I want to consign some unusual, old rifles to that auction that might get me the highest price. Can anyone advise me on which auction house(s) to check on??
Thanks.
Alex
aax1@bellsouth.net

I'll answer your question if you will answer mine first..."What is the best rifle?"

Seriously. Best at What? Easiest to use? Have the most folks bid? Help you collect from deadbeat auction winners? What specifically?

In other words what IS "best" to you?

"BEST" includes:
1. Most prominent auction house for firearms
2. that auction house showing finest antique rifles
3. that auction house (or those auction houses) that is/are most well-known for quality auctions .....by catalog, and not necessarily on the internet.

I refer NOT to an internet site......I refer to an "auction house".....whether or not it includes internet catalogs and bidding.

As someone who has a large amount of experience at auction purchases and a few sales over the years, I can tell you that you may well NOT get the most money in your pocket by using one UNLESS the item is incredibly rare and/or has a notable provenance (Hemingway's Double Rifle or Buckingham's Bo-Whoop would be examples). First of all, you will probably be charged 15 to 20% of the proceeds for the priviledge of letting them sell your rifle, and the seller will have to pay 15 to 18% (usually) on top of the hammer price for buying it. So, let' say you've got a $10,000 rifle that you can probably sell for that amount at any major gunshow. So you place it in an auction and it brings $11,000 hammer. You collect $9,450 (11K-15%) on your end, and the buyer pays $12,650 on his. In addition, you now have a taxable event that will be reported to the IRS. BTW, this is not all gravy for the auction house, the catalogs cost a lot of money to have made, to distribute and then they have to have a place for the physical auction, pay people, etc. etc. Some art auction houses even charge you for inserting pics of your art in the catalog.

I'm not saying using an auction is wrong, but it is by no means the most certain way to get the most money in your pocket. Gunbroker or similar with a reserve or a reasonable starting price is a very viable option as is selling it by private treaty if you have a sound idea of the value. If the rifle(s) are really RARE and Valuable, a bit of discreet questioning at a major gun show and some research will likely get the names of the people who might be interested. Again, if it is really rare and fits their collecting interests they might pay more than you would get at an auction. As in most things, it depends........

It is critical to keep in mind that for anything to reach it's real value or higher at an auction, at least 2 people have to REALLY want it. This often doesn't happen. There are very good buys/bargains at almost EVERY major auction simply because many/most of the people bidding are dealers who have to buy items cheaply enough to be able to resell them at a profit. They will quit bidding before maximum value is reached in almost all cases. Very recently, I had a dealer friend of mine sell a rare item for me by private treaty that, without doubt, was sold for over twice what it would have brought at public auction, a difference of many thousands of dollars. That cost me 10% and was worth much more than that on a purely monetary basis. Of course, this dealer friend is one of the very best at what he does.

All that said, the auction houses that come immediately to mind are James Julia, Rock Island, Bonham's, and Heritage. Sotheby's and Christies don't do many (any?) firearms auctions in the states anymore as far as I know.

Finally, I can tell you from long experience that many people think they have some really valuable item(s) until reality intrudes on their dream. I hope this is not true in your case.

Rock Island has one of their 3 a year Premier auctions coming up in April. Check their catalog out here.

James Julia just had one a week ago. Check out selling prices online if you want.

I've got one other tidbit of advice. Don't be too greedy in anything. As they say in the stock market, "Bulls (people who think the market is going up and are buying stocks) make money, Bears (people who think the market is going down and are selling stocks short) make money, and pigs get slaughtered." Don't be piggy.

I just wanted to give a concrete example of how items may not get the most money at an auction house. Very recently a friend of mine and I were figuring our bids prior to bidding on some very rare items in a European auction. We both discussed a certain item and both agreed that we probably could not afford it. We both thought it would bring at least 200,000 Euros plus 18%, or roughly just over $300,000 US minimum. To be clear, we are both extremely knowledgeable about this type of merchandise so we weren't just guessing. My friend told me, "We have to figure it and place a bid, you never know." I told him I had enough bids on other items for my puny bank account and I was going to leave that one to him. Geesh, somedays I'm just ate up with the dumbass. My buddy bought it for a hammer of 95,000 Euros plus the 18%. The supposed big buyers who were going to buy it at any and all costs sat on their hands and didn't, for whatever reasons. This kind of thing happens all the time. The bottom line of all this is, that if someone had offered him or I the item for 150,000 Euros in a private sale, either one of us would have bought it in a second. You never know and such happenings are why auctions are not always the best venue for selling something.

Of course, it could have happened that 2 people made their minds up that they HAD to have that item and hooked up and it might easily have sold for 400,000 Euros or more (which is what both of us expected to happen). It could have happened, but it didn't. That is why auctions without reserves are something of a gamble. As a now deceased trap shooting buddy of mine, John Cammack from the Tyler area, used to say, "You never know which way a pickle will squirt until you step on it."

Opps, forgot Amoskeag which has an auction this weekend with some interesting guns. Check it out here.

Usually, except for the really unusual guns with provenance (where it is really a guess what people might bid for the history attached to the gun), Hemingway's Double Rifle, for example, the estimates are usually pretty close to the final hammer. That might give you an idea of your guns value or you can check prices realized in past auctions.