doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com POR (Price on Request)

Any time for any thing, I don't call if the price isn't there.

Small Bore's post is as good as we're going to get on POR.

It means they've slashed prices so low they don't dare advertise them.

It dates back to a incident that occurred some years ago when a dealer, in an effort to pass along savings to his customers, advertised an A-1 Special Parker for $7.50. The resulting stampede caused several deaths, and the dealer was unable to satisfy all of his customers who wanted to buy the gun. That lack of satisfaction, and to a lesser extent the deaths, created the POR.

Probably different reasons in different situations:

POR - Jet Rink (character in "Giant" movie) calls up New England Dealer and says in a strong West Texas accent "I just hit some oil wells and would like one of those English Purdey guns and see you got one. How much is it?" Answer "$60,000"

POR - Eightbore calls up same dealer about the same gun and asks a half dozen questions and then asks the price. Answer "$21,000"

POR - Same dealer and gun. Dealer bought gun from son of deceased friend $14,000. Son calls up and asks how much. Answer "16,500"

Best,


Mike

Sometimes I think a dealer is ashamed to publish his price. The paper won't sit still while the seller scribbles such outlandish prices on the price tag.

If you ever have messed with high end cars this is quite common.

John Boyd
Quality Arms

I own a couple of Porsches and trade Porsches. Member of PCA and do events and so forth with PCA Membership. I don't recall ever seeing a Porsche with POR on it. But then again when you get right down to it Porsches are not high end to some folks. It's all relative to what someone considers "high end cars."

I view POR on guns as an attempt to take advantage of an unsuspecting customer.

I treat POR the same as auctions starting at $.01 with a reserve.
Both are signs stating don't read me you are waisting your time.
bill

Similar to when the seller put "Call" in place of a price. Big turnoff to me.

Amarillo Mike has hit it on the head above. In addition, there are a couple other "reasons" for POR. (I don't like the reasons, but here they are)

1. When dealing with extreme high dollar investments, the potential buyer wishes to conceal the purchase price (and the seller to be discreet) with the intention of a future sale/flip of said item. If the asking price was known, it may impact the arbitrage in a future sale.

2. The dealer may ratchet the price down without embarrassment over time in the event his initial ask was too great.

3. Protect the maker. I see this a lot with Luciano Bosis shotguns. They go all day long for $25,000 at auctions but their suggested retails may be $50,000-$60,000 for the same gun. If you want to be an exclusive dealer and receive their guns in the future, you don't advertise them at fire-sale prices in a down economy, you gently ease into that number via direct negotiation with the end customer.

4. The seller may be willing to part with the item at a pretty narrow margin. It doesn't portray financial strength or a powerful negotiating position if he/she advertises a gun at what may appear to be a 5% markup.

Many reasons, all legitimately used...yet I don't particularly care for any of them. Then again, I can't stand the false notions of "the price is fixed" or "we never discount". I found those sentiments to be utter hogwash when it came to luxury goods like Rolex and Subzero, for example. They always say POR and then in person give you the "fixed MSRP". Anyone with half a grasp of negotiations never pays the non-negotiable price that was POR.

I'm with K.B. on this one.

Tell me what you want, so we have a starting place.

Goods are not that scarce that I'm going to waste time calling on unpriced items.