doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Now this is disturbing

I recently bought a gun from Steve Barzee at Cabela's in St. Lou, and the transaction went just fine. Their price was high, but I knew a lot more about that particular gun than they did. I explained my position, told them what my max was, no negotiating. They thought about it and said OK. I paid a bit more than I wanted to, but I got a fairly obscure gun that I had been looking for, and nobody else had one for sale. Win/Win.

I've been to the Bass Pro in Harrisburg once. I asked about the 'Fine Guns' as the room was dark. 'Oh, everyone wants to touch them but nobody wants to buy them.' was blurted at me by the clerk. 'Were they nice guns?' I asked. 'Yes, we had a lot of really nice ones.' 'Which one did you buy?' 'None, why?' 'Hypocrite' as I walked away. I don't know if he got my point.

Bass Pro blows.

ETA: I wasn't clear, this was after they had shut down the Fine Gun Room and sent the guns to other stores.

Cabela's is hit or miss in my experience. I found an O/U rifle at the Lehi, UT Library that had a broken firing pin stuck in the breech face. The clerk I showed it to looked at it, closed the action and put it back on the shelf.

Go to Sydney and they'll take you in the back if you happen to ask a question the reminds them of a gun that is not on the sales floor.

The one here in PA is very helpful but kind of lacking in knowledge. To their credit they don't try to make up things they don't know.

If they had a few people buying and pricing guns way above their real value how would you expect anyone in management to know? Sounds like a racket or out right fraud to me. A MBA or 30 years in retail sales does not give you any knowledge in fair market value of used guns so upper management has no clue what is going on at the time. Many well informed people here have different ideas of what value a gun has, not as far off as many example I have seen at Cabela and Bass SemiPro. The only clue that management has that prices are too high is no turnover of stock. It just sits there.

They need either inside checks or pay someone from the outside to look over their inventory and pricing. Each store should have their inventory gone over once or twice a year and be re-evaluated. Could be as simple as having one gun room manager going to another store and do a item by item inventory every six months. Confirm item value and condition. Next time a different manager comes to the same store and does it again. Place five ringer items that are priced well off norm or have major flaws in them to see if inventory is being done properly. Miss more than one and you have to explain why you are being paid.

In house records should already exist as to the purchase price, date of purchase, from whom they bought the gun, etc... . They need to add the source of valuation for retail purposes. This can be the Bluebook, other similar items on the net, recent in store sales of similar items, appraised value and site the source. Prices from out of the sky or drawn out of a hat are not working.

It does a store no good to have items sit and not sell because they are priced too high. Stores need turnover to justify sales space. If these gun rooms remain a dead sales zone they will be closed and that space will be filled with items that are priced to sell. And the closing of any more gun rooms does none of us any good. Question is how do you educate a chain store that they have a problem and make a reasonable suggestion how to correct it to them? Maybe we just need to have one of the bosses read this board and we can give them a hand for a 10% discount on ammo.

I was in KTP in Maine one day and watched the gun buyer go through his line for a bit.He had a internet hookup and would look on all the same sites we do,GB,AA,GI and GA and come up with a value by looking at what the current market was.
Have no clue how CAB comes up with theirs but I may bring some guns to them if they are paying anything close to some of the price,I will happily take 50% of what they have on retail for some of those guns !

Jon here's a link to an article about the fraud.
As it was explained to me, a gun buyer at a Cabela's store purchased a great many guns at prices grossly inflated from his partners.

[url]http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/article_22ecb481-4b2f-5f5f-9564-604ab7cc8ed2.html[/url]

There's more to this scam than what's in the article (as always I guess), and Cabela's has sound reasons for their methods of dilution and the timeliness of the price adjustments.

The most obvious one is they don't want to write down a couple million dollars of theft over one store, in one reporting period. The method of recognition may be questionable to some accountants, but there is some latitude possible. In that unless the individual gun within a collection was assigned an individual purchase price, rather than a bulk price for the group, it can be argued that the last gun sold of the lot was the one fraudulently priced at purchase.

I don't expect the gunroom people at a Cabela's to know more than the people here. They make these guns easily available to us because our heirs don't want them, or we need the money. I'm glad they provide and support an international marketplace for us play in.
And I'm saddened that criminals infiltrated their ranks, and stole from us as a community, whether from the grieving widow, the college student that needed tuition, or the employer that relied on their integrity.

I don't work there, or for them, I'm just a regular customer at about 10 of their stores. Many of their gun room people are nervous to say the least.

I agree with you "Quailnut"--and just for "funzies" I went to their Gun Library sites- just looked at Parkers and LC Smiths- won't mention the locations with these "Fubars" in description, but they had a GH 12 Damascus Parker listed as having ejectors- NOPE- extractors, plain as day. They also had a Grade 3E 12 Smith described as being made in 1919- WRONG-O-- Smith dropped the numberical grade designation after about 1913-- Get it right Cabela's- I will give them credit for fine fotos, and they do have a sale rack--Think I'll go back and check out their Model 21 listings- I'm looking at a 12 gauge Duck 30" ventilated rib on a private deal, let's see what the airheads at the "Big C" are selling theirs for today-- as the old saying goes: "Just because a man is on a diet don't mean he can't read the menu all he wants"!!

Cabela's is no different from any other large department store. In some stores they have very knowledgeable people, in others not so. Some of their descriptions are off, but where else can you look at so many different guns. Their slogan says 20,000 used guns. My interest is in L.C. Smiths and there is no place to see as many as they have.
As far as trading your gun to them, it is like trading in your car, you will never get what you want for it. Remember, they guarantee it for 30 days, if it can't be fixed they will try and get you another like it.
As far as the description goes, it is no different than anything else, if you see the mistake it is because you know that line of guns better than they do, but do you know the others?

I for one am glad that they show the pictures and description and that they are around. I don't look at Bass Pro or Gander Mountain, because they don't have the "goods".

With my experiences with buying, selling, trading and even a little gunsmithing that I had them do at Bass Pro, I'd have to respectfully disagree with the detractors here. I've always gotten fair value deals while being treated well and have never had a problem with them. As with all gun dealers, a relationship with the people that make the decisions can be cultivated with time and care, and are often beneficial in financial dealings later.

Interesting thread this. Living this side of the pond, I often browse US websites - including Cabelas - with great interest to see what English guns are currently in your market and their quality, provenance and pricing. It is interesting to compare them to their UK-advertised counterparts.

I have considered at one time or another purchasing from the US and importing into the UK, more particularly a larger bore shotgun (8 gauge hammergun ideally, especially since I can use them in the UK). With this in mind, I am very interested to learn of peoples experiences of any well respected US(and otherwise!) gunsmiths/retailers, perhaps even some of whom may specialise in the larger bore waterfowling guns of old? I used to live in the US so the whole purchasing process etc is not necessarily an logistical challenge for me.