doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Holts March 2024

I went 1-4 today, but really put in some trolling type low bids on a few items. Wound up with one gun case for £220. I really wanted the Woodward 16 ga hammer gun but just lost out. Did someone here win it???

Last year when Jonny on TGS was discussing with the Holt's rep (Simon?) the "low and high" estimates, the rep disclosed that they two are purposely set low so as not to chill interest before anyone starts the actual bidding process believing that if they were set high, many would think "why bother?" and never consider bidding. Gil

More safeguards in buying from a UK auction which must by British law adhere to rules of proof standards rather than US auctions which can legally sell an out of proof British gun. Gil

Ken,

I didn't spend a lot of time looking it over as I felt it was bound to be beyond my budget. It had definitely seen a fair bit of use but seemed to be in pretty original condition with no obvious signs of having been mucked about with. The barrels were much as described in the catalogue but in the hands of one of the Dickson experts in my part of the world I think that any issues it has could be put right without too much trouble. As to the need ultimately for re-barrelling I defer to their expert eyes on that. It will be interesting to see where/if it appears at some point in the future.

The Dickson sidelock was of more interest to me. It was loose on the action, the safety was sticking and of course the right hand barrel was very marginal (almost out of proof). I thought at the estimate of 1-1.5k it was worth investing the significant sum needed to put it right but not for me at GBP 2800 (GBP 3640 with fees). I'd rather put more money into finding a much better barrelled example.

D.

If you sleeve a gun you make it into a shooter, not a collector, but if the barrels are marginal it is not really a collector anyways. New barrels would be great, but at the cost of many tens of thousands not going to happen in all but the extreme cases. Guns at auction are there for a reason. Not enough value to sell on consignment in most cases but still worth something. I am stuck trying to figure out what I might do with a gun coming up on the sealed bid. It needs sleeving but by then I would be upside down in the gun, with no chance to ever get my money back. But the gun is so rare I might never find another one. They made maybe 300 total, over 120 years ago. But rare does not mean super valuable in this case. So do I just do smart thing and add this gun to the "ones which got away list" or just buy it and make one more money pit?