doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Weird sellers and their babies.

My late brother bought a Corvette and wanted to join the local Corvette club so we rode over to one of their meets. A rather pompous fellow told him he could only join as an associate member because his Corvette was too modern, not a real classic. So my brother asked what he considered a classic Corvette and he went on and on for several minutes about what he deemed a real Corvette. He ended by mentioning his favorite was the early split windshield coupe like old Tony had on the other side of the meet.

So my brother and I went to look at it. A split window Corvette is a very distinct and classic looking car. After a few minutes talking to old Tony my brother told him that it was indeed a perfect example of it's kind and if he ever wanted to sell it let him know. Old Tony looked at the car and him for a minute then blew out a long breath. He said his health was failing and he just wanted his baby to go to someone who understood it and said he was in fact ready to sell and named a price. Bob took out his checkbook and paid full asking price. A pink slip came out and the deal was done.

About an ten minutes later Mr. Pompous came up to my brother and was whining that the split window car should have been his, not my brothers to buy. The only thing my brother said to him was did you ever ask Tony if you could buy it? Yes he said, many times. That was the problem, you wanted to buy Tony's car and Tony wanted it to have a good home, not some A------ to be it's next owner. Mr. Pompous turned a darker red than the car and I almost spit my beer out my nose. Even old Tony had a smile on his face.

Great story. I love it when it works out like that.

SRH

Dave, Jon....both great stories, in different ways.

It's funny, this thing about weird sellers. We can all have a chuckle or raise an eyebrow. But at the same time, we're all susceptible to being the person who will care for the "baby". It just has to be the right baby.

Not a weird seller, but years back (2011) I was driving a beater 76 Fiat Spider, when I guy at work told me he had talked to his uncle about my car and that his uncle had a Fiat he might want to sell to me. Well I got his phone number and called him making an appointment to see it.

The 76 was a $1,500 eBay buy held together with Bondo and a lot of little projects by me.

I drove up to his house in my 76 Fiat and he said his car was in the "car barn" down the hill in his back yard. All I could see was a rotten wooden wreck of a barn so needless to say I thought OMG what is this thing going to look like? Well we walked out back and as I got closer I saw a neat well kept looking garage next to the barn. The automatic door started swinging open and there were six cars all under parachute cloth. Everything was immaculate and well ordered. The tool racks perfectly organized and labeled. He then pulled a cover off an 83 Spider with 31k original miles and told me that he was the original owner and he wanted it to go to someone who knew how to care for the car. He said after talking a bit he could tell I would be the right guy to appreciate it. He sold it to me for half of what it was worth and would not take a dollar more.

I don't own the 76 Fiat anymore, had to make space for my Dad's 911. I still own the '83 Pininfarina (Fiat) and drive it sparingly. It is still in near prefect condition.

We love our toys and sometimes it is as much about knowing they well be properly appreciated as getting money for them. I sometimes worry about who will appreciate my guns when I can no longer play with them.

PS under the other covers were 60's Muscle Cars and a Mercedes 190SL, all in prefect condition.

There are also weird buyers. When my son was still in the Army, I found a 16 ga French double, cheap, that I thought would make a nice double rifle( 8x57IRS). I thought if my son was stationed in Germany, I could visit him and have Walter Grass convert it. When my son got out of the Army and I didn't have this chance any longer, I decided to sell the gun. I put it on my table in the local gun show, priced at $250. It didn't sell, so at the next show, I priced it $350. It still didn't sell, but at the next show, it sold when I priced it $450. It went to someone I knew had looked at it in the earlier shows. I guess he didn't want a "piece of junk" $250 gun, but finding a really nice "sleeper" for only $450 was a lot more prestigious.
Mike

I moved this here from a different thread, to provide the other side of what you'all are describing.

You just never know who you are talking to.
Sometimes the other party has a clue. And plenty of money.
When someone starts running all that self ingratiating $--t on me, they start to sound like a stripper.

I know it's all lies and bs as soon as it starts.

I have literally heard the "Oh, I'm just looking to get a nice home for my poor, single, unwed, daughter, so that her baby has a nice SAFE place to live", 50 times.
Selling the occasional decent gun is often just as bad.

As soon as I start hearing all that bs, it feels like a snake is running up my pantleg.

CZ, you're talking about a sales job. We're talking about something else. I don't know what it is, but when you see it, you know it's not a con.

Dog people do the same things to stroke their ego's, and to keep the price of their puppies high. They trot out lengthy post purchase contracts over what you can do with YOUR dog after you part with your money.

Sucking up to some old duffer just so you can get him to part with his pride and joy GTO is dishonest. Once people find out you have "stuff", there's no shortage of people contacting you disingenuously.

I don't know, there are toys I do and toys I don't care about.
I wouldn't want to sell my Ithaca NID magnum 10 to someone who wanted to cut the barrels and make a slug gun. I have other guns where my attitude would be its your money and if that's what you want to do...

I was recently selling a very used 1898 Krag rifle online. A potential buyer (?) asked me via e-mail: "How many times it had been fired?"