Offer received from local dealer for gun collection.

[Elkins45]

“Your mother is so fat she ate the Internet” is an insult. A lowball offer on some used guns could be opportunism, or it could just be a negotiating tactic. If you compared the dealer’s first offer to the actual sale price of every car I bought I’m pretty sure some would think those were insults too.

 

[I6turbo]

That's pretty sad, sorry to hear of it.

If you have time, you might come out much better off selling them yourself. There's definitely money to be made over what a bulk buyer will pay. As I outlined above, you can probably make $30-$50/hour for your time on a lot of them by selling individually on GB. There are some important keys to getting good money on GB, so if you decide to do it, be sure to follow those guidelines. GREAT photos are an imperative, and also be brave enough to start the auctions at a penny.

I make an appointment to show my guns on the premise that the guy buys collections. Entire collections, cash money, fair prices.
I pack up all my guns, a few hours' worth of time because I've got to pull them out of storage and arrange them for transport.
I drive to the guy's house...and it's a nice house. Easily $6-700K house.
He takes me down to his garage, and he's got a custom walk-in gun vault built into his garage/basement. Oak. Red velvet. Brass. Track lighting. At least 90-100 long guns in racks. High dollar guns. Antique winchesters. Fine shotguns. Very expensive stuff.
Then he takes me into his ammo vault. Another custom-built walk-in room filled with ammo he brags about getting for free with guns, selling all of it for top dollar. Asks me if I need primers...bricks of 1k for $90 a brick.
Has me take another 2 hours showing him everything. Has his friend come over and poke through it too, on the premise that anything he can't buy his friend would make me a fair offer.
He says he needs to mull it over...I pack everything up...another hour, and leave. I drive home and spend another few hours putting everything back away.

Two weeks later he sends me a list of cherry picks and offers me 40% retail but only on the best stuff. Without going into details, these are the last hard assets I own. Covid wiped my business off the earth. Broke me financially.
Good for him, and all the money he made off of widows and desperation.
I wasn't impressed.

 

[SteadyD]

Gen 2 Colt SAA .44 Special with Ivory Grips .$1,000! lol

Dealer going to sell for 2.5-3x the price he is offering you.

Have you look at: https://durysguns.com/

they been in business for a very long time and send you boxes to ship back the guns. If it’s a large estate, they send a person to your house and evaluate and handle your collection

very upfront offers: They take 15-20% of the sale price, depending in consignment or outright sale to them

I offer 90% of retail. I’ll take that Colt SA for $1200, you know, for the widows and orphans.

 

[tjmga]

I thought this might make some of you laugh. It certainly made me chuckle.
There is a guy locally who advertises "Best prices offered for guns and gun collections". Supposedly gets a lot of business from elderly widows and estate sales. I'm in the process of selling a fair amount of my collection to fund an upcoming home purchase, and I decided to load all 80+ firearms into my truck and drive them to his house (he works completely out of his house) so he can see if he was interested. I made up a spreadsheet of my collection with some details, and here is what he returned to me, marked with his offers. The blue numbers are his offers, red numbers are his friends' offers.
Now this guy wouldn't stop telling me how generous he is to the widows, how everyone always goes straight to him after talking to all the other shops, When he buys from private collections he gives 80% of retail, just enough to get by, etc..etc...
I'm curious as to what you think of these numbers. Descriptions of condition are purposefully conservative, they are all for the most part in very nice shape. Sorry for the chopped up page, i had to consolidate four pages of spreadsheets into one.

View attachment 1165783

Let me say I would buy all those guns at those prices, even if I did not want them. I would not sleep at night afterwards. Please find yourself a different buyer.

 

[starling]

I am guessing the % and descriptions are from the OP and not the FFL.
Time is money and he wasted a lot of your time.

I'll go $355.00 on the USP as long as those are not 10rd mags..

LOL, OK Ill go up to $370. I initially would have gone higher but apparently since all those USP 45 magazines are not worth anything Ill have to stop there. Does HK know their magazines have no value? Someone should tell them. Kinda funny how people gripe when they buy a new pistol and it only has 1 magazine. This notion that extra magazines dont add to the price of the firearm might be one of the dumbest things Ive ever heard. Even on gunbroker they go between $40-$50 dollars each and I would call that cheap for HK mags. Pretty easily $300 in mags in that HK USP package.

Hey tarosean, if you are looking to sell your HK Mark 23 I have 4 crisp $100 bills set aside. Throw in 5 spare mags and I will up it to $450! I wont short change you on magazines like other people will LOL.

 

[starling]

Sure, you found a few auctions for a beat up P229. My P229 isn't beat up.
Now go find me a USFA in box thats selling for anything close to what his offer was
Or a near mint .44spcl SAA.

I guess condition doesnt matter anymore either along with the magazines.

Dont worry Ill help you out.. Ill give ya $100 for the sig with the magazines. Ill cover shipping to my FFL so you dont think you are getting taken advantage of.

In all seriousness there are some nice deals on used Sigs right now even if they are a little banged up. Sig P229 is one of the finest pistols Sig Sauer has ever made. Saying 40S&Ws dont have value or demand past a couple people is kinda hard to not chuckle at. Funny strategy. Starting to feel like a haggle at bootleg market in New York LOL. Im pretty sure all these firearms are legal acquisitions.

 

[Elkins45]

Saying 40S&Ws dont have value or demand past a couple people is kinda hard to not chuckle at.

Gunbroker completed auctions don’t lie. Go check those out and you’ll see out what the market reality is. Some shops don’t even want to take them in trade. A couple of years ago I paid $299 for a Beretta PX4 in 40. The 9mm version next to it on the shelf was $600.

Please know I’m not disparaging the guns or the caliber. I own several 40s and like them. But the caliber has been soundly rejected by the whims of fashion.

 

[Mark_Mark]

LOL, OK Ill go up to $370. I initially would have gone higher but apparently since all those USP 45 magazines are not worth anything Ill have to stop there. Does HK know their magazines have no value? Someone should tell them. Kinda funny how people gripe when they buy a new pistol and it only has 1 magazine. This notion that extra magazines dont add to the price of the firearm might be one of the dumbest things Ive ever heard. Even on gunbroker they go between $40-$50 dollars each and I would call that cheap for HK mags. Pretty easily $300 in mags in that HK USP package.

Hey tarosean, if you are looking to sell your HK Mark 23 I have 4 crisp $100 bills set aside. Throw in 5 spare mags and I will up it to $450! I wont short change you on magazines like other people will LOL.

 

[starling]

Gunbroker completed auctions don’t lie. Go check those out and you’ll see out what the market reality is. Some shops don’t even want to take them in trade. A couple of years ago I paid $299 for a Beretta PX4 in 40. The 9mm version next to it on the shelf was $600.

Please know I’m not disparaging the guns or the caliber. I own several 40s and like them. But the caliber has been soundly rejected by the whims of fashion.

Sure, its a fad. I recommend people take advantage of it. Single Stack 9mm subcompact are screaming deals right now as well. One of the best times to buy a nice firearm is when its been discontinued. Going to be some fantastic deals on Springfield XD pistols soon which is kind of exciting. Everyone and their sister will be dumping them for the Echelon outside of hardcore XD fanatics.

Last pistol I picked up was a like new Ruger LC9 for $100. They are just as good as they always were. A lot of people want to play musical chairs with firearms now.

40S&W is easily available and just as good as it always was as well. People are losing their minds these days LOL. Im loving this single stack 9mm secondary market right now. I watched a Beretta Nano go for $175 not long ago and it looked new. Im not talking about beat up service pistols either. Wonderful time for the buyer on a budget (isnt everyone?) in the secondary market.

 

[GEM]

https://durysguns.com/ <<< they will literally give you 80% of what they will sell yo gats 4! even send you boxes! and if it’s a sizable estate, fly a appraiser/check writer to yo crib!

This is not 1995 anymore, everyone got access to ffl all day everyday

I did a fair amount of business with them and found them pretty decent on selling some extra stuff. Also, they had some neat used ones I bought.

 

[LiveLife]

I'll go $355.00 on the USP as long as those are not 10rd mags.

OK Ill go up to $370. I initially would have gone higher but apparently since all those USP 45 magazines are not worth anything Ill have to stop there.

Have you considered listing/selling them on THR? https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?forums/buy-sell-and-trade-handguns.22/

You can always start with arbitrary "fair market prices" with disclaimer that prices are negotiable so in essence, you are conducting a silent auction without auction fees. .

 

[Mark_Mark]

That model 36 with box!!! HELLO!

Have you considered listing/selling them on THR? https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?forums/buy-sell-and-trade-handguns.22/

You can always start with arbitrary "fair market prices" with disclaimer that prices are negotiable so in essence, you are conducting a silent auction without auction fees. .

 

[JohnKSa]

The rub for me comes when someone expects me to take a significant loss so they can make a significant profit.

1. They don't know what you paid for the item, so they don't know if it's a loss or not.
2. They aren't forcing you to take the deal. If you don't like it, you just say no and take your guns somewhere else. When you go to a gun shop and they have higher prices than you want to pay, are they insulting you by expecting you to take a loss? Of course not--if you don't want to buy you take your money somewhere else.

There is a point at which offers are insulting because of the amount of money you are taking from my pocket and putting into your own.

Nobody is TAKING anything. It's an exchange of goods for money with free will on both sides. If either party is unwilling to do the exchange, it doesn't happen. One person leaves with all their money, the other leaves with all their goods. Neither is the worse for the situation other than lost time on both sides.

But a grieving widow or daughter might have a diminished reasoning capabity plus total lack of knowledge— unless we leave a detailed description of gun values….

Yup. It's critical for people who intend to leave a large number of guns behind after their passing to also leave some information on how to sell them for what they're worth. It's the seller's job to get the most they can; it's the buyer's job to pay as little as possible.

 

[HighRoadRover]

Those prices are about 50% of what you probably can get selling these guns through the open market (e.g., through a FFL to individual buyers). It probably seems a little outrageous but he is not wrong or immoral or unethical in offering those prices. It is just business. I have run into other folks who buy used guns -- gun trade-in deals from one of the biggest internet sellers -- price offers from a good quality local gun store -- and they did not pay anything close to retail either.

 

[ByAnyMeansNecessary]

I would be interested in the HK.

 

[tarosean]

Hey tarosean, if you are looking to sell your HK Mark 23 I have 4 crisp $100 bills set aside. Throw in 5 spare mags and I will up it to $450! I wont short change you on magazines like other people will LOL.

I'll have to come clean and state all my MK23 mags are just USP mags with MK23 floor plates. So they are not genuine, you might need to revisit that offer.

 

[Mark_Mark]

I'll have to come clean and state all my MK23 mags are just USP mags with MK23 floor plates. So they are not genuine, you might need to revisit that offer.

I was this close to getting a MK23.. but it came with 10rd mags. < deal breaker

 

[br549arkie]

More like less than 50%.

Look at Glock 19 for example ... Gen3 RTF2 with 8 magazines ... Uncommon yet popular brand/model/caliber with good following and should sell well, say $375 - $400 retail with 2 magazines - https://www.sportsmansoutdoorsuperstore.com/search.cfm/kword/police trade in/brand/glock

6 extra magazines will likely add another $60 (Police trade-in Glock mags $9.99), so retail price would be $435 - $460 with 6 extra magazines.

80% of $375-$400 is $300-$320 + $60 for 6 used magazines = $360 - $380.

Offer of $225 is way too low.

That's what I see to less than 50% and some way less than 50%. Any of those that I owned no way would I let them go for that I'd give them to friends and relatives first.

 

[TomJ]

Yes. Ultimately, if a person plans to pass on without liquidating their firearms; they would be wise (and kind) to make provisions for the survivors to help them deal with the situation. I got to help an acquaintance with his father's collection of hundreds of firearms. Figuring out what they were and getting rough values for them was a ton of work. Everyone would have been better off if the father had, at the very least, kept a list of what he had and would have been WAY better off if he had taken the time to maintain it with estimates of current value.

How did this get to be an issue of good and bad, fairness and unfairness? Neither the buyer or seller is under any obligation to the other; neither owes anything to the other; neither can force the other to make a deal. There is no requirement that they deal with each other at all. If they can't reach an agreement, everyone leaves in EXACTLY the same condition they came in. If the buyer is only willing to pay a dollar for a Korth and the seller is ok with that, which one of them is bad and which one is good? If they agree to the price, and low to the point of being immoral, how is one more to blame than the other?

Who gets to set the moral threshold/fairness criteria for profit on gun sales? Should it be a calculation including a dealer's operating expenses based on the business model he chooses? Do we get to tell him his business model is unacceptable because it requires profits that are too high? How deep do we get to dig into his personal life to determine what a moral profit level would be? Can we tell him he should have had fewer kids so he didn't have to worry about so much college expense so he could keep his profit at a more righteous level? Does the allowable profit margin change based on who he's buying from or on the seller's valuation of their firearms? How much should it change? Does who he buys from change his operating expenses or personal expenses? Does a seller get to justifiably feel righteous indignation only when the threshold is breached, or is a gradual increase of "insultedness" allowed as the profit margin approaches the threshold? How is all this going to be enforced and where will the morally acceptable profits be recorded for enforcement purposes? Will they be regularly adjusted based on inflation and other general financial considerations?

It's really simple. One person has guns and wants to sell them. Another person has money and wants to buy them. Agree on a price? DEAL. Disagree on a price? NO DEAL. Either way, there's no good or evil, there's no fair or unfair. It's only when someone is being coerced or has no choice that things become different.

I've owned a business for over 23 years and understand that I need to make a profit. There is, however a difference between making a profit and taking advantage of someone's lack of knowledge. It goes towards intent. My intent financially when a customer signs an agreement is to make a reasonable profit, as without doing so I'd be out of business. There is a line which if crossed I'd be taking advantage of the customer and my intent is never to do so as to me it is unethical. I know what a reasonable profit is in my industry, and I'm sure the same goes for most industries. By way of example I was in a car dealership a few years back and overheard a salesman and his sales manager laughing at another customer and bragging about how they screwed him (their words). Their intent was not to make a reasonable profit, but to screw the customer and that is not okay. I walked out. As another example I recently shopped for magazines for my M&P 22 compact. Most vendors were in the $29 to $30 range. Cheaper than Dirt was at $59.97. They are price gouging and it is unethical. The fact that someone may not be aware of that doesn't make it right.

Whether the offers the OP received are reasonable by industry standards isn't for me to say as I'm not in the industry, but some of those offers do look low. There may not be a firm test as to when an offer is insulting or taking advantage of a customer, but I think it's on par with a definition of pornagraphy I've heard, that you know it when you see it.

 

[br549arkie]

I just finished taking care of my will and all of my funeral arrangements. As part of that I put the current value by brand,model and serial# of every one of my current 73 firearms on paper included in my will. Of course it will be accurate if I die soon but who knows about a few years from now I may have to update once in a while and I still purchase another one now and then to add to the list.

 

[pharmer]

Guns, like many other things, are a commodity. When I moved to Florida I had an extensive library of books from college and soiled copies from a book warehouse where I worked. Got $.05 on the dollar. Awhile ago a local died and his wife wanted rid of an extensive "armory." I went over to inspect and along with the usual rifles and pistols were some "AK type" weapons with 3 position safety levers. I offered $1000 on maybe $2500 worth of "safe" guns. Next guy was a pawnbroker from the coast who bought everything, $25,000 in guns (at least) and a ton and a half of ammo ($10K) for $4,000. I wasn't mad because he had the money, which is a total loss for that day, an FFL and a box truck with liftgate. She wound up with $4K in "found money." Bidness is Bidness. Joe

 

[dogtown tom]

Almost a hundred posts on a topic that gets beat to death all the time.
1. It's not an insult for someone to make an offer.
2. ""Best prices offered for guns and gun collections" is a sales pitch. Just like Papa John's "Better ingredients, better pizza".
3. "Best" is in the buyers mind, not necessarily factual information in that local market.
4. "Now this guy wouldn't stop telling me how generous he is to the widows, how everyone always goes straight to him after talking to all the other shops, When he buys from private collections he gives 80% of retail, just enough to get by, etc..etc..." IS A SALES PITCH. Good grief do ya'll believe every sales pitch you hear?
5. Heck, there are guns for sale right here on THR that have unreasonable asking prices.....are those sellers taking advantage of uninformed buyers? Yup.
6. Nothing prevents the OP from countering the dealers offer........and the dealer won't be offended.
7. The dealer claims "everyone always goes straight to him after talking to all the other shops".........then go to the other shops and see what they will offer. Duh.
8. Lazy has a price. In this case not selling them yourself means the dealer has to find a willing buyer and that may take time.
9. All the "well, I would have paid $$$$ for that Colt/Kimber/etc" is meaningless. The dealer isn't setting a sales value, but HIS OFFER.....don't like it don't sell.
10. While I dislike this dealers sales pitch, anyone, including little old ladies, widows, whoever.......darn well better know that guns, coins, real estate, jewelry, watches and literally everything else of value means low offers. It doesn't mean you have to take the offer.

One of my customers was offered $350 by Bud's for his nearly new Glock 19 with new night sights. It was going to cost about $50 to ship and that $350 was really $300. He could have easily sold that Glock locally for $450-$475 himself but is worried about an prohibited buyer. Was I wrong in offering $350 for that Glock? Was I a charlatan? Unethical? Immoral? I don't think so.

 

[hso]

I think the point has been made and we're beginning to fall into repetitive camps so there's not much point in sliding into bickering.