doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Julia's Auction, your thoughts

I think we're seeing a parallel in the collector cars market with most of the primary early year activity occurring essentially in my back yard.
The prices realized at auction for high end cars just keeps escallating upwards while the lower and enty level and niche vehicles prices are static or in some instances have gone down.
Ron Pratte a Mesa,AZ Real Estate developer sold off most of his collection at Barrett Jackson this year and it realized around $50 million. It is being reported that he had far more then that invested in the collection but we watched him buy many of these vehicles at the high end over the years.
For example: he bought the GM "Futurama" bus a few years back for around $4 million and I believe it realized about half this amount when resold this year.
Here to me is an example of a high end "niche" vehicle with a very limited interested ownership audience.
Jim

Not that it helps you in the US, but in the UK we are fortunate to have 'wasting assets', which include guns, wine, classic cars and watches.

Basically there is no Capital Gains Tax (payable in certain circumstances when an item is sold)on anything with a life of less than 50 years - it wastes away in other words. So provided it is personally owned a wasting asset such as a fine gun can be bought for investment, kept and enjoyed, then sold at an appropriate time (timing is everything in investment!) and the gain made is not taxable. It is also a great way of gifting wealth to the next generation.

There is an interesting article on the Holts site. Go to http://www.holtsauctioneers.com/articles.html and look at the May 2013 The Field magazine for more ideas!

Tim

[i]The price of investments may go down as well as up and this advice comes from someone who is totally unregulated by any financial services authority ....[/i]

Most of the time the money is made at the time of purchase...usually not a gun auction.... unless you get lucky..I'll take luck every time.

In 2008 I bought Ford stock at 2 1/4. Today it is 16. Find me a gun which has gone up that percentage in six years. When the stock market was in the cellar I bought Ford, GE and half a dozen other major stocks. They all recovered while I suspect my guns may be even or down in value over that time. Guns are toys and tools not investments.

I think it would be fairer KY to compare gun stocks to your-smart move on F BTW,car stocks purchase.
RGR Was 7 when you bought, today its 51 (not counting dividends over the years which brought you cost basis down to almost nothing)SWHC is the same.

My dealer friends tell me that gun sales are VERY SLOW now.

Economy, Economy, Economy.

You can't have a contracting or stagnant economy for six years and not expect it to have a serious effect on disposable income. Look what happened to the gun industry world-wide during the Carter years.

At least there are some nice deals out there right now. Most people seem to be negotiating on their prices. Local auction prices for Field and Mid-Grade vintage guns are very reasonable. I'd say that right now is the "Bottom of the Market". Buy, not sell, this can't last forever.

Indeed- normally I agree with EightBore as often as Bill and Hillary copulate, but in this case, he is 100% correct. All wise gun dealers know that you make your profit on the purchase, not on the sale, and in this market, top-tier sales are iffy--RWTF

My father always reminded me that at a big auction, whatever is for sale has been promoted to a very wide audience, and to win you have to be the guy who is willing to pay the most.

Words of true wisdom> Deep pockets usually prevail!!