Please remember the Trade uses the auction houses to dump stuff they don't wont to sell/cant sell/ dare not sell.
I find it hard to credit some times when after 20 or so emails , 6 phone conversations and 10 or 15 photos of a particular gun ,that a client then goes and bids on a catalogue description and gets screwed.
Also bare in mind the commissions that the auction houses make ,20% on the hammer and probably the same from the seller. Not bad for selling something you don't own .So with that in mind when was the last time you saw a discription " Beaten up old dog, pits dents and bulges, stock broken and repaired ,generaly rattles like a bag of spanners",?
Not saying here that all goods sold in auctions are junk or that all auctioneers are less than scrupulous. If you know what you are looking at and you are there on the day, you can get a good buy .It is also a fact under British Law [The Sale of Goods Act
that goods must be "fit for purpose" and of course with guns comply with proof law. Apart from that anything goes.