doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shotgun sales listing etiquette: bare minimums

Offered for discussion.

I've been on a bit of an acquisitive tear in the past couple of months, and as a result, have three new doubles to my name- a disparate pair of over-unders built for serious skeet, and a weird, delicate Italian side-by-side farm implement built for, umm, looking pretty and possibly scaring ruffed grouse and spruce grouse out of their feathery little wits. During this period of "take my money", I naturally examined several dozen sales ads on numerous sales and trading fora, and bricks-and-mortar shop websites. The number of times I read an advert and had to contact the seller to ask basic questions such as "How long are the barrels?" "How's it choked?" "Is that a selective or non-selective single trigger?" "Do you think it'd stop a Yukon Gold potato in a charge?" still amuses me. So I've been wondering what this hive mind would consider the bare minimum of data required in a double-barrelled shotgun sales ad. For the general and possibly-interested market, I mean.

I'll start. Were I to list my old Browning B-SS (which is for the moment damned unlikely) on a site that doesn't permit photo upload and I had no photo hosting service available, this is how I'd do it:

FOR SALE: BROWNING B-SS 12-Gauge Shotgun, 28" barrels

Browning B-SS shotgun, side-by-side, 12-gauge, 2-3/4" chambers, 28" barrels

• Condition: Wrecked. Off-face. Clatters like an old Zippo.
• Serial number places it beyond the salt-wood era.
• Rollmarks state "MADE IN JAPAN ASSEMBLED IN CROATIA"
• Single non-selective trigger
• Choked Modified and Full. Modified (right-hand) barrel usually fires first.

Of course, if it had screw-in chokes...

• Comes with the following Triley-Breague Unscrewable® flush chokes: Cylinder, Cylinder, Skeet, Skeet, Disapproved Cylinder, Modified Cylinder, Modified, Modified Penguin, Penguin, Penguin, Full Penguin, Light Musk-Ox, Full Musk-Ox, Full, Extra-Full, Too Full, Reverse Venturi, Buick

(Sorry. Back to regular programming.)

• 17.5" length of pull
• Original hard black plastic Browning buttplate with a picture of John M. Browning straightening his tie; stock appears unaltered
• Forend and buttstock free of cracks, chips, and other defects that may invite derision or incite disgust
• Comes with original maker's case. Original case-maker not included.
• Exact round-count is unknown to me, but figure 500000 to 700000 shells
• Pictures available to your rotary phone.

So. Did I miss anything important?

What do you mean by "a site that doesn't permit photo upload"?

Here's my old B-SS, in a photo that I just uploaded.

I mean direct upload, as in the site will let you post a picture straight outta your device, as opposed to linking it from a photo host somewhere else. The gent I recently bought my Browning Superposed Skeet from claimed to have no way of and no knowledge as to post pictures in his ad. (Not this site.) He e-mailed me the pictures I requested.

That is a fine picture, Mister Hillis. Is your old Browning a 30-incher, choked full-ish in both pipes? And I trust those mallards got et with relish.

Photo hosting is FREE here

https://www.jpgbox.com/

Osage Missourian Canoe
17 feet, square stern, 9.5 Johnson Outboard
Drafts 1 inch and is my duck canoe

Photo-hosting has been free for 20 years. There was that interlude when Photobucket decided they could hold for ransom 3 billion photos. How did that work out? The extortionists lost their job and photobucket is now a bit player. That void was filled in an instant in a free-enterprise economy by Imgur and jpgbox among about a dozen others.

And if you want to see where they are all stored, come out to Loudoun County, Virginia just west of WDC.

The most complete and substantive ads on the internet - barrel lengths, weights, chokes, patent use stamps, etc. for SxS is Toby Barclay's site. In Pennsylvania in September he said he tries to anticipate every question a buyer might have. It's called integrity and logic.

It is a 30 incher, Fudd. Originally choked Mod and Full, I had the left barrel opened to .018", same as the right was originally, and shoot steel in it with abandon. I prefer my mallets to be et after coating with olive oil, salt and pepper. Then, slow grilling upright until med. rare inside. No relish, thank you.

BTW, jpgbox.com is so quick and easy I don't understand why anyone would have an issue using it. Once you locate the pic in your personal storage it only takes a couple of clicks to post it. It can be done in less than 60 seconds, and it's absolutely free.

Fudd, you are in Canada. I speak from experience when I say our on line gun market, if you could call it that, is bereft of sellers that know how to describe a gun. That means, if there is enough at the start to spark an interest, a tedious back and forth, often having to explain what it is we are asking for.

Conversely, it means that a complete ad that offers detailed accurate information, even if it includes “email for pics” typically is well received. When I have sold a gun on line in Canada it’s never taken more than 10 days. Price it properly, provide all possible information, have good detailed pictures that show what needs to be seen.

No bare minimum of information. I just adjust price accordingly. I bought a local Greener on GB with terrible pictures from an uninformed seller for $500. The seller had gone to a shop and been told it was worth $5K. It ended up being about a $900 gun with good photographs and a relatively informed description. I was happy with the overall transaction(s).

Point being, there is always a price point at which I am willing to gamble, and I will never pay anything approaching a retail or even wholesale price for something with inadequate information and photographs.

I have bought a number of shotguns on line and virtually none of them were described accurately. Often measurements are incorrect...weight, drop, chamber length, etc. The last three I bought had some part of the description incorrect. I try to avoid this by calling the seller. Despite that, errors were made. Happily, sometimes the mistakes or omissions are in my favor! My Webley and a Francotte weigh less than advertised. I have returned two guns that were junk.

Not long ago I bought a 20 gauge Ithaca NID in nice shape on Gunbroker which was advertised as a 16 gauge Sterlingworth. Had a detailed lengthy description that was for a SW but had no bearing to the 20-30 detailed pictures. Starting bid was $500. I sent 3 messages as to the discrepency and was never able to get the guy to actually verify the id of the gun in his own pawnshop. At closing, I checked that he had a 3 day in hand return policy and bought it. Very nice NID smallbore for $500. Who could not like that?
I cruise GunBroker for these kind of auctions, because they tend to be looked at then dropped like a hot potato. Pawnbrokers seem to be particularly adept at throwing their money away after extorting it from distressed clients.