Niles Wheeler at Safari Outfitters is another. I have done Business with him and with Steve Barnett have always been treated right. Maybe because I am also a small dealer, who knows but they both did me right on a number of occasions.
The following are observations and food for thought. Not a justification for nayone or anything. Sort of a "devils advocate" approach.
On that, there are several things to consider when getting a value assessed, AKA an appraisal
1. Going to a dealer. Yes he is going to offer you less than market value, a fair amount less because he has to make a profit. Now some guys will [censored] about a dealer making 25-30% gross on a gun. The guy complaining isn’t the one with a store, overhead etc. Dealers are in business to make money, period. Don’t begrudge a guy that. He will offer you a price that he can make money on the gun. It isn’t the profession that is bad, just some of the dealers. There are a few that will try to “steal” it. There are a few bad seeds in any business. Doctors, lawyers, car salesmen etc. all have good and bad.
2. If you want a straight appraisal and no interest in selling right now, expect to pay for it. You are asking someone who is knowledgeable and has years experience to assign a value to a hi dollar item. You aren’t going to go to the guy who has been dealing for 3 or 4 years and ask him to value it. He will just break out the Blue Book and quote you out of that. You need to rely on someone who has seen, handled, bought, sold, coveted, collected etc the type of gun you want an appraisal on. His knowledge is his business and is his value. Expect to pay for it. If you took any high dollar item you own and went for an insurance appraisal you would have to pay. Get an appraisal and pay the money and then you know what you have; from one dealer. Two dealers will give you different prices and there could be a fairly significant difference. Regional preferences, customer base of the dealer, who he knows for quick turnover all contribute and influence price.
3. There are three prices that you can get:
Dealer price. What the dealer will buy it from you for resale.
Retail price: what a dealer will sell the gun for or what you will ask for the gun selling to a private party.
Realized price, the price it finally realizes when it is sold. (no one can tell you that till after the fact.) anywhere’s from 0% below asking price to whatever can be negotiated.
4. Here’s one for all to consider. A VHE 410 has a bunch of the guys on here salivating. Especially since your original post is worded to sound like you are oblivious to the nuances of Parkers and their values and some want to come off like they don’t want it and have no interest but in reality they are the rabbit in the briar and the briar patch. Please don’t offer to sell me that VHE 410 that you have no idea of its value. SOME would to pay as little as possible and would not think twice of buying it for a song. They would justify their “stealing it” by saying they are a collector, not a dealer and not in it for profit.
5. By going to Gunbroker and GunsAmerica you can get a rough idea on value. But these are asking prices. You may never know the actual price some of these guns have sold for unless you add them to your watch list which you can do. But with a rare gun with special features, the chances of finding another similar type gun offered on this site will be hard to do. They often put guns up with very high reserves because they dont know what they are worth. A lot of time it’s a shot in the dark. Eventually they usually get sold but often for quite a bit less than the asking price.
6. Rare guns command higher prices. You will see a rare gun with unique special order features and it gets offered at some astronomical price. It sits forever. It may get sold for what is asked. The gun may be worth all of the price. But find the person who will part with that kind of money who is in the market for that particular gun at the moment. . A very narrow market. Gun is worth it, to the right person. The dealers who sell the higher grade guns have this customer base.
7. Easiest way to see this is look at something more common with fewer special features ever offered. Lets use the Browning 20 Gauge Superposed, Round Knob, Long Tang gun made in the late 50’s, early 60’s (non salt wood) Look at a bunch of them on Gunbroker, GunsAmerica etc. in unaltered 97-98% condition range and you will see prices range $200-$800 or more difference in asking price for the same condition gun. This is a pretty generic gun with loads of info on exactly how many were made each year, total production , no real special features in the Grade 1 / Lightning’s. Is the guy who is selling it for 20% more than the other guy a thief? Why is there such a discrepancy? (several reasons)
8. You are on track to seek out advice and counsel on the value of the gun. Get as many opinions as possible. You aren’t selling it now anyway. I couldn’t, market is down for these items. It isn’t eating anything so it isn’t costing you anything to hold on it. Now if you need to sell it to pay for that new heart and double lung transplant, well that’s a different story. But hold off and get as many opinions as possible. You will find that once you have a number of people looking at it you will get a varied range of prices.
9. Easiest and good way to get the price info; ask the dealer for an insurance appraisal value on it. Then when he asks you if you want to sell it, tell him you haven’t decided. He will either tell you to come back if you want to sell or may make a standing offer for it. Then again, maybe not. Pay for the Insurance appraisal and have that as a baseline. Again, his value may be different than someone else’s. But it’s a starting point. Then if you plan on selling to a dealer, expect to get 25-35% below that appraised price. Could go even lower.
You will hear from guys that such and such dealer is great and from others that he is a crook. We all want to buy low and sell high. The natural tendency is that when we get a gun we want for a bargain, we are happy and feel we were lucky. When a dealer gets the same gun instead of us, we feel we were robbed or it was stolen out form under us. When we want to buy from a dealer, we expect to get “deals” because we are collectors. We are more pure than the average consumer and deserve a discount because we are furthering the cause.
Here’s one to ponder. Ask the guys here what they consider a realistic and fair gross profit that a store front dealer should make on a gun.
I know some of this will tick some guys off but its just an observation. I don’t have a dog in this fight.
Just my two cents
Last edited by Brian; 02/02/09 07:52 AM.
