, I don't ever look at guns without bids.

I think that if GB or AA thought this was a problem, they would have addressed it by now.
I can counter wiht the opposite; I have perosnally listed guns with low starting prices and never got a bid. I have then raised the price and sold it for far more than I was offered on previous auctions. Sometimes peole see a low price and get nervous about the gun, wondering why its cheap. I have bought several guns that way also and got some great deals buying something that no one would bid on. Not wierd stuff but mainstream guns.

Bottom line is that this same thing happens on GA and GI. People set some outrageous proices and th eguns never sell. Let the market decide. no one ofrce sus to look, watch,or buy. I do feel the same frustration but at times but I sit back , do a relaity check and move on.

This particular seller is knowledgeable, but he sells most of his guns by consignment, which means he doesn't pay anything for most of them-that makes a huge difference in willingness to list an auction starting at a .01. These guns are sent to him by the owners to be sold. He is an auctioneer, so to speak, and gets 15% of the selling price as his commission for his work at research & photos. If you buy the guns like most sellers, then resell them, it is usually not wise starting at a .01, the seller could take considerable loses. That is why a reserve is set to keep the sales at profit and help prevent going out of business.

I guess the other thing that really irks me about these online "Gun dealers" is they want you as the buyer to eat the credit card fees. I owned and operated a retail business for years and the thought of pushing these fees off on the buyer never occurred to me. I can also contemplate what some of my customers responses would have been if I had ever made such an outrageous suggestion.
Jim

A live auction is definitely commerce for the seller and may be commerce or entertainment for the seller. E-auctions differ in that they can be either commerce or entertainment for the seller as well as for the buyer. Every auction goer's hope is for a brgain; buy for less than it is worth or sell for more than it is worth. Every auction goer's fear is just the reverse. All the auction rules are to guard against the seller's fear; fair enough since the seller is the one stepping forward first. Bidders get a jolt of entertainment from the momentary hope of bidding while an item is still a bargain. E-auction sellers can get that same sort of entertainment jolt when they set a high price and have the hope of a seller's bargin price.

So, the initial pricing depends on whether the seller is in for commerce or for entertainment. I have to say that I don't find e-auctions all that different from the negotiations that often go on in gun shops. The hang tag is the "buy it now" price. Offers are bids. A gun shop may have several buyers unknown to each other making offers and the seller working back and forth among them to arrive at the highest selling price. So, if a seller has high "buy it now" prices, don't go to his "store." I have known many gun store owners who would price a particularly desirable gun way high just to keep it around for awhile.

With the continously rising prices in firearms aw well as other collectibles we've all experienced thru the 90s and early into this century; it's certainly been a sellers market and that held until recently. Many sellers were indifferent about sales as they could be fairly certain that prices would ramp up again.
I believe this is now over for the forseable future and prices will certainly flatten and may very well decline in some areas.
For the majority of us,and I place myself in this category, pricing isn't all that relevant as we primarily bought firearms for our own use and enjoyment.
I think we are going to be entering a buyers market for the forseable future and this seems to be true in in the "assault weapons. area. Sales of these were very high up until the start of Summer with most dealers unable to keep any in stock. Now Ar15 type rifles seen to be available everywhere albiet at prices that are IMO too high. Benelli shotguns were another item that was hard to obtain until recently.
Correspondingly it seems that the great ammo rush has come to an end and my out club has lifted their rationing regulations.
Apparentely everyone who felt the need for an assault type rifle and a stockpile of ammo has now acquired them and demand has fallen back to normal.
If anyone reading this has noticed anything different I'd be interested in hearing about it.
Jim

I cant speak for the world in terms of ammo and gun hoarding, but its still hard to get 209 primers, some powders like Unique and Clays are still hard to find, and shot is still around $29.00 per bag here which is around $10.00 too high in my opinion.
I think the guns we like will eventually lose value as I dont know of anyone much younger than me (turn 46 next month) who cares about them. The young folks I know who like guns at all seem to be into either pistols or EBR's (evil black rifles). I cant say as to whether they will eventually discover vintage doubles, or will stay in the action adventure Walter Mitty mindset. If their interest dont change/expand, as our numbers die off, there will be less and less interested buyers for our musty dust and hopefully not rusty hoards.

Brian is right about pricing too low. I recall a gunshow acquaintance pricing a nice LC 20 for $600. (Many years ago). I would walk by on occasion and advised him to raise the price. He didn't and basicly was told to mind my own. Sunday morming I bought the gun, put it on my table at $850 and within a half hour, it sold for $800. Bought by someone that had previously looked at it on the other guy's table. You never know. Best idea is to price it fair and it will sell fair.