Has the market for average Parkers bottomed???
 

I have been amazed how the market for good average Parkers has collapsed over the last year or so. I'm not talking about project guns or closet queens but nice shootable guns with good original finishes. Not only the lower grades but even grade 3 guns. I just bought a 12ga DH with 70% CC and mechanically perfect for $1500. This gun was a $3000. gun a few short years ago in my opinion. Is it the internet making it a national market or what?? I collect antique decoys and that market bottomed a few years back but has come back strong the last few years, how about vintage guns?? Decoys attract the folk art crowd but will vintage gun be considered folk art and appeal to a larger market??

With the Internet making it so easy to look for the gun you wand and being able to sift through literally dozens of guns that near perfectly fit your requirements, of course price becomes more and more of a determining factor. And the sellers have come to this realization and are responding to it with more competitive pricing.

The white-haired collectors and shooters are thinning their collections and this can be termed a flood to the market. This, coupled with fewer numbers of younger folks being interested in classic old shotguns affects the market.

That’s my take on the situation.





.

I am very interested in this subject but from a different angle. When I have made an offer to a private seller they point to an old Blue Book valuation with the comment '' it must be worth a lot more now''. I have been trying to help in the sale of a high grade gun in which the owner insists on the book value even though I have shown him the exact gun unsold on this forum at half what he wants. I have had no success of late with buying at what the current market seems to be. Hope springs eternal I guess.

I see many 12g guns from most makers are really priced better than just 2 or 3 years ago. Seems like the small bores have retained their asking prices but the 12s have dropped significantly. Maybe reality has set in?

Ditto on Deans comments but from my view the market is flooded with nice D grades and they are being sold very slowly. When I became involved in doubles damascus guns were valued at about half of a steel barreled gun and were not moving very quickly at that time. As the market peaked through the 90's and early 2000's damascus guns became very desirable, especially high condition examples. As the market continues to shrink I believe the value and interest in damascus guns will be the most effected.

Shooter guns have fallen right out. So bad so, I am hardly interested in buying them for resale. Unless they are so cheap that they are guarantee for a flip.
It isnt a matter what price they will sell for, it is more a matter of IF they will sell at any reasonable price. People just do not seem to be buying them. I think it is because the interested parties already have a dozen just like them and dont need more. Guns are just like cars. There are simply more than there are people to use them.

+1 to Brian

My Uncle Howard said when things are bad, people think they will always be bad. When things are good, people think things will always be good. They are wrong both times.

Some old stockbrokers in Savannah used to say buy when the Yankees sell and sell when the Yankees buy. Those stockbrokers got rich

I wish I was buying, and not selling.

Part of it I will say is that the market has gotten inflated. People on here complain about the lack of young people coming into the hobby. Well answer me this, where is the cheap nice condition entry level parker? It doesn't exist. A decent condition trojan ought to be a relatively affordable gun, but they hover up around 800-1000 bucks for a 12 gauge. This will be an unpopular opinion, but in all honesty a 12 ga DH shooter condition gun probably should be a 1500 or so dollar gun. They aren't rare by any stretch. Now don't get me wrong, I love my 12 ga DHs, they are my favorite parker to collect, but that doesn't mean a shooter grade gun shouldn't be priced accordingly. High condition/collectable guns are a different matter, but people have overvalued the shooter condition parker in my opinion.