doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Questionable bidders.

Watching an auction on Gunbroker. Seems there is a bidder repeatedly bidding on a gun, running up the price of a gun. One single feedback over six month old. Been a member since 2008, with zero other purchases. Whenever I see a long standing person, with just a single feedback, for 15 years, I wonder how solid of a bidder are they? Or are they just running up things to suddenly lose interest as the auction nears the end? God knows I’ve bought more than one gun over the last 15 years off Gunbroker. Just ask my wife.

29 out of 35 bids so far by him. And never the top bid.

Gunbroker is notorious for running up bids. As are a lot of other bidding websites like Ebay. I wouldn't buy a gun off of any website. I want to look and handle the gun, measure the bores, etc,, etc. before I spend thousands of dollars on it. People criticize me for being that way, but I don't like the hassles of being screwed. Or having to go to the post office to return something..

What is his name? Trapshooter.com has a thread- specifically for people on all websites who try to scam people. Maybe we should start one on here.

I watch Guns International more than Gunbroker.

I have been a member there for a long time. Can't say I have ever bought more than a couple of things there. Recently there has been questions about the listings on some items and being fake. I cannot attest to that myself but it makes you wonder with some of the ads I have seen listed.
I also not much on bidding on auctions, would rather negotiate the deal directly with the seller.

Some dealers on Gunbroker handle a lot of interesting guns like Lock, Stock & Barrel. Good photos, reasonable descriptions and a pleasure to deal with. Gunbroker can have a decent unusual gun from time to time which flies under the radar. But I see several auctions of items with dueling longtime members with zero purchases as troubling or possible troubling. Gunbroker does zero to help if you have any problems or get scammed. Been there and have got that tee shirt. Pro lister all the way. And they had a problem with shill bidders in the past for those of us who have been around forever. eBay did as well.

29 out of 35 bids sounds like a kid trying to see if he can get the lead or an obsessed nut job. So far from the end there is no way his lead will prevail. Auctions with high bid numbers get more interest. Some of us just bid our maximum amount and wait to see if it wins or review it at the end and maybe increase our bid. But a shill bidder will run up the pot, if he wins he never pays, and the seller will relist the item knowing what the market should pay. If the shill bidder times it right he comes up just short and plays for free another day.

To not get caught in a bidding war I wait until the end of the auction to bid. Place my maximum bid and see if it is enough. Sometime I get re-raised and have to consider another bid but most often just call it a day and move on.

I was told recently by a LSB employee that some bidders who win and actually pay know little about guns but when they see high interest in a gun, they try and buy it thinking it must have value for eventual resale.
Most of the bidding takes place on Sunday, the last day of the two week runs on GB. The writers of the sales copy know little about chokes and must use the old multi gauge choke plug to determine choke not understanding (apparently) that choke depends on differences in bore size and the last few inches of muzzle size. One service LSB offers is they have a free pick-up service at home a couple of months before auction. They publish the routes they take and will detour off of it to pick up. They charge a hefty 25% seller's fee with no buyer's fee. For someone like me who wanted to thin the herd of not a collection, but an assortment of random impulse buys, it was good to get the unused guns out of my safe all at once and not dribble them out over the years individually. My kids aren't interested in guns or hunting and if anyone gets screwed selling them, I'd rather it be me not my family. "But he said he only paid $300 for this funny looking two barreled gun from London and you are willing to pay $305? Thank you, sir." Gil

Here are the Top Three Most Stupid Things a gun owner could do:

1) Support and vote for anti-Gun Democrats.

2) Look down the barrel of a loaded gun.

3) Bid early and often in any firearms auction.


Numbers 2 and 3 may be interchangeable... number 1 is always the dumbest of all.

GlS, in the past I used Gunnrunner to sell about 50 guns. Nothing much above mid grade. They charged 10%. All but a few brought what I expected.