I have maybe 40 old leather holsters and gun belts I bought a while back(maybe 15 years) and was wondering the best way to put a value to and sell them. These are Heiser and Lawrence and some other brands mostly western single action but some double action and auto as well and in really nice condition. Any ideas? Thank's, Ricci.

The questions you need to answer are "How badly do I want to get rid of this, and how hard do I want to work at it?" When my father died last year, I was left with about 200 pieces of leather that I couldn't use or didn't want. Most was little used and very high quality, name brand stuff retailing from $60 to over $100 per holster. I priced the best pieces with the assistance of the world wide web, sold some here, and others on Facebook and by word of mouth. The majority I priced at $20 to $30 and sold at three different gun shows over three long weekends. Still have 30 or so pieces left. Lots of work, and lots of dickering at the gun shows.

Truth be told, my experience is that gun leather has very little residual value in the resale market. It seems to be a very personalized purchase, and one man's junk is not very often another man's treasure.

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

You would have no problem selling Lawrence, Heiser and other quality vintage holsters, assuming good condition and fair prices, right here on this forum. Anything that doesn't sell here should easily sell on eBay and/or GunBroker. Contrary to Muss Muggins' experience, I see a lot of gunleather trade hands and would consider it a quite healthy market.

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SWHF #448

eBay is a vigorous marketplace for vintage holsters. I have personally purchased a hundred of them there. There are so many listings that the hard part is making your auction stand out, and for that there is no substitute for using the brand name in the auction title. Old holsters are common but vintage holsters in excellent condition are not. Your market is generally the collector as opposed to the user.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

I didn't say it wasn't a healthy market, I said it's a very personal market. The offers to buy are out there, but I got tired of "will you take x?" Using eBay/Gunbroker, etc. is quite frankly a lot of trouble, and there is a cost, as I understand it, as well as your time monitoring the sales. That has to be factored in to the cost. Even selling here has its difficulties, and it takes a lot of spare time checking offers, running to the shipper, etc. I bumped and withdrew more than one offering here trying to get rid of things.

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

The key to selling anything on-line (eBay, etc) is to do your research. Not just what is offered, but closed auctions that reflect what people are willing to pay versus what sellers want for an item.

After spending the hours, days, and weeks doing that research you can start listing individual items with good descriptions and photos, and priced at the level you can expect the market to bear.

Demand is good. But no one wants to hear about a George Lawrence #982-143, they want to know what it fits, when it was made, and so forth. Without the research you are spitting into the wind. With the research you may be surprised by what you have.

Best regards.

Anyone who doubts that handgun leather is a personal market should start the following thread on this forum:

"What's the best holster for my (insert any handgun)?

You will average at least one different holster suggestion, entitled "the best option, bar none . . . " per 1.3 posts . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

There is a man who frequents many of the shooting forums who sells used holsters and belts.

"Most" of his items are listed in the $30-$40 plus shipping range.

He stays busy and always has new items so I reckon that is a good price area to look at.

I smell burning money...wait, there's a hole in my pocket

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Halfway and one more step

As I'm sure you're aware, photos are a must. Good photos, not fuzzy-dark-out-of-focus photos. You can make good photos with a cell phone...you just have to take your time and stay out of that snapshot mindset. I've seen lots of good stuff for sale...stuff I'd be interested in...but no way I'd send someone money based on some of the trash photos that accompany an ad.

I personally think there should be at least three photos per holster...front, back, and looking down into the holster. Perhaps more photos if the holster is decorated with floral carving, border stamping, conchos, whatever.

I think group photos of holsters are pretty useless and troublesome, unless you're using a photo editing program and can put a number on each item in the photo.

In addition to photos, detailed descriptions help. Tell what belt width a holster will work with. If you know what revolver or pistol works with a holster, say so. Giving holster dimensions in inches really isn't all that helpful to a lot of folks. And if you're selling belts, state the belt width and length to center hole, in addition to any other details. Don't make your customers have to guess at stuff and waste time with e-mails to find out about an item.

The fewer questions a potential buyer has to ask, the less complicated a transaction will be, and the faster holsters will sell.