Seized weapons auction???

I have been to one before.

I have also. There were no real deals either. This was on a regular cold wintry January day. Seems everyone had auction fever and prices were more than new on lots of them. Hope you fair better than I did. The firearms were from the local PD's and the fish & game department. Seized and surplus arms.

I went to one where the new Chief of Police cleaned out the evidence locker, and had a lot of Saturday night specials, and shotguns, ect. However there was one old Browning Hi Power with a beat up holster and 2 mags. It had some rust on it and didn't look good, but something caught my eye. It had tangent sights and slotted backstrap for a shoulder stock. Moreover it had "EV" engraved on the backstrap. I picked it up for $275.00. It's a Eastonian Contract gun made in 1936, one of 3080 now worth $1800.00 to $2000.00. Also came away with a nice S&W , and Glock .40 Not bad for a few hours sitting in the July sun.

Sierra suctions out of Phoenix has police auctions on proxibid.com. Lots of plastic and beat up guns. Criminals use what ever is available and/or cheap.

Their most recent auction had prices $100 to $200 higher than I’d ever pay. Used glocks were approaching $500 and that’s before commissions, shipping and fees. In the current environment I wouldn’t expect any great deals. Any sizable live auctions I’ve ever been to had at least a few FFLs looking for inventory keeping anything from selling for to low.

Nice score.

O C said:

I went to one where the new Chief of Police cleaned out the evidence locker, and had a lot of Saturday night specials, and shotguns, ect. However there was one old Browning Hi Power with a beat up holster and 2 mags. It had some rust on it and didn't look good, but something caught my eye. It had tangent sights and slotted backstrap for a shoulder stock. Moreover it had "EV" engraved on the backstrap. I picked it up for $275.00. It's a Eastonian Contract gun made in 1936, one of 3080 now worth $1800.00 to $2000.00. Also came away with a nice S&W , and Glock .40 Not bad for a few hours sitting in the July sun.View attachment 932846

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Is the "EV" what shows that it is an Eastonian??? Can you post a photo??? Any other crests or markings??? Beautiful side arm..

Never been to a police auction but the conventional local auctions have certainly brought Auction Fever inflated prices.
All but one, a Gun n Knife auction with a pocket knife given as much buildup as a shotgun. A lot of the sellers were present and if a gun did not draw high bids, the auctioneer would ask:
"Joe, will you take that for it?"
"Nope."
And the item was withdrawn.
Happened a lot, the bloom was off the "Belgium Browning Sweet Sixteens" and the like.

"Seized weapons?" Here in the West (er, Left) Coast, it's state law that law enforcement destroys any seized weapons.

As an aside, for any auction, pretty sure that "a couple hundred" won't be enough for anything decent. Last auction I attended had a couple awesome firearms collections from a couple estates, but, and I'm not sure what it is when men get to bid on stuff, the bids quickly got out of control and pretty much, everything worthwhile (especially all the nice old S&Ws and Colts) sold for way, way more than they were worth.

I still go to auctions, but man, there's too many people going with more money than sense. And the current climate? With the retail sellers all out of stock on everything? Good luck, man ...

But, in the event you get lucky: go home immediately and post pics of your score(s).

Lots of Hi Point 9s would be my luck... lol

The guy who used to be the maintenance director for our county school system embezzled around $6 million over about a 10 year period before he finally got caught. During that time the county built 2 new high schools and he was in charge of supervising the construction. A lot of purchase orders were falsified, material, fixtures and appliances ordered for the new schools were used to build his $1 million+ home etc. He also built some duplexes that he used as rental property with stolen funds.

All of his assets were seized including a pretty impressive gun collection that were sold at auction to recover as much of the money as possible. The person with the winning bid had to go to a local gun store to fill out 4473's and pay a transfer fee to pick up their gun.

I didn't go to the auction, but learned later that most everything sold for more than it's actual value. All of these guns were used, although most slightly so. These were all nice guns but they sold for more than new in many cases. People go crazy sometimes at an auction.

Many folks, both knowledgeable and not, place unrealistically high values on guns.

When I was in pawnbrokering, folks would bring in dads old shotgun for a loan wanting 500 dollars and it would be a JC Higgins covered in surface rust. They truly believed it had to be worth more that much.

This happened often. Maybe once per week and this was a small shop in a small city.

You get enough folks like this who know very little and enough folks who know just enough to be dangerous and you have an exciting time at ye olde police auction.

Also some people like the “provenance” of a gun from a police auction.

“This could have been used in a crime”....or worse.

KY requires LEO confiscated guns be sold at auction, but only FFLs can participate. Fish and Wildlife is an exception to that and they offer their confiscated stuff to the public. I’ve never attended the auction but I have looked at the price sheets afterwards. Some of the boats and motors might have been good deals depending on condition, but the guns sold for nearly new or more. Auction fever is a thing.

I would go just out of curiosity.

Sadly, here they are destroyed.

Cut up and dumped in the ocean.

I go to a couple of local auctions, 2 yrs ago M&Ps were between $200 & $250, Glenfield 12ga pumps for $80, Colt 38sp for $225, Howa 1500s with Leopold scopes $300. This year stuff went stupid high, Glocks for $425 and up, 22mag bolt actions for $290, Savage bolt actions above retail, $350+, Sky 9mm $250, basically I only purchased a BBQ meatloaf sandwich and watched the show, ammo was also highly inflated with 556 running between $.45 & $.50 and 44mag running about $.80, 308 bulk was $.70. If these prices continue I won't waste my time going.

WestKentucky said:

I finally found a list of guns for auction. 165 guns including a lot of single action cheapos and Marlin 22s, BUT the icing on the cake is a seized Gatling Gun. Looks like it takes glock mags from the picture so I assume it to be one of the new ones, but it’s pretty sweet nonetheless. I want to watch that one sell.

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Please post a photo of the Gatling Gun.. those things have style no mater what,,

indy1919a4 said:

Please post a photo of the Gatling Gun.. those things have style no mater what,,

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ha ha ha thanks, like you read my mind Those are squat little rascals. Made to shoot cheap 9mm no less

WestKentucky said:

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That just looks like FUN!

Hi...
I go to a lot of gun auctions here in southcentral Pennsylvania.
Most firearms sell for more than retail once the bidding gets going. A lot of gun shops have bidders at the auctions and they help drive the prices up.
One thing that typically go for less than you would think are custom built rifles...for some reason they typically sell for around $6-800 unless the custom gunsmith is well known.

I typically don't buy firearms at these auctions although I do buy one or two each year. I mainly concentrate on buying reloading tools and components...there are real bargains to be had there if you do your research and don't get caught up in bidding wars. I keep what I have use for and resell the rest.

The last shop I smithed for took the evidence guns from two sherriff's departments' (He was right on the county line) in as payment for working on the department's guns. I bought several out of lots that came in. My job was to look them over and test fire those in good shape, and destroy any the SO declared must be destroyed. I had to cut up a B&T TP9 once.