doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Holts Auction Results.

What shipong cost does is eliminate the cheaper guns. You can't pay 1000 for a gun and then another 1000 on shipping it home unless the gun is worth well over 2000. Plus you are buying a bit of an unknown and may find it needs a bit of tiding up as they say. For that reason I try to have someone over there pick it up and go over it before it gets shipped. That adds extra cost but does give me peace of mind that I am not shipping a basket case.

Auctions are always a gamble. Getting a more detailed report and or getting trusted agent to examine the gun(s) reduces the risk, but every buy even if you get to hold it in your own hand before bidding is a risk. Don't get into the game if you can't afford a total loss. Better to keep window shopping.

You never know how a gun will work out until you have had it a while. I recently brought a pair from Gavin Gardiner and it will still be months before I know how smart or ignorant I was.

All money made on gun buys is usually made at the purchase. I look upon the difference between what I pay for a gun and what I lose on resale (I almost always lose something) as gun rent.

Edited because it ended up in wrong thread

First loss is the buyers premium. %25, What is that ? Then import fees & associated charges.
I don't believe that Jesse James would have even thought that one up.
At least he robbed at the point of the gun & not the butt.
Where did buyers premium even come from & why is it not illegal ?
I don't know about the snake up the pant leg feeling, butt I do feel something prodding me in the small of my back.
O.M

The Auction has overhead, employees and actually wants to turn a profit.....that is where your buyers premium goes. Same way it works here, look at Julia's etc. Import fees are similar. It costs me quite a bit of money to be in business and it is very costly to get a shipment here. I would love to be able to import guns for my clients free of charge but that is not the world we live in. Some very good deals to be had in the UK currently with the most favorable exchange rates seen in my lifetime and the waning popularity of SxS guns in general. My fee for importing a gun is 550$ and that covers everything except duty and shipping from me to your FFL. I'm not feeling like Jesse James at moment.

Yes, the auction house has overhead, employees and needs to turn a profit. But don't forget that they also charge a fee to the sellers. For years auction houses made a go of it based on the percentage charged to the sellers. It was only after they figured out that buyers would willingly pay for the privilege of buying an item that they really wanted that the buyer's premium became accepted practice.

I don't know all the ins and outs of the auction business but it looks like a pretty good business model to me.

There was a small sporting goods and gun auction not far away from where I live, it was a 3 times a year event which was always busy but the auction house stopped it because they weren't making enough money on the day.

I noticed a lot of left handers in the Holts auction,
The Webley boxlocks fetched good prices though.

SKB, 550 is not a fee anyone is going to get rich on. Problem is that we are old men (farts) remembering when everything was cheaper than it is right now. Few understand with the exchange rate on the Pound make it much cheaper to buy right now. I expect it will get better in the next six months before it goes back up. I was thinking about having all my ducks and bucks in a row for next years early auction to find a nice small bore hammergun in the 3-4K range. It looks like prices should be down another 25% by then.

I hear you Ted. I recently offered a gun dealer here in the States 1/3 of what he was asking for a nice Brit 12 and he took it. The gun was originally grossly over priced.

I began importing from Europe since 1973, it's not without its issues. As SKB said, it's not a profit center. I do charge a little less, but that is only when the mood strikes, the stars are lined up and other various factors. Some folks who call me do not like having the name, address, city and state of the importer of record on the frame or bbls. ATF use to be not to concerned about that, but on the last two inspections they wanted to see proof that it was being done.

Sorry, went off the topic. I have purchased guns from both domestic and an international auctions. It is a crap shoot. I purchased a Westley droplock from Christies many years ago . Had someone look at it and still cost me $450 of unknown issues. That was many years ago. (I had a few pokes in the pants since then too)

I can tell you this, there are a several US dealers putting stuff at the major auction companies that have various issues and too expensive to fix. Not cosmetic, but internal issues. These are not discovered until you try to use the gun. As the auction catalog says. As is.

John Boyd