doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shady dealings

I know this is going to start a crap storm but this is how some guys treat a woman they figure is ignorant of gun values and guns in general.

I will not name names or places or the actual gun, serves no purpose. She has no reason to make it up.

I was at a show this weekend. Spoke with a person who was at a big show recently with a mid letter grade American double, (not a Fox). They had the eyes and ears of one of the inner circle of a nationaly known collectors group . Guy spent almost an hour going over the gun. asked price was told "something teen". This was a graded gun, small bore, very nice condition. He offered one teen less. they accepted. he wrote a check for something teen hundred dollars, . The gun to any of this group of collectors would be a given at 5 figures. When she said something teen she was saying something teen thousand. She figured since this guy was a guru of a collectors organization at the show, he would know what she meant. Not mistaking on his part the huge difference in the price versus real value.
I saw the gun. Its worth 5 figures. definitely way more than what he wrote the check out for short one zero on the end.
Looks like one of these guys figured he could swindle this out of a female who they figured didn’t know what she had.

I have no dog in this hunt. just figured i would pass a tale of collectors gone wild so to speak. Good thing she did know her guns. Like she said, "I may be blond, but not that blond"!!!

Okay boys, flame away.

A judge would rule it "hearsay" and dismiss the case.

I really don't know what you are talking about with all this 'teen' business. Could you just use normal language?

I'm with GregSY.

I think you're talking about old news, of dealers and collectors (and investors/speculators?) who will frequently behave less than honourably in order to get their hands on pieces to add to their collections/trading stock at less than market prices. It happens commonly, at all levels.
RG

If you are going to collect guns, coins, stamps or anything of value and die before your wife you need to make her aware of the real value of the guns. On top of that you need to leave clear written instructions of how and where to sell your stuff for a fair value. If you do not do that you are almost making it a certain fact that your wife will get screwed out of a major part of the value of your collection.

My list is already done and the wife knows where it is and what to do. I do not have any gun that would bring 15k or so each but the shear number of guns I have make it a decent total dollar collection. Just as I would not like to give the government half of the value I do not see the need to give a dealer more than I need to just to convert my guns into cash.

I have seen several gun show deals that follow your original post but the seller had no real fair market value to work with. Just a buying dealer telling them that they are getting top dollar. Like going to a car lot to sell your car without any clue what it worth. Sounds like this lady had most of the information that she needed to not get taken for a ride. How informed is your wife?

well two things,

1). I too am confused with all this talk of 4 figures 5 figures, teens and zeros' - to make things simple why not just put the figures in ?????

2). This sounds like any hard businesman, be it cars, antiques or houses and is not that uncommon - ladies are also not the only victims...

What's so hard to understand? She was asked what she wanted for the gun. She replied (I'll inject a digit), "Thirteen", meaning thirteen thousand. He (the dealer) figured he'd make a try at scamming her so wrote her a check for thirteen hundred. Brian, knowing more about the piece says it's value was easily in the five figures bracket (meaning ten thou' or above).

Sad story, but unfortunately as long as we live on this earth we will hear of people who try to take advantage of others for money. I think it just bothers us worse because this gun community tries to police itself, in a way, but it goes on daily in all businesses. Widows or divorcees are taken advantage of by unscrupulous land buyers, timber buyers, home buyers, the list is very long.

We all hear of "shady" dealings going on. My take is this, if you are at a show selling guns, no matter what the gender, you should have done your homework as to value of guns. IF it is a higher quality than normal, you should have had it appraised by someone that knows them.
The other take is when a spouse dies suddenly and the widow sells the guns from the home, we have all heard of "great deals" this way, and to no fault of the widow, was usually "taken".
Like KY Jon stated, have a list of prices for someone to follow in the case of your demise.

A while back, there was a lot of controversiary over the same subject, a Parker 28 ga. Person didn't post for quite a while afterwards, from what I can remember.

Awfully complicated description of what really happened. Did she accept the check? Ditto JDW's comments.

Happy you're home safe, Brian. Many thanks for your service.

Why did she accept the check? She is under no compulsion to accept the check just because it is written out!! Please, she surely recognized an error on someone's part when there was an order of magnitude between ask and offer. Certainly the buyer was less than honorable. However, the seller allowed herself to be a victim. Neither gets a pass in my book.