Online auction sites taken over by dealers

[Rod]

Don't know if I'm angry about this or just resigned to it. I was looking online for a possible Schofield buy. Seems that about 90% of the sellers are now dealers and trying to really boost overpriced sales of guns. I kind of thought the idea was to get gun owners together but I may be wrong. I also noticed that most guns were not getting any bids. After all, why overpay for a gun you can probably order at your local gun shop cheaper and with less hassle?

[PawPaw]

All auctions are rigged to some degree. It's the auctioneer's job to get the highest price possible for a given item, and it's the bidders job to get it cheaply or walk away. Reserve prices help with getting the vendor a minimum price. Online auctions are no different, but occasionally you can find a screaming deal in either an actual auction or an online one.

Auctions are fun, I try to get in an auction once a month, or so. Online auctions used to be fun, until I realized just exactly what you're talking about. Last month I was looking for a specific firearm and hit several of the online sites, but while checking at the local dealers, realized that I could order what I want from my local guy for less than the online sites were asking.

[Old Grafton]

I've gotten several good deals on High Standard target pistols and parts on Gunbroker recently, but those are items of limited interest and not available from current manufacturer. (I know, they're now made in Texas, but I want only Hamden or very low-number E. Hartfords)

Current items--why buy high-priced used when many dealers will meet the price or beat it on NEW items?

[Aesop]

When a seller can register multiple times and rig an auction from his living room in his pajamas, the fix is in from the get-go, and always has been.
Online auctions are designed to extract the highest prices possible while providing the illusion of respectability.

Walk away from all such, or resign yourself to being repeatedly scammed.

[Vonz90]

I'm not sure the complaint. It gives you another place to check other than the local houses of death. Go with the cheaper prices whichever it may be.

I've saved some money on Gunbroker (and Gallery of Guns - which is not an auction but does have price transparency for retail buyers, so it is useful) and I've seen them have prices way over the market. Pick what works for you.

[Rod]

When a seller can register multiple times and rig an auction from his living room in his pajamas, the fix is in from the get-go, and always has been.
Online auctions are designed to extract the highest prices possible while providing the illusion of respectability.

Walk away from all such, or resign yourself to being repeatedly scammed.

For the most part, you're absolutely right. On the other hand, as has been mentioned, it also depends on what you're looking for. If you're VERY careful, the deals are out there. You can guess pretty fast which ones are dealers and which ones are private sellers.

[Darrell]

Speaking of auctions, one of my sisters sent me this--gun parts from the battle of the Little Bighorn were sold at auction for $31,000:

Historic Gun Parts Worth Over $30,000
Mar 25, 2015

Six parts of a dismantled gun sold for $31,050 at a $16 million sale that included four famous gun collections in Maine on March 15, 2015. The pieces were dug up in 1991 and 1997 on the Reno Battlefield (named after Major Reno who led the troops), the site of Custer’s last stand. The parts were properly cleaned and had Certificates of Authenticity from a trusted company. But it's the name Custer that made them so valuable. The James Julia auction proved that great record keeping makes a collection more valuable.

http://www.kovels.com/news-news-news/hi ... n+the+Rise

[evan price]

When I started buying on gunbroker I discovered the penny start, unknown reserve auctions were a total waste of time. The same stuff recycles over and over. I don't want to bother bidding and not winning. I want to bid and win.
My favorite searches are all set to ignore reserve auctions and sort by price. I look at auctions for stuff I like and put them on the watch list. If it's something I really want I throw up a lowball bid to keep it on my bid list, which is my "hot" list, stuff I really want. Otherwise, I keep watching and I don't bid until the last hour of the auction. I'm interested in C&R revolvers and shotguns and mouse pistols. I know what they sell for in the local shops and in armslist. I study completed auctions for pricing. I'm looking for deals. I'm not in love with individuals mostly, just examples of types. I prefer mechanically sound examples with surface wear but otherwise original. Carried a lot but not abused.
The best deals I've gotten were things I found looking for something else!
Best deal lately was a Colt Official Police 38 revolver carried a lot and shot little, that I stumbled on and wound up buying for $262 shipped to my door. If it were in a local shop that gun would easily have been $400 out the door. I wasn't even looking for it, I was looking for something else and it popped up in the search with less than an hour to go.


eBay has also turned into dealer central. I personally prefer Buy It Now! listings instead of auctions. A fair BIN price and I can get what I need in a couple days instead of waiting a week or more just to see if I'm getting the parts I need to fix a machine let alone get them shipped. It's good if you want common items- my most recent eBay purchases were furnace filters, humidifier pads, HKS speed loaders, Reddy Heater parts, blue jeans, cabinet hardware, extra Pfaltzgraff plates for our dinnerware set, and pressure gauges for my air systems. Everything bought with shipping for at least half the price of getting it anywhere else locally.

If I don't need it right-the-hell-now, I check Amazon and eBay first.

[Dub_James]

I barely touch Amazon these days. For most gun stuff, it's EBay.

[Greg]

When I started buying on gunbroker I discovered the penny start, unknown reserve auctions were a total waste of time. The same stuff recycles over and over. I don't want to bother bidding and not winning. I want to bid and win.
My favorite searches are all set to ignore reserve auctions and sort by price. I look at auctions for stuff I like and put them on the watch list. If it's something I really want I throw up a lowball bid to keep it on my bid list, which is my "hot" list, stuff I really want. Otherwise, I keep watching and I don't bid until the last hour of the auction. I'm interested in C&R revolvers and shotguns and mouse pistols. I know what they sell for in the local shops and in armslist. I study completed auctions for pricing. I'm looking for deals. I'm not in love with individuals mostly, just examples of types. I prefer mechanically sound examples with surface wear but otherwise original. Carried a lot but not abused.

That sounds like a sensible way to approach auctions, and I do something similar. Though these days most of what I do is put in a lowball bid on something to keep it on my hot list, and then never raise my bid. If I win, I get a deal. If I don't win, so what? I've gotten a surprising number of SAK's at amazingly low prices that way in the past year or two.

eBay has also turned into dealer central. I personally prefer Buy It Now! listings instead of auctions. A fair BIN price and I can get what I need in a couple days instead of waiting a week or more just to see if I'm getting the parts I need to fix a machine let alone get them shipped. It's good if you want common items- my most recent eBay purchases were furnace filters, humidifier pads, HKS speed loaders, Reddy Heater parts, blue jeans, cabinet hardware, extra Pfaltzgraff plates for our dinnerware set, and pressure gauges for my air systems. Everything bought with shipping for at least half the price of getting it anywhere else locally.

If I don't need it right-the-hell-now, I check Amazon and eBay first.

I don't really object to dealers 'taking over' auction sites, as I see it as more or less inevitable. Action sites are ready-made retail channels after all, and using them lets dealers have customers compete against each other on price(!). And putting your stuff on a known auction site is a whole lot easier than finding your own customers, managing your own billing system, etc etc, and hey that's why individuals use auction sites to sell stuff.

And nothing dealers do should be any kind of problem for an informed buyer.