Anyone have any luck today and yesterday at Holts? There Were a number of interesting items in the sale.I think I was successful in acquiring a muzzleloader. I will find out if and when I receive my invoice. I’m definitely going to need some help From you gents learning how to shoot this thing if in fact it is headed my way.

I put in one bid that slightly exceeded the hammer price showing so I am hopeful.

As my bid was not far above lower estimate I have decided to assume the hammer price shown is a typo until an Invoice arrives.

If I did win, then I have to wonder what those who viewed the lot know that I don’t.

As farmers say, “An auction is a place where you take your problems, and walk away with someone else’s”

Probably even more true for guns that for cattle.

I was not able to livestream the Sale-room Webcam, was anyone else able to do so? I was watching the bids on the invaluable “ticker” but the webcam seemed inoperable.

I bid on some cases but no luck. I can’t believe a Purdey O n L case with the leather hinge destroyed went for £380.

Took every ounce of will power to not buy another gun

Still waiting for completion of the last import from April/May

Oak and leather cases have been going up in sale price as have good case labels. Really hard to find a decent Purdey case for under 1k these days.

That makes me feel a bit happier about my purchase as it is in its original W W Greener case (but needs a new handle)

Who knew Cloris was the Latin name for the Greenfinch? Obviously a pun on the family name.

I got one for a customer. He missed on all his 10 other bids.

There were a few I was interested in but the hammer fall was significantly more than the suggested price. Makes me wonder about the slump in shotgun prices in the UK and If there is a bit of a rebound.

Won several non gun items. Tried for several rook rifles with no luck. Then I found out my son was bidding against me on one and he won. Birthday present next year. Came in second or worse on a dozen guns. Most prices were solid but not as crazy as some auctions. The upcoming sealed bid auction is their largest ever but it looks to have a lot of very much worn out stuff in it.

I bid on the Morrow & Co. single barrel fowler with the extra barrel. Set my bid at the absolute limit I was willing to pay, and was very slightly outbid. I'm not upset with myself at all, though I would have really liked to have had that gun.

I have been lead to believe that mid December gun auctions also reflect the amount of money for year end bonuses available in the City have an effect on prices

Stan that Morrow was a beauty. I almost bid on it too. That 31” barrel must have attracted you. Auctions are so fickle. I succeeded on a 31” 11 bore muzzleloader by a mere 100 Sterling, Which constituted my absolute limit.

Admittedly, I'm new to the English fowler market but, it's the only two barrel set English fowler I'd ever seen. I could see myself taking a limit of doves with it. Alas, the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley ................

You gentlemen represent an astute segment of the doublegun world. I"m seeking your opinion as to the overall reality of the prices in this auction. There have been a number of intimations that the doublegun market has been affected by recent economics and the pandemic. I'm planning a review of my valuation formula, but do not wish to invest the time if the market is doing some temporary excursion from normal. Opinions please.

DDA

I bought the Morrow single,paid too much but life’s too short!

Pedder,

You may have paid over estimate, but only a fraction of what it would cost to have a spare barrel made let alone the whole gun with a spare barrel.

It is nice that it is staying this side of the pond.

It is an unusual gun, made by a real craftsman, and we look forward to seeing it featuring in the Game and Gun pictures next year if it doesn’t reach you in time for you to take it out this season.

Enjoy it,

Parabola

Congratulations, pedder. It is a unique gun, and very desirable ......... at least to a few of us.

Importation costs are what kept me from going considerably higher on it.

May you use it in good health. Well done!

I love it, 2 board members fighting it out over the Morrow! I bet several more bid or almost bid.

Rocketman, I am not well-versed enough in the double gun market to opine as to whether prices are Affected by the pandemic. The higher quality items definitely seemed to farewell in contrast to the lower quality lots. Also, the unique lots, such as the Morrow, sold well above estimate. At the very top end of the market, from what I understand, the bespoke new gun market is suffering. Those buyers may be driven into the higher quality used market since perceived quality gaps and cachet are roughly equivalent Between the two markets.

Rocketman, right now the market looks like a frog in the blender, afterwards. A real mess. True quality is still bringing a very solid price but the lower makers, side by sides are just about worthless. Extractor and ejector doubles are bringing about half what they did five years ago by my notes. For anything but high grade or pristine condition it is a buyers market and likely to only get worse with the phaseout of all lead shot.

Just like the US 40 years ago there is no demand for field grade doubles or even name doubles that require lots of fixing. I
expect you could fill up a container with doubles if you just went there and offered a nominal amount for in proof guns.

There was at least one other, a friend of mine here. We talked about it a couple weeks ago.

This was anothet neat single barrel:

Woodward

A customer had me bid 750 for that gun. It went for 850 i believe.

On that Woodward, I think the mention in the listing that the bore dimensions were marginal scared some people off, but the wall thickness was 40+.

The issue with marginal barrel is that with a bit of cleanup it would require reproof and nobody want the expense and risk if they can avoid it. .040 would be safe as they could get but the law is the law when it is or is not in proof.

The auction was all over the place: I got a couple at high-ish but perfectly normal prices but the Woodward 'Automatic' SLE was a shocker. £8k plus buyers premium for a very nice and tidy Woody but with 2 1/2" thin-ish barrels. That equates to the Woodies I sell in the USA as fully fettled and 2 3/4" reproofed. I know the auctions have become a retail market but I suspect there was an agenda here that was nothing about Woodies in general and everything about that particular one. However, the bidding started and finished at £8k so maybe there were two nutters out there! Either that or the auctioneer smelled a healthy buyers premium for his employers! Me, cynical? Never!

A few years ago I put a bid in on a 16bore, side-lever at Gavin Gardner. It was late in the auction. When my gun came up, Gavin started by saying, "Let's start the bid at....oh say (my high bid)"....almost instantaneously HAMMER - SOLD."

At Holt's, as I understand the process, when I place my bid it becomes a maximum bid, not an automatic bid at that price that can be used to start the bidding. What I don't understand is this, If I were to place a bid at Holt's and, when the bidding opened, there were no other bids, what would Holt's use as the opening bid, the low estimate, the high estimate ......... ?????

Perhaps someone here knows the answer firsthand?

If you are the only bidder, the low estimate is used in the regular auction at Holt's to start bidding in the live auction.

When bidding starts above the low estimate, the auctioneer has received multiple bids on the lot and bidding begins one increment above the highest bid received up to that point.

Not quite what Argo 44 described at Gavin Gardner.

I do not know what happened with Gene's bid at Gavin's but the system works pretty much the same at most UK auction houses, sealed bid and timed auctions being the exceptions.

My clients and I bid quite a bit on UK auctions and for the most part are pleased with the results. YMMV but shrewd shoppers still do well playing the game. One of my clients, a board member here, continually shocks me with his buys. He has a variety of tastes and picks out quality others overlook, he has done very well at Holt's.

Assuming Gene was bidding entirely sensibly, as I am sure would have been the case, Gavin might well have had a bid or bids in front of him just under his high bid in which case Gene’s high bid was the place to start.

Having started there he wouldn’t have done Gene any favours to allow someone dozing in the room time to realise that they might want to pay a bit more.

My recent Holts purchase was estimated at 800 to 1200. I thought it would go for quite a bit more but realised I would be upset if I didn’t try if it went for near the bottom estimate.

My first thought was to bid £880, then decided £900 was a fairly obvious bid for another punter, and emailed in a bid for £920.

I got it for £900, so Holts clearly played fair and didn’t go to the top of my bid. I assume the under-bidder was at £880 so if I had bid £880 he would have probably got it as my bid went in fairly late.

Parabola is quite right that one must assume that when your maximum bid is used as the maiden bid, then someone must have been just one bid below you.
However, back in the day when I left commission bids with Holts on big-ish ticket items, I sometimes bought several if not all my items for my maximum bid at each sale. Eventually I smelt a rat and, on the advice of someone who worked there at the time, I started doing phone bids on ALL my gun purchases in the main sale. Amazingly I now started getting guns for less than my maximum bid, sometimes MUCH less. Okay sometimes I paid a bit more due to auction fever and sometimes I lost out to another bidder but rarely did I pay exactly the maximum bid I would have left on commission.
At Gavin's, this seemed less of a problem, Bonhams were usually okay as well.

One other thing to remember is that the auctioneer is very, very good at his job.
If he has a commission bid in front of him, he will open the bidding and take bids (as far as possible) so that the specific commission bid will be arrived at if it gets that far.
As an example, if I bid £380 on a guncase and it is knocked down to £380, I am almost certain that I have got it. Even if the bids climbed from £200 with bids from the floor against me, it will arrive at £380 with me if it runs that far. It may run on but if it stops at £380, I know from experience, it is almost certainly mine.
I got a case at the latest sale for £320 but I had placed a commission bid of £380. There obviously wasn't strong interest and watching the bidding online, it petered out at £320. Happy days!

Another thing to be aware of is that commission bids are timed and dated.,ie an earlier bid will trump a later bid of the same amount.

I didn't mean to impinge Gavin's reputation. There are other logical explanations for the auction. I had sent him a dating chart for Reilly's that he liked. It could have just meant that he wanted me to have the gun. Or maybe he was tired at the end of the day.

I bid on two items - a gun and a case - and got both for about 10%
below my maximum bid.

I have in the past submitted bids to Gavin Gardiner’s prior to the auction. In one case it went for more than my max, in the other I got the pair for 5,000 on a max of 7,500. Gardiner’s has been a pleasure to work with both prior to sale with getting questions answered and with closing the sale when complete.

One thing to consider is the number of guns that any of these auction houses have to measure up. Nowadays, in general, I have found Holts pessimistic in the MWT's which is the way to be. Others have been a bit more 'creative' in their measurements and I wouldn't trust them. Not mentioning any names so my advice is to assume the worst and be delighted if the measurements are correct!