doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Sad

I have three sets of DGJ that I intended to give my sons. Two are not interested at all and the other will likely dispose of them after a quick period of interest. This was a steal only if you have interest in them. Going to an auction tomorrow. Late fellow had almost a hundred guns, over 50 sets of reloading dies, tons of cases, empties, wads, half a ton of shot and about a grands worth of powder. To me it is kind of sad. Never got to enjoy too many of things he had to play with. Those reloading die sets will either be sold in lots of five or bring just about five bucks each. A in person auction might not be the best way to dispose of his stuff. Attendance might be good or not, depending on the weather. It is about 30 miles from any decent size town of city. His guns should draw some interest, but nothing listed seems likely to bring anything over a several hundred, to a few that might reach near a grand. No bidding wars will happen. And poor attendance might cost me a lot.

Cleaned out an estate reloading room a few month ago. Had over 25,000 old style once fired AA hulls. Most of his stuff was for trap and looked to be decades of finds. But he did have little powder or primers on hand. At least that fellow was down to his last two bags of shot. So I counted him as being able to enjoy most of what he accumulated. But we have so much stuff that we keep that never gets used and is of almost no value to others. I need to go through my reloading stuff and just thin things out, but I too suffer from the "I might need this still" curse.

Old double gun journal are pretty much worthless, same with other gun magazines and some books. Tried to donate to a local library said they would not take them because they were gun related. Also in our subdivision we have a fellow who put up one of those subdivision library, I even help him build it. Said he would prefer not to have gun related items in it. I like the guy he is nice. I guess that is becoming the state of affairs. Sad

Whats next?

John
Arrieta

The journals may not sell for much but a gun (Parker) sold for $23k last month on GB So, it ain't over yet.

I took a bunch of shooting books to a match a couple of weeks ago and gave them all away as door prizes. The books corresponded to the type of match, roughly speaking, so there was some interest and appreciation. It is better than tossing them in a dumpster.

If you have a kids trap team, you might unload a few there as well.

Oh well, someone got a great deal, if the seller doesn't pull any games. I guess, if someone makes a profit by doing the hard work to present it to a wider market, good for them. One thing for sure, it wouldn't be worth paying the pocket change just to throw it out.

When I shopped Ebay a few years ago to fill some holes in my Double Gun Journal collection, it seems to me the average gong rate back then for individual copies ran around $10.00 apiece, plus shipping.

I just checked Ebay, and the starting bid or buy-it-now prices are still pretty close to that. If anything, shipping costs are higher, but we all know that. It appears that the small lot that is the subject of this Thread is an exception to the rule, especially considering the Index and Reader and the Free Shipping. I think it only goes to show that sometimes, you can still find a real bargain on Ebay. One sale does not indicate a trend.

A couple years back, I did a search for Lefever shotguns on GunBroker late one night before I went to bed. I saw a 16 gauge G Grade in decent condition listed with a starting bid of $105.00. I put it on my Watch List, and then checked out some other guns. After several minutes, I went back to look at the pics of that 16 gauge G Grade again, and noticed it also had a Buy-It-Now Price of $115.00. The seller was an FFL Dealer who mostly sold Black Guns.

It had just been listed only minutes before I first saw it. I immediately clicked on the Buy-It-Now option, and got it. The shipping was very reasonable too. I was extremely lucky, and did not take that as a signal that the bottom had dropped out of the market for small bore Lefever doubles.

And craigd makes an interesting point here. It isn't a done deal until they are delivered to the buyer. As soon as the seller realizes that shipping alone will exceed the amount of the winning bid, he may decide he isn't going to take the loss.

Last Summer, I was watching some old brass armillary sphere type sundials, because I wanted a nice one for my garden. I don't know why, but I've always thought they're cool. There are a lot of very small armillaries on Ebay, along with a lot of cheap Chinese junk. But I was very pleased to win the auction on a very nice ornate antique example that was around 24" in diameter, for a bit over $150.00 plus shipping. No one had bid on it for a couple days, and it had an unusual auction ending time of around 3:00AM. The arrow (gnomon) was bent, but it was otherwise in nice condition, and I knew I could easily straighten the brass arrow. I had expected it to sell for several times that amount.

I paid and waited for tracking info on the shipment. I never heard anything, and contacted the seller several times. After a couple weeks, I contacted Ebay to report the apparent non-shipment and lack of communications. After another week or so, the seller finally emailed me to inform me that this was his first Ebay sale, and he had no idea that his armillary sundial would sell so cheap. Neither did I, but that's always a risk in a no-reserve auction. He claimed that he didn't know he could have put a reserve or minimum starting bid on it. He said he had been hoping to get at least $750-1000 out of it, and had refunded my money and would not be shipping it. He also immediately quit being an Ebay seller. At least I got my money back.

The market for those is highly specific. Like many others, when they closed I decided to complete my et, since I use them constantly. A lot of people are still doing that. The supply is such that most of them are what someone will give. There are about a dozen issues that are unobtainiam. I bought several collections like this at a few bucks for 10 issues just to get one specific book. Only then serious buyers tend to check the specifics apparently. I noticed this lot contained a Vol 1 No. 2. Someone got a real bargain. If they had marketed the on volume with time to soak, they would have pocketed a three figure price.

When selling stuff like this it is generally required to market it to a target audience.

I once went to and auction not far from my home that cleared out a lot of family estates from the Cleveland OH area. One of the items they pulled out was a grey five drawer file cabinet. I opened it and started going through it. It turned out the estate was from the guy that ran the Cleveland Air Races for several years. It was several hundred pounds of original certified blueprints of some of the most famous experimental racing aircraft in history, such as the flying wing. In addition it had hundreds (maybe thousands) of high quality 8x10 photos of these same planes on display and in action, along with pilots, celebrities etc. Also included was original advertising, memorabilia etc. It was all in perfect condition and represented a unique original history of one of the most active period of classic aviation.I had built models of many of the planes when I was kid. It went for $200 and to this day I regret not buying it. I remember at the time just not being ready to commit to the effort it would have required to market it. Being a young professional with a demanding job and a young family, it wasn't in the cards. I felt at the time the collection if properly framed and presented could have generated a small fortune as collector and decorator material but would have required several years of total effort to market properly. It could have been the basis of an entire aviation museum. The sad loss is that it was probably purchased, studied and then put in a basement to finally go to a landfill at the next estate auction.

I don't think they have much value at all. I never bought a single copy. Used to read them for free in a book store in winter month's
when the weather was bad. Never knowing at that time that most of the articles were written by Parker gun asso. or the Fox Collectors asso. members and so forth.
After getting to know many of them by going to Hausmann's Hidden Hollow I along with many others realized that these were run of the mill guys writing
''Professional '' articles. Once that word got out , a lot of people stopped buying or subscribing to the Journal. This was the beginning of the end for it.
I was given most of the set of the journal some years back, and still find them enjoyable reading and now recognize most of the authors names.

Dirty Harry

Well living in Belgium I would be very glad to have them. I have them from the millennium till the last issue.Alle issues what before I not have. Pity that there are very high import taxes. After when i close my eyes definitively I donate them to our public library.
Cheers, greetings from Belgium, Marc.

Yep, I got an extra set when a friend passed, met someone at Sandanona and sold them for about $1000 and that was about 15 years ago, less issues.

Selling a set these days would be tough. Not too many new shooters going to side-by-sides and shipping would be terrible, they can't go media mail.

And as we age out (nice way to say"die") they'll be more and more of them around too.