Auctions and overpaying

What it comes down to, most people don't feel like doing the research to know a good price and just trust they are getting a good deal because it's an auction. Even less people than that would know off hand what a good price would be.

One side note/question, is this for sure the alloy framed model, or could it be the steel model? if it is the steel model, that actually isn't a bad deal. I want a steel framed one, only because here in IL you can't get the alloy frame due to the stupid melting point laws.

The guy who came up with the idea of "winning" or "having won" an auction was an evil genius.Sometimes you get a good bargain . Usually , in reality , you just pay more than anyone else is willing to pay.

Hi...
I attend quite a few gun auctions here in southcentral Pennsylvania and I see a lot of what I consider insane bidding on a lot of items.
It seems like everybody gets caught up in the moment and just throws good sense to the wind.
I always research the items I am interested in and set a limit for that item that I do not exceed.
I have lost out on some things because of that but I refuse to pay full retail or more at an auction.
My son and I constantly are amazed by bidders who pay more than retail for factory ammunition at an auction.
I have seen people pay ridiculous amounts for reloaded ammunition at auctions...they have no idea if that stuff is even safe to fire in any gun. I refuse to even bid on any reloaded ammunition...I don't trust how it was reloaded and don't need the components bad enough to break it down.

I have on occasion bought brass at auction but I realize it could have been reloaded many times and inspect it very carefully before using it. I have no problem tossing any brass that I have even the slightest concerns about. I can always buy new brass, so it isn't worth the risk to me.

Most of what I buy at auctions is reloading tools and equipment. I have bought brand new in the box RCBS, Hornady, Lyman and Redding die sets for as little a $5 a set. Recently I bought a box lot of nine new in the box RCBS trim dies for $75 at auction. Typical retail is in the $35-40 each range...six of those trim dies are in calibers I reload for.
The other three will probably get sold for enough to recoup my cost and more.
At the same auction, I lost out on a bid for a used Lyman T-Mag turret press. I believe the winning bid was $220...I can buy a new Lyman Brass Smith 8-station turret press for that amount. I don't bid at auctions to pay full retail...my intent is to get good quality items at a bargain price.

I have gotten some great deals at auctions, just have to know what it's worth. Just because the fudds want to pay extra because something says Winchester on it doesn't mean you have too.

Last week at an auction I bought for $5:

1 full box of Remington 303 British soft points
2 boxes of Winchester 303 Savage, 1 full, 1 minus 2
6 5 round boxes of 12ga slugs
1 5 round box of 20 ga slugs.
Another dozen or so loose 12ga slugs
1 5 round box of 12ga buckshot
Half a box of 12ga field loads
1 full box of 12ga 3" magnum #4
1 50 round box of 22 short
1 50 round box of 22 birdshot
~100ish rounds of loose 22lr

Other auctions are the same way. I've seen people buy used farm equipment and pay more for it than what it cost new. I've seen people buy used ladders and other tools for more than new price. In live auctions one can get caught up in the competition and get carried away. A good auctioneer can get the crowd moving much like a good band.

If you spend enough time going to auctions odds are you will get a bargain once in a while. I'd rather pay double for something than sit at an auction.
I look at online auctions occasionally but, with the premiums and taxes, have never seen a deal on anything I wanted.

P.T. Barnum figured things out long ago.

People are idiots, I was following an auction on EBAY for a 375 diam. Lyman bullet mold. The final price was 62.50 + shipping ($4.00). That same mold is $71.00 online from a major retailer. Why would you buy used with no warranty, when a new one is only $7.50 more?

I have a client who prices most of his guns over blue book. I'm talking 100% prices on 70% guns. Last year I sold $61,000 worth for him. Some guns were listed online for 6 years. I could sell 80% of his inventory if it was priced right.

One thing that I have noticed is people checking prices online while shopping at gun shows. One guy said that he could get the same gun on GunBroker $20 cheaper. I told him to order it, pay $25 shipping and another $30 transfer fee. He bought the gun from me.

I went to a gun store going-out-of-business auction once. It was educational. People bidding items up to retail. Had all those people bought from the store when it was in business it still would be.

I've had some good gun deals on line, but just a few. You have to be patient and able to walk away. My best deal was 5 S&W L frame revolvers as a lot for about $2,000 when all shipping and FFL fees were done. Sold off 2 of them and kept the rest.

I have gotten some terrific bargains on Gunbroker. Besides that, here in Missouri we pay sales tax, then personal property tax on the things we’ve already paid the sales tax on. Plus income tax and property tax. Anytime I can screw them out of a dollar I feel better, even if I just break even. But most times, the tax savings is greater than the shipping fees.

Its amazing how many times I've seen people on an auction pay over list price for items that are available though retail. I've even seen people bid more for an item than an identical item is listed for on the same auction site. Are people that lazy?

Yes and no.

Sometimes there are good deals but there are people that make bad decisions. Only thing I can figure out is that they are like gamblers, in a way.

I am not much of a gambler but that doesn’t mean I won’t make a bet. That said when I do, I don’t loose as much because I don’t bet on something of chance.

I have “won” a few auctions in my lifetime but loose far more, no even close to 1:100 but when I do, it’s a great deal.

My method is to start out with a maximum an item is worth to me and that’s it. Just so I don’t get shocked in the end I subtract any buyers fees, etc from that number, as they can be substantial sometimes.

But yeah, I remember after Obama was re-elected and sandy hook, everyone went off the deep end and I sold one of my 650’s for $1840. I should have listed a couple of them because that means someone else would have paid $1820 for one too...

I am not a fan of in person auctions, period. The auctioneer is blabbering away, I can't understand a thing he or she is saying, and somehow with no hands or paddles being raised, the price keeps going up. Not to mention shills, ridiculous fees, etc.

Ebay is about as close to auctions as I want to get.

Auctioneers like to have a few guns on the listing for a draw at estate, farm, household auctions. I remember being dumbfounded in the early 1980's watching a couple beat up single shot 20 gauges sell at auction for over $100 each. The buyers were thrilled to get them. The same gun at the hardware store a few blocks away was $50 or $60.
Another thing I have learned from the few auctions I have been to; if you put a few useless items in a box, people will bid on it.

Nobody wants to lose and when you’re staring at a screen and paying with plastic the disconnect with reality is greater.

Hi...
The one thing I have noticed repeatedly at gun auctions is that the FFL dealers will really drive the bids up on firearms, except custom rifles. They don't seem to have a steady market for them, so they don't generally bid on them.

One other item that generally goes for very good prices are shotgun reloaders, even MEC 9000 series reloaders in excellent condition rarely bring more than $200-250.
Retail is about $700, IIRC. I have never bid on one as I don't shoot trap or skeet and 5 or 6 cases if 12ga shotshells a year for missing claybirds is about my limit.

Dillon presses generally bring about retail because of the quality and lifetime warranty.
RCBS RockChuckers can generally be had for less than $40...I have bought a couple at that price at auction.
Hornady LNL progressives in excellent condition generally go for $200 or less. I bought one at that price last year. Twenty minutes of cleanup, mounted it on the bench next to my other one, greased it up and it runs like brand new.

One needs to know the market and never get caught up in bidding war. Set your limit ahead of time and let it go if someone bids more than you know it is worth.

You can get good deals at live auctions but you have to set what your maximum price will be. A couple of auctions in the last month I was able to pick up a nice FN FAL for $600 and three spam cans of "M1 ball on 8 round clips" for $60 a can. Nobody at that auction realized the cans were 30-06 rounds in Garrand clips. At another auction I got a TRR8 in unfired condition for $600. Out of ten items I bid on I usually win one.

Eight time out of ten firearms and ammo go for more than what you can get on line or at your local shop. One example was a used M&P 40 in a case that went for $500 were a local shop was selling police trade ins for $350.

The guy who was over building and maintenance for our county school system along with 9 others were arrested a few years ago for stealing what ended up being over $6 million dollars over a 10 year period. During that time 2 new high schools were built and he was able to siphon off money intended for the schools for his own. The vast amount of money went to one guy, the other 9 were either vendors who took bribes or falsified receipts for material. A couple of others were county maintenance workers who took bribes to look the other way. They had no idea how vast the corruption was.

As much of his property was seized as possible and sold at an auction at the county fairgrounds in order to partially recoup some of the lost money. There were quite a few guns as well as all sorts of other property including several homes. I didn't go, but the guy who runs a local gun shop did the transfer fee's @ $50 each for dozens of guns. He told me that he could have sold every gun through his shop new, for less than they sold for at auction.

https://www.11alive.com/article/new...ling-millions-from-floyd-county-boe/238605676

A little late to the thread but I've had some successes in auctions (farm equipment, closeout retail, computer auctions in the day, and online gun auctions) generally by knowing the prices beforehand, setting a firm budget for bidding usually about 60-70 percent of market prices given the item's condition that I can find out, and the most important is willingness to walk away.

Been beaten before by last minute swoopers on online auctions but so be it. I set my bids on what I am willing to pay, not what the market or other individuals want to pay. If others top it, then they want it worse than I do but there will almost always be another deal/auction/bidding opportunity coming along.

I started in auctions by working the floor as a teen,
You learn to analyze and identify what is really in each lot, then analyze the crowd.
Some of the best stuff gets sold at junk prices while shiny stuff gets bid up beyond belief.
Do your research, know your limits.

Hi...
One other thing I have noticed at auctions is that there must be a huge market for rusty reloading dies that are missing decapping rods, lock rings, etc.
I can"t begin to count the number of times I have seen such things go for pretty high prices. I see a lot of old Herter's, Lyman and Pacific dies at auction that I either couldn't use or were in such bad condition that they were useless. I have yet to bid on any Lee die sets at an auction but I may if I think I can resell them at a profit. Problem there is that they generally go so high that the selling price rivals retail, so no room to profit. I don't understand why when I have bought several sets of Redding dies for about $20 each. Maybe most of the locals don't recognize the Redding brand since you don't often see their products in the local gun shops.

I think the most I ever paid for a set of dies might be $40 for a box lot of die sets, there may have been 6-8 die sets in the box lot... some I could use and a few that are waiting for me to sell. Most of the die sets I have bought at auction looked brand new.

Speedo66 said:

I am not a fan of in person auctions, period. The auctioneer is blabbering away, I can't understand a thing he or she is saying, and somehow with no hands or paddles being raised, the price keeps going up. Not to mention shills, ridiculous fees, etc.

Ebay is about as close to auctions as I want to get.

Click to expand...

One thing about live auctions you need to realize that there are a lot of regulars at those auctions and the auctioneers know who they are.
They often look my way when they are offering reloading items because they know that I bid on those items...I don't need to do more than give a slight nod and they will accept that as a bid. Imperceptible to anybody who isn't looking right at you. They do the same for other bidders that they recognize. The bidding may go on that way for some time. The only time I wave my bid card is generally the first bid I make on an item if the auctioneer isn't looking my way, so his spotters see me and relay to him that I wish to bid.
Another thing to keep in mind is that some of the auction houses have people bidding by phone...this happens a great deal of the time when there are large auctions with collectible guns being offered.