The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Speaking as a target shooter running a club - Most of the stuff there seems to be junk, no doubt some is valuable to the very few collectors, as are allsorts of strange antiques that we are not interested in. Much seems to be deceased effects, disposals & often by people who don’t have a clue what it is, or its real value. Few good deals due to high & unrealistic reserves, commission, vat, transport, collection costs etc make it more expensive than many dealers for the same thing.

P14 - max i will pay is £50 complete & our club has got 2 of them for less than that, same for 1215's etc, best deals are private sellers who know what they are selling & at a reasonable price. You can find them on Gunstar, Mart & here.

Asking for things often brings out good kit that people are willing to dispose of for a reasonable price. Sales from & to shooters keep the funds within the sport. A good wanted / For Sale notice capability within clubs & in the NRA / NSRA would make that more effective.

Holts just remove funding from shooting by raking off from sellers & buyers alike.

Even EBay has become expensive 2nd hand items often achieving 80% new price sometimes even more than dealer sale price! but ebay isertion, final value fees, paypal fees, postage also rack up the cost & again deduct funding from shooting.

eBlag is certainly one of the reasons for inflated prices in my opinion and if people see an 'xyz' period accessory at GBP200 they assume that is what it is worth and either advertise the one they have at the same price or buy at that price. Parker Hale sights being a perfect example of how something has quadruped in price in the last 2-3 years. This impacts dealer prices and as has been pointed out, if the dealers have to pay more they are going to ask more. I have personally paid out for a couple of items recently that we needed but I still think were over priced. Supply and demand and now I have paid for the items it has effectively rubber stamped the price.

hitchphil wrote:Speaking as a target shooter running a club - Most of the stuff there seems to be junk, no doubt some is valuable to the very few collectors, as are allsorts of strange antiques that we are not interested in. Much seems to be deceased effects, disposals & often by people who don’t have a clue what it is, or its real value. Few good deals due to high & unrealistic reserves, commission, vat, transport, collection costs etc make it more expensive than many dealers for the same thing.

P14 - max i will pay is £50 complete & our club has got 2 of them for less than that, same for 1215's etc, best deals are private sellers who know what they are selling & at a reasonable price. You can find them on Gunstar, Mart & here.

Asking for things often brings out good kit that people are willing to dispose of for a reasonable price. Sales from & to shooters keep the funds within the sport. A good wanted / For Sale notice capability within clubs & in the NRA / NSRA would make that more effective.

Holts just remove funding from shooting by raking off from sellers & buyers alike.

Even EBay has become expensive 2nd hand items often achieving 80% new price sometimes even more than dealer sale price! but ebay isertion, final value fees, paypal fees, postage also rack up the cost & again deduct funding from shooting.

Most of the stuff on their is the items that are not worth auctioning ... at their sales they have a "sealed bid" auction for what can almost be called "scrap guns" ones which need a lot of attention and TLC. The main auction does have some very good items for sale but the prices there are getting silly too. I saw one gun which I liked - a gunsmith I knew had thought about going for it but left it for me. His estimation was about £1500, I was prepared to go to £1700. It finally went for about £3000 (plus commission), then after a little work was on sale at an even higher price.

You can come across good kit at the sealed bid sales, perhaps not at the right price but good firearms non the less.

If you want to see areal scrap auction then try Scotarms.