Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Firearm valuation

I think GB is fine when talking about common everyday guns that are listed starting with a penny bid auction. Gives you a good idea when the auction is over. The collectible stuff seems to be a premium on GB, people pay way up when it isn't exactly something they can commonly find in their lgs.

You can also check with your LGS. Many will sell it for you for a 10-15% commission.

Using the nationwide sites as a gauge is a good helper. Helps to flatten some of the local biases.

Not trying to bust your chops.
But why would anyone do this.
Basically the guy makes you an ad from pics you send him.
He gets a slice of the pie for something you can do yourself.
And you are doing the packaging, shipping ect ect ect all the normal stuff to get a gun on its way. And at most he provides you with the receiving FFL info and how to pay him his fee. And is the guy doing the ad paying the Gunbroker sale fee built into his margin.


Makes no sense if Im doing basically everything and all this cat is doing is making a ad and relaying info.


Just saying.....

[/quote This idea was in comparison to having his local dealer consign them. GB has a customer base of millions compared to walk in traffic locally. I've bought and sold dozens on GB and would not use such a consignment service myself. Some folks might not want to learn the ropes of selling on GB or might not want to deal with the hassles of the process to collect the last 10%. Compared to selling here, nobody will call him out as a "gouger" on GB if he asks a price consistent with today's market. Chances are he could also make more money in an auction format. As an aside, there is no reason to use a LGS for shipping if you sell them yourself. He could ship them himself and save that fee. Not to bust your chops, or anything.

WMR, mine charges 10% commission minus the standard gb fees of course. They do all the pics, the packaging, shipping, etc. For some folks its just not worth the hassle. Drop the gun off, done, collect your check.

I also believe you may get some higher bids due to them being a reputable gb seller of thousands of guns compared the guy at his house who has sold just a couple on gb. Not to mention, most individuals don't take credit cards like the big guys do. I've past on many gb item due to money order only, etc....

They had a guy bring in a zytel 708 ruger in for gb cosignment, it went for over 4k!

All valid points. Already today I've answered an inane question about one I've got running there. It was from a guy I think has a 0 % chance of bidding. Yesterday it was a fellow who made a big offer, in broken English, if I'd click on his link for the particulars. I passed on that one. To be fair, most of the folks I've dealt with have been "straight shooters". I can see benefits of doing it either way.

Edited to add: From time to time I do have my LGS consign one for me. I do this if it's a common gun, and would be just 1 of 6,422 of them on GB. We price them to sell and they do. He gets 10% and I get open space in the safe. If I had someone who would do the whole thing, pictures and all for 10% on GB, I might do more of that.

Gunbroker has a huge following. It's unusual to get a decent bargain from there because so many people view the auctions. It's pretty much turned into a sales page for people who want to get an unreasonably high price for a firearm,....and many times they do.

It's not a good gauge of a firearm's dollar value.

If someone gets their asking price for an item, isn't that the very definition if it's dollar value? At least for that time and in that place. Especially in an auction setting, where another bidder was willing to pay $10 less and did not win. I've bought many there that I considered to be a good bargain for me.

I’ve had firearms that sat on the rack for a year or 2 or 3 before I decided to put them on GB. Once they were put online they sold for more than I had them out for. Sometimes they sold for substantially more and in several cases they sold for double+. If you’re selling standard “current production” hunting rifles and handguns GB might not be worth the time but anything that’s collectible would be better offered on GB because the audience is vast.

Selling them on consignment at a LGS is fine if they’re not collectible but you’re probably still leaving money on the table. Very few times did something sell on GB for the same price I had on the in-shop price tag, 99% of the time they sold for more.

Selling a lot of firearms on GB is time consuming and you’ll be answering email after email but if getting the maximum amount possible from each one is important to you then I don’t see any way around it. It’s very likely that it’s time well spent.

Start it at a penny with no reserve and you’ll know what it’s worth in 7 days.......or search auction results to see.