doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Who pays: Seller or buyer?

I bought a gun from a dealer, Consignment... got a fair deal at the time but wanted it to be sent to an expert that many of us know and he said it was a jam up gun and felt good about it and he would strip and clean it for me.I told the dealer ok two days later the expert told me one of the leaf hammer springs was broken and he couldn't tell it until he took off the sidelock.
$1500 later I had a new spring. I did everything I knew to prevent that sort of thing from happening.... love the gun a little more....Life sucks sometimes

I think this is a real tough one. The 3 day no shoot no tear down convention that is common in gun sales is to me like buying a used car without a test drive. A gun (or car) can look like its in mint condition, but until it is tested for functionality its still a pig in a poke.

Exactly! And when you buy a gun (or a car) under those terms, you have to be prepared to live with possible bad consequences. Years ago, a friend bought a Mercedes Benz that I had looked at and test driven a couple days earlier. A connecting rod broke three days later. I was kicking myself about not buying it up until that point. Private sale--- no warranty--- my friend ate the cost of rebuilding the motor. I did say earlier that I agree about the goodwill that would be generated by a dealer who was a stand-up guy and went above and beyond his stated return policy, but there should be no expectation that any dealer would go the extra mile. And there is no reason to lambaste a dealer just because he went strictly by his stated policy. Both buyer and seller should be honorable enough to abide by the terms of the sale. The doubles I like best are all over 100 years old. I always understand that the very next time I open one may be the day that something breaks. I'd probably feel a bit different about a one year old Perazzi, but even new guns work right up until the moment they break. It happens, and that's why they make replacement parts for Perazzi's. I've gotten a few bad surprises, but overall, most I've bought have equalled or exceeded the sellers descriptions. The dealers of guns (or cars) who offer long and comprehensive warranties also usually charge higher prices to protect themselves.

Keith, I couldn't agree more with all of what you say here. Those of us who like the old guns have to accept a key issue....they work right up until they don't. And none of us can predict accurately when they won't....

In any transaction, I'm looking for both parties to live up to the terms of the agreement. No more and certainly no less. If someone wants to go beyond, great! And that may affect my choices in the future. But I'm not complaining if they only do what they agreed to.

In this case?

Buyer.

just remember "More information than others" is often the baffling with BS instead of dazzling with brilliance. Smarmy fluff in the description of the gun does nothing, tells nothing . wall thickness, chamber length, choke constrictions etc. do.
when its states 100% case coloring on a vintage gun to the uninitiated sounds like its original. is that misleading? Any gun I sell, if it has been refinished or re-blued or re cased, I specify refinished wood. etc or say original finish. otherwise it is automatically assumed to be a refinish. but to the tyro double gun buyer, they don't know and get duped.

Now a dealer /deal gone bad tale from about 6-7 years ago.
I get a call from a dealer who knows I like Foxes. He says he came into several guns he knows I am long for. I bought all three at once, based on 3 day inspection privileges. Or so I thought. #1 was a A 100% original Sterlingworth as he put it �that only ;lacks hanging tags to look like it just came out of the factory�. Only problem was that the wood was completely refinished, nicely but the color was way too red. I called him on that and he said it was original and for me to prove otherwise; that he described it accurately and that it was a done deal. #2 was an AE in exquisite condition with 26� original barrels he says. We settle on a price. I get the AE and I pull it out of the box and look at the muzzles and the barrels look cut. And not just because the muzzles werent touching. You could see marks on the muzzles from where they were cut and not completely polished. And the chokes were only about � of an inch taper. I measured them with my dial indicator bore gauge. . Prior to the purchase I even asked how long the forcing cones were. He said the chokes were opened up and therefore a little shorter. He said a letter was coming and if it didn�t letter he would refund my money. I reluctantly agreed to keep it as long as I got my money back if they were cut. After months of calls and excuses form him (you would have thought he would have called me) he finally said that the letter came and they were originally 28�. Then the excuses about how he was short money so he couldn�t refund me right now but if I sent it back he would sell on consignment blah blah blah. I told him no way, honor your commitment. It took a while but he finally paid, about 6 months after the initial sale and inspection by me. This was even though he said 3 day inspection. At the same time I received a CE that arrived with a cracked stock. I called him immediately. Sent photos. He said he was only acing as a broker and would not refund the money and I couldn�t send it back. He said he was only acting as a broker for that one and that I made the deal with the seller who wasn�t hi. He never mentioned any of that. During our discussion on the gun. He offered the guns for sale. I spoke to no one but him. FEDEDX would only cover 1000.00 even though it was insured for full amount. The seller refused to take it back. He then offered to have it repaired at no cost to me. Then he reneged on that. Said he never said so even though I have all of the emails and sent them back to him. Then he tap danced on that one . I ended up getting the 1000.00 form FEDEX for the insurance and that was it. I would never do business with this dealer ever again no matter what he had.
Did I screw up and let my desire outweigh my prudence? Yes. But that doesnt take away the fact that this dealer engaged fraudulent business activities. Yeah, someone will say, you should have sued him. Right, no deep pockets here. I learned my lesson the hard way. But I will never buy a gun from him again, and I occasionally look at his adds to see the tripe and BS for a laugh to remind myself of what I did.

Nothing fraudulent here. And it's true that the dealer did not warranty the gun to be in good shooting condition.

If you're buying from a private seller, that to me is a totally different deal. You pay your money, you take your chances . . . and you should pay less, because unless the seller tells you otherwise, you pretty much assume the gun has not been inspected by a knowledgeable gunsmith. More risk involved.

Should be less risk involved with a dealer who specializes in vintage doubles, even if his stated policy is 3 day inspection, non-firing. He's in the business, and as someone said earlier, he's likely to gain more in positive feedback--given the Internet and BB's such as this one--than he loses by taking a gun back (buyers should understand they eat the shipping cost both ways) or by making a repair and keeping the (potentially repeat) customer happy. (In this particular case, the potential of repeat business is quite good.)

Real horror stories like Brian's are out there, but this is not one of those. And, to be "fair and balanced", wouldn't be one of those even if the dealer says "Well, a deal's a deal. Sorry." But it does end up putting the dealer in a different category than other dealers, previously mentioned, who have a reputation of going above and beyond the "3 day inspection period and a deal's a deal" standard.

I disagree, the OTHER dealers who on a case by case basis go above and beyond the standard 3 day inspection, a deal is a deal transaction are the ones on a different category. This dealer I feel is doing what is the norm and should not be looked at negatively nor should he be bullied into doing something because this is discussed openly on a forum. This should have been settled between the buyer and seller. I feel that the buyer should have repaired the gun and be happy with whatever the dealer offer in compensation. This should not still be in "negotiation" in my opinion

Situation resolved. Buyer sent the gun back, dealer had his gunsmith repair it on his dime.

Not sure why it took so long to resolve, but that's a good outcome IMO. And I think most of us would prefer to do business with dealers who are in that category. No reason we should not discuss, openly, how the various dealers do business. They go above and beyond, good for them--and if, as a result, they get more business, I'd say they deserve it. Pretty much holds true whether you're buying cars, having a contractor do work for you, buying guns, whatever. Those in business should know that positive feedback brings them more business. Negative feedback is likely to lose them business. We've discussed dealers on here forever, and it's good to know which of us has had positive experiences with which dealers.

Good for the buyer, but on a higher end, possibly unique gun maybe a neutral smith wouldn't be a bad idea.