I'm an old hand at eBay, which doesn't take gun listings, but new at using the various gun auction sites (you know what they are).

As sort of a self-imposed orientation drill I've been tracking some auctions for doubles that are representative of guns I might like to own. I note that the vast majority of the time they open and close with no bids. Then the seller simply relists and away we go again on another seven-day ride.

As nearly as I can figure, this is because the opening bid price is set at what would be a high-end price for the gun. That price is not necessarily always an unfair price, mind you -- just a top price. The point is that these ain't really auctions. They are merely guns-for-sale listings masquerading as auctions. There's nothing illegal, unethical, immoral or fattening about this, of course. But it is mystifying for someone who is conditioned to believe that the word "auction" means something very different.

I have sold hundreds of times on eBay (not guns, of course) by setting an opening bid of 25 cents and can count on one hand the number of times my item did not close at a good price. And I've sold lots of stuff at prices way higher than I expected to. Economics 101 tells us that an object is worth what a willing buyer will pay in an arms-length transaction, and that an auction is the best of all ways to get the true value of an object so long as you have a critical mass of potential buyers (and in many cases two constitute enough). What's better at getting a critical mass of potential buyers than an auction that the whole world has access to online? The inference I draw here is that the sellers on these sites simply don't truly trust the system to work.

I guess I'm intellectualizing a bit here so if I were to put this into the form of a question it might be, what do the knowledgeable folks here think of buying at online auction? Do you buy from the auction sites? Am I wasting my time looking for a decent buy at these sites? Does anyone have any advice for buying from sellers on these auction sites?

If you can't partake in an auction that's really an auction, then you might as well buy from an established and reputable dealer online, since the shipping and FFL hassle is the same either way. Or am I missing something here?

It is what is.
To complain directly to the sellers, consider sending them a note via the auction website.
They might change their tune on price if they know someone actually wants their guns.




Cheers
Tinker

Hello

http://www.gunsamerica.com

is the for sale site of not

Gunauction and auctionarms are auction sites and yes, games are being played. But they own the gun and want what they want.

Good luck on your adventure

Mike

wow!!! just tried to go to it, YOU must have nuked it, it is DEAD

I am essentially in retirement as far as buying guns is concerned. The last couple I bought I did buy via Auction Arms. These two were listed with starting prices that left room for an "Auction" not just a for sale listing as you say. As to other items I have noted on numerous occasions an item may be listed on E-Bay at what I would consider a high end price, very near its max worth, while at about the same time another would be listed with a low starting bid. By the end the one with the low start would receive a good number of bids & sell for a higher price then the High Starter closed at without receiving a bid.
My opinion seems to follow yours very closely, either put it up to allow bidding to occur, or don't list it on an auction site.

It just shows that there is a large number of people - these are the people siting next to you at a stoplight or a coffee shop - who are both stupid and greedy.

The is one guy "Sly?" who I swear has been tring to sell the same overpriced doubles since I started looking at gun auctions many years ago.
I agree with the above sentiments and have also sold lots of items on Ebay and elsewhere with a starting bid of 99 cents.
I'd like to see these online gun auction adopt the same policy that Barrett Jackson, the classic car sellers, did a few years ago. The took the minimun bids and reserves off all their auctions and you can start the bidding a 1.00 on a $1,000,000 car. If the car ends up at $800,000 that's what it sells for. These moves IMO have taken a lot of the game playing out of this auction that used to occur all the time.
Maybe Dave will decide to start up an auction here with no reserves and a 1.00 starting price. Sure there would be an occasional bargian but I'll bet most of the guns would bring true value.
Jim

I had one phone conversation with Sly a few years ago, and now I don't even look at his listings. On most of the "auction" sites, you are, in fact, wasting your time. The problem is that every once in a while, an actual reasonable deal comes up. Sometimes you get lucky, but you waste a lot of time looking at high priced junk listed by sellers who are stupid, greedy, uninformed, unresponsive, crusty, incompetent, and sometimes crooked. There are a few good guys, but it takes time to figure out who they are. The sellers on this site are generally the good guys, and know what they are selling, but this is not an auction site.

Take a look at these auction, he has been selling everything at a good price for years.

http://www.auctionarms.com/search/auctio...p;af=0&ag=8

Ebay charges a listing fee, GB and AA do not. If you're not in a hurry there is no downside to listing a gun at top dollar and waiting for someone to bite. If the online auctions charged a listing fee based on the minimum opening bid I think you might see a change in this practice.

Last year I was considering a Remington M700 varmit rifle that was for sale locally. To get an idea of prices I searched completed auctions on GB for that particular model and found over 1000 auctions, only 2 sold.

I agree with you Michael. I don't know this guy but he's one of the exceptions on Gun Broker. Apparentely good guns with at least reasonable opening prices.
Jim

Two out of a thousand is about the right ratio of selling items to listed items for both major auction sites. Seems like many sellers just list and forget the item. I just look at basic auctions, no reserves, penny auction starting bids and forget the rest. I might miss a buy now and then but I do not care. This gets past the list forever crap that never sells. And if the title is all CAPS I do not bother. These are the Torchmans crappy guns which is both overpriced and torched to look like a spotted piece of crap.


The seller shown above is one I have bought eight or nine guns from. Straight dealer and each gun has been as good as or better than described or expected.

I have bought a couple guns via the "auction" sites, but wonder if it was worth it considering the many hours I have spent clicking on way over-priced crap relisted over and over by sucker fishermen. For instance, there is one listed on Gunbroker as simply Lefever Double Barrel Shotgun. It has an opening bid of $1100.00 which may lead one to think it is high condition, or higher grade, or both. Click on it and you are treated to a very average Nitro Special with a cracked buttstock. This thing would not sell for more than $200.00 at most shops or gun shows. It must be very easy to relist guns because this guy, and many others, do so over and over for years. I can't figure out why he would waste his time even if it only took a couple minutes per week per gun to relist. This guy has a better chance of hitting the Megamillions Jackpot than ever getting $1100.00 out of this piece of crap. I wish the "auction" sites would do something to change this situation, but we do see the same thing at gun shows as well.

I went on GB not long ago and asked the seller a question about his LC Smith that he had listed. Not only did he answer my question but he immediately come down $100.00 on the price. But your right, it is not an auction.

This is why we miss Roy Eckrose! His monthly auction reports were real gems of information.

Pete

I've found lots of good deals on auctionarms and gunbroker, but I probably spend about 10 hours a week checking the sites for various things. Primarily, I am interested in bolt action sporting rifles, but occasionally I pick up a decent double for myself. I am learning how to make minor repairs, and Dale Edmonds
is teaching me to refinish Damascus barrels. Here is one such item
I picked up about a year ago, the stock cleaned up nice, as did the
metal, and the barrels should be done soon.

http://www.auctionarms.com/Search/DisplayItem.cfm?ItemNum=8833613.0

I don't really like it when sellers start their guns at prices far higher than what I think they are worth, but I see that all the time at gun shows.

On Gunbroker you can search for no reserve price auctions using smart search.

The guns I have sold I put a minimum bid that was about 25% less than what I wanted and a Buy it now for what would make me happy.

All three sold for the buy it now after a few bids at or above the minimum.

I have also had guns that got no bites at my minimum.
Still have those guns.

I have bought very few guns recently on auction, but I have sold hundreds. My starting point for price depends on how much demand their is for a model and the value of the gun. If I have a gun that has had a strong following in the past and I guess will sell for under $1500 I will often list it for a penny on a two week auction. Some guns have a much smaller following and then I will have to set a opening price at the bottom of what I would be happy with. Also some guns require a special buyer and may take several cycles thru the auctions before it is sold does not necessarly mean that the opening price was high just that the right buyer has not found it yet.

The time of year also plays into this, as soon as it gets cold and dark there seems to be much more activity on the auctions, so that a gun I might have listed for a penny in Jan gets listed for a opening bid of $750 in July.

For every dumb seller there is a equally dumb buyer....I should start keeping a list of the really dumb questions, but the one that has stuck with me the longest is the fellow that asked what choke a 22 rifle had. Also read the description, half the questions I get are already answered in the description. I also get a number of questions where I am at a loss as to what they are asking or even what gun they are asking about.

I would also recommend that if you are serious about a gun and it is not NIB I would call the seller with any questions. I would never buy a gun without first talking the the seller as it gives me a chance to hear if the fellow sounds on the up and up or if he sounds stupid or has any questionable ethics.

I have no problem when the auction is not an auction. If the price started is too high I keep looking. My assumption is if a gun is started at $25 and has a reserve of $2500 all those bids from $30 to $2300 are a waste of time and if I don't want to pay any where close to the reserve I move on. The only grief I have is when I want something and can't be at the computer to bid and it goes for less than I would have paid. This happens because I think I might get a better deal and hold off bidding and things don't work out. The rest, as I see it, is comedy. The greatest example is a listing of a common firearm with a starting price way above the "buy now" price of 10 guns of the same model and condition? I have met people that I would expect to do this with anything they own that they were selling.

Ken does raise several good points from the sellers viewpoint. More than a few buyers are clueless. He knows his market and list accordingly. Most important he wants to sell his items and tries to be realistic in both his starting price and what he hopes to get as a final price. He knows a Lefever Nitro Special 12, in beat up condition, is not a $1,200.00 gun. He knows the difference between a Fox A grade and the later Savage lower quality look alike.

Most of the problem that I think people are having with non selling items is that they will stay on the auction for months or years. It is just so much crap you have to ignore to see what is really listed to sell. I think that a listing fee for any gun that has not sold when listed three times in a year is a reasonable thing. Sellers get three free listings of a gun then have to pay to keep it listed after that. This would get rid of most of these dead listings and motivate the seller to set the selling price at a more realistic price if they want to sell. A seller could not list a hundred guns for months on end at prices which will never be reached. If you want to sell a gun then do it or get off the site. Do not list the same over priced klunkers for years hoping for a sucker.

Ky John:
I couldn't agree with you more. Why don't you send these ideas to Auction Arms,Gunbroker etc.
Jim

The fact that seller fees on GB and AA are not front-loaded, as BuckeyeSam has noted, fully explains the perpetual bandwidth for trapdoor spiders. UM, your intellectualization reveals that you understand auctions, as do most of us who've been to a desperation farm auction where the attendance did not reach critical mass on a rainy February Saturday. Sitting in front of a monitor sorting thru trash is a very comfortable, sedentary avocation. The fleas come with the dog and some of the dogs are dogs. You can scan the consignment racks, play the armchair internet game, get off the porch and run with the big boys to the sealed bid auctions, walk the gun shows, buy from your neighbor down the street. It's only used guns, dead men's guns, jewels in the rubbish of commerce. I don't expect folks to give me things because they're tired of them; I don't expect them or encourage them to give me things for a song because they're desperate (altho I know there are buyers who make a practise of nosing out the economic cripples and bragging about it).

For every carnivorous buyer, there's a carnivorous seller of course. However, a large portion of the clientele of AA and GB are casual or occasional sellers. You can take a peek at "seller's other auctions" and get a good idea of what he's about, what he's got invested, whether's he's a cull & discard collector, an ordinary Joe whose pre-occupations have changed, a shop with an oddball outside his area of expertise that he wants to move along. Often, the ad copy can help you spot the cranks. For instance, I don't mind a few sugggestions in the advert about how the seller conducts business but I run from flamboyant multi-paragraph statements of "my way or the highway" policies. Sucker pricing is pretty obvious to those who make an effort to study the "water seeks its level" pricing of guns WHICH HAVE SOLD. I don't want a 1910 "pin" SW for 39C when I can (and have) found one in better condition for 5C. I'm not a high stakes player but, even in my case, the game is about how to get a lot of gun for say another buck and a half rather than how to get a piece of junk for a buck and a half less. I will say that the best auctions for me are the "game called for lack of interest" where I put up the starting bid and get the gun.

jack

To go a bit further, I don't see that the ideal pre-bid arrangements in terms of a starting price and reserve are universal for all items or that they would be equally ideal for both buyers and sellers. As an eBay seller, I might take a chance on a penny auction on a nine dollor baseball cap (altho I notice that few eBayers actually do so). I don't think I would do the same on a 3K shotgun. I did (actively) observe the selling of a Merkel 201e at GB last week. Seller definitely trusted that the congregation would assemble as gun started in the low hundreds. I personally coaxed it along from 2100 to 2600 while probing the depths of someone else's "proxy" pocket. I don't believe for an instant that a confident, standup seller would have helped your position as a buyer one bit on that one unless you wanted to buy it for a couple thou less than the price tag at Cabellas. Of course, he could have priced to start at 4500, slapped on the reserve, and owned it for the rest of his life. Good buy if you "really, really have to have it in your safe next week". From the pov of seller, it's a rainmaker game; you seed the clouds and pray. As a buyer, you enjoy a drought.

jack

The trick on Gun Broker is to set your preferences at Highest Number of bids first, I don't ever look at guns without bids.

I think that if GB or AA thought this was a problem, they would have addressed it by now.
I can counter wiht the opposite; I have perosnally listed guns with low starting prices and never got a bid. I have then raised the price and sold it for far more than I was offered on previous auctions. Sometimes peole see a low price and get nervous about the gun, wondering why its cheap. I have bought several guns that way also and got some great deals buying something that no one would bid on. Not wierd stuff but mainstream guns.

Bottom line is that this same thing happens on GA and GI. People set some outrageous proices and th eguns never sell. Let the market decide. no one ofrce sus to look, watch,or buy. I do feel the same frustration but at times but I sit back , do a relaity check and move on.

This particular seller is knowledgeable, but he sells most of his guns by consignment, which means he doesn't pay anything for most of them-that makes a huge difference in willingness to list an auction starting at a .01. These guns are sent to him by the owners to be sold. He is an auctioneer, so to speak, and gets 15% of the selling price as his commission for his work at research & photos. If you buy the guns like most sellers, then resell them, it is usually not wise starting at a .01, the seller could take considerable loses. That is why a reserve is set to keep the sales at profit and help prevent going out of business.

I guess the other thing that really irks me about these online "Gun dealers" is they want you as the buyer to eat the credit card fees. I owned and operated a retail business for years and the thought of pushing these fees off on the buyer never occurred to me. I can also contemplate what some of my customers responses would have been if I had ever made such an outrageous suggestion.
Jim

A live auction is definitely commerce for the seller and may be commerce or entertainment for the seller. E-auctions differ in that they can be either commerce or entertainment for the seller as well as for the buyer. Every auction goer's hope is for a brgain; buy for less than it is worth or sell for more than it is worth. Every auction goer's fear is just the reverse. All the auction rules are to guard against the seller's fear; fair enough since the seller is the one stepping forward first. Bidders get a jolt of entertainment from the momentary hope of bidding while an item is still a bargain. E-auction sellers can get that same sort of entertainment jolt when they set a high price and have the hope of a seller's bargin price.

So, the initial pricing depends on whether the seller is in for commerce or for entertainment. I have to say that I don't find e-auctions all that different from the negotiations that often go on in gun shops. The hang tag is the "buy it now" price. Offers are bids. A gun shop may have several buyers unknown to each other making offers and the seller working back and forth among them to arrive at the highest selling price. So, if a seller has high "buy it now" prices, don't go to his "store." I have known many gun store owners who would price a particularly desirable gun way high just to keep it around for awhile.

With the continously rising prices in firearms aw well as other collectibles we've all experienced thru the 90s and early into this century; it's certainly been a sellers market and that held until recently. Many sellers were indifferent about sales as they could be fairly certain that prices would ramp up again.
I believe this is now over for the forseable future and prices will certainly flatten and may very well decline in some areas.
For the majority of us,and I place myself in this category, pricing isn't all that relevant as we primarily bought firearms for our own use and enjoyment.
I think we are going to be entering a buyers market for the forseable future and this seems to be true in in the "assault weapons. area. Sales of these were very high up until the start of Summer with most dealers unable to keep any in stock. Now Ar15 type rifles seen to be available everywhere albiet at prices that are IMO too high. Benelli shotguns were another item that was hard to obtain until recently.
Correspondingly it seems that the great ammo rush has come to an end and my out club has lifted their rationing regulations.
Apparentely everyone who felt the need for an assault type rifle and a stockpile of ammo has now acquired them and demand has fallen back to normal.
If anyone reading this has noticed anything different I'd be interested in hearing about it.
Jim

I cant speak for the world in terms of ammo and gun hoarding, but its still hard to get 209 primers, some powders like Unique and Clays are still hard to find, and shot is still around $29.00 per bag here which is around $10.00 too high in my opinion.
I think the guns we like will eventually lose value as I dont know of anyone much younger than me (turn 46 next month) who cares about them. The young folks I know who like guns at all seem to be into either pistols or EBR's (evil black rifles). I cant say as to whether they will eventually discover vintage doubles, or will stay in the action adventure Walter Mitty mindset. If their interest dont change/expand, as our numbers die off, there will be less and less interested buyers for our musty dust and hopefully not rusty hoards.

Brian is right about pricing too low. I recall a gunshow acquaintance pricing a nice LC 20 for $600. (Many years ago). I would walk by on occasion and advised him to raise the price. He didn't and basicly was told to mind my own. Sunday morming I bought the gun, put it on my table at $850 and within a half hour, it sold for $800. Bought by someone that had previously looked at it on the other guy's table. You never know. Best idea is to price it fair and it will sell fair.

It is hard to understand why, from time to time, a perfectly good gun will get no interest on an auction. But, those are just the kind that get my interest, if it is a gun that I have been looking for. We all approach these auctions differently, obviously, because a previous poster said that he skips over those that have no bids. I just approach them very cautiously and do my homework on them.

For example, I had been wanting a 30" BSS with 3" chambers for several years. Looked at gun shows, online auctions, gun shops and put the word out among friends in the business. I could have bought a pile of them at around $1400, but since it was something I didn't HAVE to have, I waited. Last spring one came up in very good condition for $950 at the BUY IT NOW price. I bought it after two phone calls to the seller, and am very pleased with it. I sold a 26" one, in lower condition than the one I bought, for $650. Since I only paid $350 for the short one, and was able to shoot it for many happy hunts and shoots, I figure I've got no more than $650 in a very good condition BSS that is exactly what I wanted. It won the AA class S x S event at the NWTF Turkey Shoot two weeks ago and will give the ducks between heah' and Arkansas grief for years to come.

Use the auctions to get what you want. Just think what you would spend in travel time trying to find even a fraction of the guns for sale if it were not for the net. I'm old enough that I find these auctions sites great fun and very useful, but then I will admit I'm a bottom feeder when it comes to buying used guns.