determining firearm values

hotrod150

hotrod150

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A friend of mine is head of a non-profit aviation museum, and a supporter recently donated a small collection of vintage firearms. The collection belonged to his deceased father. Neither the donating party or the museum director is very knowledgeable about vintage guns.
These firearms will be sold to benefit the museum. My friend said he'd talked to someone he knew that owned a gun shop, and said that they might be interested in buying the collection for a "lot price", or maybe selling them on a commission basis. Either way, I think the museum would be getting the short end of the stick.
I think that there would be quite a bit of interest in several of these guns (vintage winchester lever actions & single-action revolvers) by individual local buyers, just by word-of-mouth, and anything that didn't sell like that could be liquidated via the gun shop route.
Can anyone recommend a (free) website or app that we can use to determine the value?
Thanks.
 
A "dealer" that would make you an offer on the whole lot would offer possibly 50 to 60% of the value. You can do better, if you don't mind the long time it may take to sell them. I'd recommend a gun auction. An auction that sell through Proxibid, so they could have thousands of possible buyers. You would pay the auctioneer a selling price, usually in the 15% range of the selling price.
 
How many are there? 20 or more? A simple search of prices of SOLD guns like the ones they have will give you a pretty good idea of their value. There are several auction sites that may be very interested in them as IF very good condition and desirable they will bring a premium and they will make good $$$$. Be very careful regardless.
 
Depending on how unique the guns are, you can search for completed auctions on Gunbroker to get an idea of selling prices.
Rock Island Auction might be another good reference site, but I don’t know if you can look through past auctions or not. They may have similar guns in their current auction, though.
 
hotrod150 said:
I think that there would be quite a bit of interest in several of these guns (vintage winchester lever actions & single-action revolvers)....
Click to expand...
Within those two categories, while condition is king, seemingly minor variations can also greatly affect value. These are the sort of guns that merit somebody with specialized knowledge appraising them, preferably in hand.
 
Worthpoint is what you seek.....remember to watch the sale dates. Also compare apples to apples. As stated earlier sometimes small difference will make a big difference in price. Yes any looking to buy "the lot" will also be expecting " lot price".....45%-60% Off fair market value
 
Greyman50 said:
How many are there? 20 or more? A simple search of prices of SOLD guns like the ones they have will give you a pretty good idea of their value. There are several auction sites that may be very interested in them as IF very good condition and desirable they will bring a premium and they will make good $$$$. Be very careful regardless.
Click to expand...

I had a friend that died, and helped his wife sell off his collection.

Gun Broker is what I used to get a price range. Open the site, and click Advanced on the right of the main search bar. Then click Completed Items, and put what gun you have in that search bar. It will show you what people actually paid for the guns.
 
Worthpoint or GunBroker, look at the prices of firearms in similar condition that actually sold, that should get you an idea of what they are worth to buyers. Selling to a dealer or pawn shop will get you 40% to maybe 60% of their actual retail value. Selling via consignment at a shop will get you more, but you still pay the shop's consignment fee, which can be 20-30% of the sale price.
 
I am not to keen on using gunboinker as a reasonable reference for valuation. the dealers usually price high , and those that dont you have to look at the details and see if it's boinkered with in any way etc. Also beware of shill bidding - it's still rampant at all such sites. The internet has hurt alot of collecting as prices soared due to armchair commandos and pure speculators having easy access to buy & sell. I hate to see people get beat on rare or nice stuff. Most "gunshops" will do that to a person , not always on malice but they have overhead too. I just know in my area which shops are run buy slimey types that will rip people off in such instances .
 
I’m no expert on selling vintage firearms but from my observations, Gunbroker would be a good place to start. It appears to me that it would be the most unbiased place to check what same or similar items are selling for and probably the place to list and receive a relatively fair price. The possibility of “inflated” prices might be of benefit to the seller, especially if the seller is a non profit. Listing thru an FFL will cost the seller around 20 percent or whatever the dealer charges, but they also take care of the listing, the photos and descriptions, and the shipping.
 
H Richard said:
A "dealer" that would make you an offer on the whole lot would offer possibly 50 to 60% of the value. You can do better, if you don't mind the long time it may take to sell them. I'd recommend a gun auction. An auction that sell through Proxibid, so they could have thousands of possible buyers. You would pay the auctioneer a selling price, usually in the 15% range of the selling price.
Click to expand...
You might want to double your estimate on auction house charges. They have fees for "handling" "appraising" etc. If your seller gets 60% of the value they are lucky. I don't know an auctioneer who is not wealthy. Then the buyer gets about an 18% additional charge "auction house" fee plus sales tax.
 
For determining the true worth of more modern guns, I've found https://truegunvalue.com/ to be the most useful research website, as it provides prices achieved via recent actual sales. It's somewhat less helpful for older, more collectible arms for which (as I noted in my post above) there can be some aspects that aren't always apparent to other than a specialized aficionado that may significantly impact value.
 
If the list is not large, list them here for members to give their opinion on value. I bet there are several that would like to assist since this is a hobby for all of us. Could be fun and interesting too considering the knowledge base on the forum.
 
Sounds like these may be antique and vintage western guns. Winchester and Colt are very collectible and in good shape can be worth thousands.
 
Shill bidding likely happens but if the guns still sold to a new buyer its still showing what people are willing to pay. Dishonest practice yes but Im not sure how it affects realistic market value.

I try to stay away from getting sucked into those bidding wars though. They can make you do stupid things just out of stubbornness.
 
I’ve had good experience with Rock Island. If you tell them what you have and send photos, they’ll give you an estimate of what it might bring.
 
Sending to a auction house is the best way to not get screwed, though they do share a blacklist with other auction houses and is messed up for that as they have disqualified real buyers for other auction houses screw ups. Home based FFL will give the most for the lot. At the end of the day, depends how much work you want to do. If you are lazy you will get the least. If you put some work in and research each gun for 10 mins you will get better values. In my view best is to do consignment with a dealer or gunbroker consignment.
 
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