A gun like that would be a good candidate to put up for auction on the Gunbroker gun auction site with a hidden reserve or a high opening bid price.
It's probably not going to be worth as much as one of the unfired Colt Commemorative Dragoons which can be priced as low as the $800 - $1000 range. But it could be worth in the $500 - $700 range depending on who ends up watching the auction who might really want it.
Anyone can register on Gunbroker to sell their guns. The seller may choose for the auction listing to last for a week, with a fairly high reserve price to test the waters. And if after several weeks to a month of listing it and relisting it with it set at the high opening or reserve price no bid meets it, then there's a chance that either the price is set too high, or an interested party hasn't discovered it yet, or that an interested party is waiting for the hidden reserve or opening bid amount to come down when it's subsequently relisted again.
So listing a gun for a Gunnroker auction is a bit of a chess match that requires a seller who feels strongly about the value of their gun to play a waiting game where they wait for the bidder with the most desire to come along and pay the highest price for it.
Yet the seller doesn't want to set the opening price so high that no one wants to even bid on it, or isn't allowed to even bid. A person can bid low in a hidden reserve auction, but in a regular auction a person cannot bid less than the opening price.
That's the reason why going through several relistings can be a good indication of where the bids are stopping at each time and how far below the hidden reserve price they are.
For instance, if the gun was listed with a hidden reserve price of $600, and the active bidding during each listing never exceeds more than $550. Then after a while, the seller could simply choose to switch from a reserve auction and change the listing to simply having an opening bid price of $550 to see if there would be any additional upward bidding once the watchers know that the gun is now definitely going to be sold for a minimum of $550 unless they bid higher.
So testing the waters is important when trying to sell a gun that potientially has a higher selling value than the owner realizes.
The values that I'm mentioning are just random and do not have any real correlation to reality, but rather represent very wishful thinking.
If the owner is willing to sell it for $500, then they could also just list it with an opening bid of $500 and then just let the auction bidding process take it's course right from the 1st listing.
The only problem with that method is that then the seller will never really know if the value of the gun would have been higher if there been a greater expectation of value from the beginning. It all depends on who happens to be looking at the auction during that listing period.
Some folks only visit Gunbroker on a random basis and not daily, or weekly or monthly.
When they feel like they want to look, they visit, and if they see something then they might become interested and start to bid.
That's the way that the internet auction process was designed to work, just like on eBay.
Offers can also be solicited by listing it for a higher than expected price in any classified ad in any forum including this one. Then simply see who makes the best offer.
The problem with that is there might not be enough folks interested in it for it to reach its maximum value for the owner. A reasonable offer might be received, but that may not really be the best price it could sell for.
In reality, no one is quite sure of any gun's maximum value. Everyone has their own opinion, a finite amount of interest in buying it and the money to spend to do so. That's why there's auctions along with good, bad, better and worse deals.
What impresses me about the gun is that it looks rare and unique.
And while it might not be one of kind, there's a distinct possibility that it could be.
That perks up people's interest.
