Selling on auction site...feel bad for how high it goes.

Orion8472 said:

So has anyone else placed a firearm on an auction site, but as it neared the end of the auction, you felt bad for how high it rose to?

I know this might be seen as a silly question, but I'm feeling that right now. I have an auction that ends at 8:30 tonight and it has grown to well beyond what I think the thing is worth. I placed plenty of pictures, so I was as honest about it as I could be...but it is well above my "happy with it" point. I hope the new owner feels that it was a good purchase. :-/

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you are having "seller's remorse"

it ain't your problem if someone wants it more than another, and the bidding climbs. that's what happens at auctions.

you provided proof of what you had, they "see" a good purchase, no matter the cost.

take the money and enjoy THAT over your "sellers remorse"

You decide what you’ll let it go for but the buyer decides what it’s worth to them. I’ve paid more for some guns than the Blue Book lists them at. They were worth it to ME and I knew the books price range the guns were listed at going into the purchase.

Orion8472 said:

So has anyone else placed a firearm on an auction site, but as it neared the end of the auction, you felt bad for how high it rose to?

I know this might be seen as a silly question, but I'm feeling that right now. I have an auction that ends at 8:30 tonight and it has grown to well beyond what I think the thing is worth. I placed plenty of pictures, so I was as honest about it as I could be...but it is well above my "happy with it" point. I hope the new owner feels that it was a good purchase. :-/

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I have told the story here before of the sale of a custom Remington 700 I auctioned on GB with a Penny Auction, No Reserve. I would have been satisfied with $1500 and pleased with $1700. Evidently, there were two bidders that felt it was worth much more and it sold for over $2700.

Sometimes you just happen to have the item 2 people decide they must own for themselves. Good for you.

Also, maybe there is something about the item you put up for auction that makes it particularly desirable. Unusual? Condition? Rare? In my situation, I know because I asked the winning buyer, was the caliber of my custom Remington 700: 6.5-.300 WSM, or 6.5 Leopard if you prefer Jim Carmichael's name for the wildcat caliber.

Can't say that I have or that I would. I have sold several firearms at an asking price that was below what the market would bear because 1) I wanted to move them, and 2) I don't see an increase in value on every firearm that I own as realistic. I have paid "too much" on occasion for things that I wanted, though not, I think, for firearms. However, in a market economy, there really is no "too much". The monetary value of a thing is what someone is willing to pay for it.

No, I have never felt bad if an item sells for more than I expected. I have sold a few guns on an auction site. The auction usually closes for about what I expected. On rare occasion, something surprises me in a good way.

The flip side is that I have occasionally paid more than most might find prudent for some item I wanted. None of those sellers ever sent me a letter of regret, or returned even 1¢ of the bid price

-As someone that has made his living buying from auctions and re-selling and also working the floor of an auction house, I can say from experience that value is in the eye of the beholder.

A thing is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

It's not your fault, it's theirs.

The basic premise of American capitalism is that an item is “worth” whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

It’s a simple “supply and demand” situation. Guess you are selling into a very high demand.

my advice...take the ‘extra’ and ‘invest’ it into ammo to take new shooters to the range.

The auction ain’t over till you get paid.

That's the way auctions work sometimes. Competing bidders get caught up in the moment & feel like they are being challenged. Glad you came out better than you thought because eventually you will find yourself paying a little too much.

Nope. That's why I use Gunbroker when selling an interesting or comparatively rare firearm. I sold one a couple of years ago that went for four times what I paid for it less than two years previously. I knew I had gotten a deal on it, but had no expectation it would go for as much as it did.

Orion8472 said:

The money will certainly help make up for the Taylors 1873 rifle I purchased.

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Now you're talkin'!

Any gun on any given day is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, no more and no less. I have bought guns for less, considerably less than they were worth and on a few occasions, if I really wanted a gun, paid more than I wanted to. All that matters is that both buyer and seller come away content. When it comes to an auction I agree with it's not over till the actual money changes hands.

Ron

Years ago I bought an unfired Russian SKS at a pawn shop for $120 OTD. Few years later, a guy I knew wanted it really bad. He offered me $350 for the rifle and some ammo. I took it, thinking he overpaid but it was his choice.

Now it would probably bring at least twice that.

A related phenomenon I've been seeing lately on GB is a run-o'-the-mill, defense-oriented handgun posted with a BIN price that is substantially lower than what another example of the same gun has been bid up to. As mentioned above, it's an example of two feverish competitors that have to have that gun, and won't risk losing it to look for another one.

I had an Ortgies .25 ACP pistol in decent shape with a period holster (I bought for $75) plus found a spare magazine (for $30). I put it for sale on Gunbroker a year or so later, and the package sold for over $400. I know the spare mags are like hen's teeth, but I will admit I felt guilty that it sold for that - double what it was worth in my opinion.

Sell a firearm? Can you do that? I don’t know quite how that works. My transactions just go 1 way.

Wyman

So has anyone else placed a firearm on an auction site, but as it neared the end of the auction, you felt bad for how high it rose to?

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Nope, in every transaction in my life I have only been concerned with two things. Is the seller happy and is the buyer happy? I have bought rifles that would agg in the .1&.2’s for fractions of what they cost to build and sold others that were awful shooter but are valuable just because they are rare and collectors want them.

No need to loose sleep. Go to benchrest.com and take a gander at the benchrest rifles there, then do a google search on Liberator pistols for sale.

had to check myself...

https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...ls/military-pistols-liberator.c1599_p1_o6.cfm

http://benchrest.com/class/index.php?a=5&b=197

As long as it is correctly discribed, and ALL faults acknowledged, with good pictures of the good and bad, you should not feel bad.

No but I have felt bad about buying guns and paying too little in terms of what I would have actually paid if they cost more. I think it goes both ways and others gave good advice, if they are willing to pay/sell for a given price who are you to throw money away.

I'm an electrician in training by trade and I work in some nice houses, since I am the help and not the contractor some people take it upon themselves to palm money into my hand. I used to refuse and tell them "no, no, that's not necessary". Then I was watching an episode of Sopranos one day where junior tells Tony a story about doing work all day with his father, a stonemason and young junior tells of a woman giving him an extra 0.25cents at the end of the day to which junior refuses, no sooner does the woman turn her back young junior gets belted across the mouth. Something to the effect of "what, are you rich, you dont like to eat?".

That clip made an impression on me so when tipped I now just say thank you, dont turn your nose up at money, unless by doing so you're knowingly putting somebody through some undue hardship or some such thing.....

I would like to change my reply.

If it makes you feel bad to sell something for more than you would have accepted for it, please, in the future, pick the dollar amount you would take and post it here in the selling section but before you do I’d like a PM first.