doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What Auction House to Use

I am thinking of using an auction house to dispose of several of my London and Italian double guns, both bespoke and previously owned.

Which house should I consider and why?

I have not had much success using any number of gun dealers, past or present, hence my interest in using an auction house.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks

Why not sell them yourself. It’s not hard.

Rock Island Auction for high end guns, Morphey's is also good.

take ten or more digital images per item...write good detailed descriptions...price items below competition...upload to gunsinternational...your cost is $15 flat rate listing fee only...not 25% sales fee, typically charged by auction houses...

when you sell a gun and receive funds, ship it to ffl of buyers choice for transfer...you do not have to be an ffl to ship guns...

gi has the most user friendly software...even i can make it work..and its fun...

by selling your guns yourself, you maintain control of the entire selling process...not so with auction houses...once they take possession of your guns, you have no control over what happens next...and what ever happens, you are loosing 25% or so of the retail value of your guns on the day of the auction...

Rock Island

I’m partial to Amoskeag, good people, good service, good descriptions and listing details, and close by.

I bought a two gun lot from Rock Island and was very happy but that was 10 years ago. I certainly watch their auction listings as they move a lot of interesting guns but am not a big fan of their condition rating system. I would like to hear more from those who have used them with positive results.

-Tom

I just looked at the Rock Island February sale on my computer. The photographs look like they were taken with a Brownie camera in a dark closet. The confusing condition coding doesn't add anything to the mix. The guns pictured only show an outline of the gun with no detail at all.

I've bought from Amoskeag & Poulin and been very happy with both. Something to check which deciding on which auction house to use is what seller's premium they charge you for selling the guns.

If something is of interest at Rock Island and you inquire, they will send you additional high quality photos and call you with the gun in hand to answer any questions you might have.

I came within 24 hrs of going with Rock Island to handle the sale of about 60 firearms for me. At the last minute, I discovered they wanted just too much and would notserve all my purposes.

I would suggest that if you are looking to sell modern and fairly generic guns, that you should probably go with someone local to you and with a much lower auctioneer's commission. This is especially true if you have lots of peripheral stuff (sights, cases, reloading presses and gear, safes, magazines, etc, etc.). Most of the local outfits have out-of-state exposure on the internet, so they get very competitive and prices will be very good. RIA is not a go-to auction for the more generic stuff, like modern pistols, ARs, or even non-vintage bolt rifles.

Where RIA lost me was that after we had agreed to the hammer price commission, they were also going to charge a very hefty pick up fee (they are only 2 hrs away), and they would take nothing but the guns, leaving me with having to dispose of everything else, which was very substantial.

The local auctioneer we chose had extensive experience and most, but not all, of it with firearms as his specialty. He cleared out all of the relevant materials and organized them into coherent lots, matched guns with boxes, sights, magazines, etc. In the end, he did a spectacular job for about 60% of what RIA would charge, plus he handled twice as much stuff when all the reloading, ammo, etc was included.

If you are a prospective buyer, as Steve said, they will call you if you need more info with that gun in hand, but know for sure what questions to ask. They do have a bit of a reputation for "not seeing" things that you would want to know about, but did not know to ask. I have bought from them and will do so again, but always with an extra dose of caution. I try to have a friend check out, in person, any gun that I interested in.