I use to go the the Gander store in Geneva, Il. at least 2 times a week. I had a friend working there that knew guns well. He would call me when they got in a nice high grade shotgun and I would run over and see if I liked it. I got alot of guns from this store because of this person. I would work with them on the price and we agreed that a 35% mark-up is what they wanted and I agreed with it. I had bought a little over $ 40,000 in guns there and then they changed managers in the gun dept. The new guy was an idiot. He paid too much for some guns and too little for others. When my friend told him what he was doing, they fired my friend. Now the guns there are all lower grades or new guns. They have not had a gun in lately in an upper grade for some time. It is a shame because they were making alot of money when they had someone who kew something about the guns they had. I did get a real bargin when they had a flood sale there. They had guns from another store that got damaged by a storm and they brought all the guns to this store for a great flood sale. You could not believe the amount of people that showed up. When the doors opened, they ran to the gun tables. I can't run anywhere anymore so I just took my time. Most of the guns were sold in the first few hours. I went past the shotgun table to see what was left and there in the middle of a couple of boat oars was a superposed browning with 30" barrels in very nice but dirty condition. $ 400.00. I got it and went home and cleaned it up and it turned out to be very little used gun.
The other guns that I got were a vhe in nice orig. condition for $700. ( something was wrong with the gun when you open it, it made a strange noise, they said.) We call them ejectors.
The best deal I got was when I got a call from my friend who said they just bought a couple of browning shotguns and to come down and look at them. When I got there, he told me these guns where just bought from a customer who got them left to him by his father and he has no use for them. One was a Pigeon grade skeet made in 1956 in very nice condition with a full set of super tubes. The other was an unfired Pointer grade broadway trap gun, made in 1971. I got both of them for $ 6,400.00. I have been to alot of the other stores and yes, they do price their guns way high. All we can do is keep our eyes open for bargains and let the high price guns sit. Frank