doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com D.M.Lefever on RIA auction

Well, after the high dollar bids the past few weeks. This one sold cheap.
Rock Island Auction, Lot 841, Engraved D.M. Lefever Co. 7D Grade.

John, what did it sell for ? They would do better if they didn't have such crappy out of focus pictures. That gun looked like a restock to me. Comb, grip, and butt were unlike Lefevers I have seen.

Daryl,
it sold for $2750 plus the 21.5% buyers premium.
The D.M. Lefever that recently sold on another auction was over$6000.
John

Greeners went cheap too

For anyone interested, I recently visited Redding Auction and they will have a D.M. Lefever up for auction soon. It was a low serial number 12-bore and I don't recall if barrels were steel or Damascus, but it was an unrestored original; and as I recall was a 7D. This gun also had the screw in the forearm to disable the auto-ejectors; the only example of the few D.M. Lefevers I've seen with that feature. There was also a side-cocker that'd be in the same auction.

There are 3 DM Lefevers listed on GI by Cabelas Ft Worth. 2) 12ga grade O and a 20ga grade O.
All look like wood shed guns. A shame.

John

Rare guns get abused like all the rest sometimes. I would love to have seen that 20 as a new gun with 26 or 28" barrels. That would have been a very rare gun indeed, even in such a basic grade. DM Lefevers are very rare even around here which is very close to where they started life.

Oh boy those Cabelas crossbolts are all "Pam Anderson" guns. Once they were beautiful, but way too many unskilled men have had have their hands all over them, and each left his mark. No amount of lipstick can make these not look like ongoing 100 year old projects.

I really do wonder how Cabelas makes money on their Gun Room endeavor. They must just pay very little when they buy.

NDG

I wonder who buy these guns from Cabellas? I would like to show them $500,000 of my "projects" for a quick sale. Local Cabellas had a economy Ithaca .410 in shooters/beater condition, no finish remaining, dents, scratches with a hot blue job on barrels, a $300.00 value which they had $3,999.00 price on. Lord know which fool bought that one. Not this one.

Then they would have a gun on the sales rack for one third of its real value because they did not know what it was. Like Remington Gallery Special for $200.00 in near mint condition that was cheap because it only shot .22 shorts. Or the same gun in Remington Special because the ammo was not listed available anymore even though it the the same as a Winchester Special which is sold. Nobody can understand everything in the gun business, but every seller and or buyer ought to understand what basic conditions of a gun are, and not be fooled by cheap makeup or shine. Shiny pitting is still pitting. The information is out there on the internet if you look most of the times.

LOL..."shiny pitting." I have seen that, too funny. But more often it's an "original" gun with no remaining case color...but excellent bluing, and a weep hole in the bottom rib.

I used to think they all knew the truth, but after enough conversation with very confused sellers, I think it's as much idiocy and shadiness.

I met a friend at a show years ago who insisted on introducing me around to all these really old guys who suppossedly had like 'Jedi-level' knowledge of American doubleguns.

Three minutes into a conversation with one guy...a supposed collector of like 50 years, and he starts telling me how Lefever was just a brand name of Charles Daly (which is itself, actually just a brand name)...and that the guns were made overseas (Austria, as I recall).

I listened attentively, wished him well, and walked on.

NDG