Selling a collection

Geri

A friend has contacted me, and wishes to sell several firearms. Several pre 64 70s supper grade, and some 94s
Also several other firearms. Wishes to sell all at at the same time.
What is the best way to do this?
He has given me permission to give his information to serious buyers.
Thank you.

nmyers

Not clear on what you mean. Does he want you to sell the entire lot to a single person for an agreed upon price? Or, does he want to you to post them separately on GB at the same time?

Or, does he want you to pay a commission to have a dealer like Locust Fork list them on Gunbroker?

Can he give you a detailed description of each firearm, along with good photos of them?

Neal

Geri

He wishes to sell the entire collection, preferably to one person.

charliemeyer007

Real collector grade stuff would do well on the auction. Regular stuff would likely net more money with less hassle locally IMHO.

I think he will loose money on a package deal, but that's their choice.

Spider7115

Offers to sell in the Forums is strictly prohibited. That's why we have an auction side. Seeking advice is fine but offering phone numbers and off-site contact can get you booted.

It gets your post edited. Nice catch, Spider. Mark C.

Geri

Thank you. I stand corrected.

nononsense

Geri,

The term 'collection' can be a tricky name for what is really just a group or batch of firearms without any real relationship, one to another in that batch.

I have always seen this as being a difficult decision to make when selling a larger number of firearms. Selling all at once to one source is obviously the most simply for everyone. However, this narrows the number or percentage of folks who can participate in such a purchase. That percentage gets real small when you start discussing relatively expensive or God forbid I use the term 'rare'. Then you have the problem of getting that information out to the largest number of folks making up the tiny percentage. Much harder.

Now, if you chose to allow a broker to handle the entire number of firearms, the opportunity to purchase is spread across a much larger group of potential buyers. Here though the broker will and should collect a fee based on the dollar amount from each sale as it is their labor which makes the sales possible. Realizing the complete sale of all of the individual pieces may take a bit longer when some of the firearms may not be as desirable as the majority might be. So patience is then truly a virtue.

I would discuss this in detail with the owner and then let it digest for a short time in order to sort out exactly which direction to take. Maybe see if after the discussion, he may have more questions for the members.

Best.

Geri

Thank you for your reply, I will talk with the owner and pass on the information that you posted.
Again thank you. Not a large amount of items, just about 25 I think.

nmyers

I have had the misfortune to lose several shooting buddies, & have been asked to sell their guns by the family. I did it, but it was time consuming, & I know how to take pictures & post auctions on GB. It takes me at least 4 hours to auction off a single common gun, unusual guns even longer. But, I usually ended up getting a fair price for the family.

There's no reason why you can't auction all of your friend's guns in a single auction. If he's OK with starting the auction at $.01 for the lot, you will sell them the first time you list the collection. But, the odds are that only folks who are looking to make a profit will be bidding. OTOH, if he has given you a minimum amount in US dollars that he will accept, make that your starting price; if they don't sell, have the auction re-list automatically every week until they do, or until your friend authorizes you to find another way to sell the guns.

Neal

toad67

Selling the whole lot of them in one sale wouldn't be the best choice, at least IMO. As Neal said, the only buyers would probably be the ones looking to make $$ on the group. Selling them as a group really limits you to your audience, the ones with a large cash role. Most of the average people couldn't come up with enough to buy the whole collection. Another point is that there might be some guns in the group that people don't want and their bid will be lower accordingly. If you went on line with all of them there would be close to 600 or more pictures in an auction to give a good representation of what they are, and that would be too many. I would think that you would be lucky to get %50 of the value when all was said and done going that route. I would contact L/F and talk to her about it. Depending on where you're at, you could possibly meet up with her and give her the whole collection. The guns would be listed individually, and would bring the best $$ for each one. Her meager %10 plus the small gb fee's are very reasonable. I just went thru the same thing, except there were over 200 in the Estate I helped with. Good luck.

Todd

bustedknee

Make him an offer.

I ran into a lady (coming out of a gun shop as I was going in) whose father had passed away and left her his guns (8 or 9) piled in a closet.
She had grandkids coming to visit and wanted them gone.
The dealer insulted her by offering a tiny fraction of their worth.
I explained I could not offer her the full value for all her guns but I would give her an honest price on the 2 I wanted and about 1/2 value on the rest, which I would later sale or trade.
She said, "Follow me to the house."

That, dear friends is why you carry extra cash at all times.