recent gun sales

[David Noble]

I've noticed there have been a lot of high condition, high grade, and collectible guns for sale in the sale forum. Are times just getting tough or are people getting prepared for the upcoming Julia auction? I hope and kinda feel like it's the latter. So what in your opinion is going on?

[Stephen Hodges]

Maybe that is it, but fall is a great time to sell a shotgun:)

[Bob Hayes]

I always wonder when a gun goes up for sale what its sale is making room for.

[Rick Losey]

i think you also need to add downsizing by some aging collectors, who may not want to leave that much for others to deal with ( i have told my kids to pay attention because their inheritance, pitiful as it is - is in double barrels and old books)

personally- I think its a leap to say the changing hands of high grade shotguns is a sign of tough times. lots of them offered with no buyers accepting maybe, but not simply the fact that they are offered and most often find new homes

I also expect lots of folks limit themselves to how many - or their safe limits them- i saw one yesterday I really liked- when I got home I told my wife about it and said I just have to decide if I like it enough to send something else down the road to get it

have not decided yet- but I did look at the seller's info again this morning - just to be sure I did not lose it :whistle:

[Chris Travinski]

i saw one yesterday I really liked- when I got home I told my wife about it and said I just have to decide if I like it enough to send something else down the road to get it
:whistle:

I've said that before too. I even decided which one would have to go..........then I decided to keep them both. It's a sickness.

[edgarspencer]

For the most part, we are an aging group, and as we get older, our collections have gotten better, with higher grades, and generally, more valuable guns.
Many of us don't have children or close relatives to leave these to, or, those that do, have children raising young families, and may not have an interest in side by sides. Consequently, we old guys start letting go of a few high end pieces, and there are few to no youngsters interested, or with the money to buy these for what we have in them, or the value we think they have risen to.

I've had a table at the Baltimore gun show for many years, and the small numbers of young people coming through the doors, aren't looking at 8 or ten grand Winchesters and SxS pieces.
We all started out collecting what we could afford, trading up, and plateauing at a level that becomes difficult to justify hanging onto, and find them somewhat difficult to sell. I'm glad I didn't just collect Saturday Night Specials,(though even they are rising in value) and love my higher grade Parkers, but I don't want my wife trying to barter them away to the taxman.

[Rick Losey]

I've said that before too. I even decided which one would have to go..........then I decided to keep them both. It's a sickness.

Yeah well I started kicking myself after posting this and thinking a little more


Guess I'll need to call Monday and see if it went home with him

[Dean Romig]

For the most part, we are an aging group, and as we get older, our collections have gotten better, with higher grades, and generally, more valuable guns.
Many of us don't have children or close relatives to leave these to, or, those that do, have children raising young families, and may not have an interest in side by sides. Consequently, we old guys start letting go of a few high end pieces, and there are few to no youngsters interested, or with the money to buy these for what we have in them, or the value we think they have risen to.

I've had a table at the Baltimore gun show for many years, and the small numbers of young people coming through the doors, aren't looking at 8 or ten grand Winchesters and SxS pieces.
We all started out collecting what we could afford, trading up, and plateauing at a level that becomes difficult to justify hanging onto, and find them somewhat difficult to sell. I'm glad I didn't just collect Saturday Night Specials,(though even they are rising in value) and love my higher grade Parkers, but I don't want my wife trying to barter them away to the taxman.



"With age comes wisdom."

We are fortunate to have a good number of 'wise old men' among our ranks.





.

[Rich Anderson]

It's a sickness that I hope I'm never cured of:) Not much new in shotguns here but two nice Pre64 M70 Super Grades arrived the other day.:shock:

[John Campbell]

I've had a table at the Baltimore gun show for many years, and the small numbers of young people coming through the doors, aren't looking at 8 or ten grand Winchesters and SxS pieces...

Mr. Spencer has it mostly right.

However, men of past eras were often wooed by tradition, emotion and sentimentality.

Thus, many of us grew up with the romance of double guns, sunny cool days afield, and the magic they weave.

Sadly, today's youth have little of that. Media is their god. They grow up in a dark basement playing video games. And when they do engage with guns, they relish the AR types they see on-screen, or shotguns with black plastic/camo stocks and matte anodized finish. What's more, their object is efficacy of death dealt out. Not respect for the game and sport, or an interface with the marvels of nature.

Not all kids are like this. But I dare say that too many are.

Where this leaves the future value of your Parker is anyone's guess...

[Stephen Hodges]

John, I do not disagree with your observations of many youth today, and also your feeling that of course not all youth are guilty of it, but I guess this is nothing new:

AUTHOR: Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953).

[Kirk Potter]

I'm probably younger than most here, at 30 years old. I started upland hunting in 2011 and bought my first dog in 2013. Right from the get go I wanted a Parker.

The quote Dean has:

"I'm a Setter man.
Not because I think they're better than the other breeds,
but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me,
a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture."

IMO you can just as easily replace Setter with Parker.. You never see any old upland art with a synthetic stocked auto loader. There is something about walking up to a setter on point, carrying a 120 year old Parker that's hard to beat.

[Phil Yearout]

My problem is I never want to sell ANYTHING. Like some here have stated, I started out with what I could afford and my first doubles were Stevens guns; unlike those who sold or traded their early guns away I just can't turn loose of mine. I've only ever sold three guns in my life; two I bought to sell, and one that belonged to my late father-in-law that I sold because my mother-in-law needed the money more than I needed the gun. And even though he never shot it much and I never shot it at all, I hated to see it go, and I wish I still had it.

[keavin nelson]

Well. Sell is a four letter word!��

[King Brown]

Kensal Rise has it right, too.

[Russell E. Cleary]

The young professionals and skilled blue-collar fellows I see at the range and gun club, toting modern guns and black rifles, have the capability of buying the occasional shoot-able, interesting and attractive Parker. If this cohort converged on the vintage gun market, I don't think I would have much chance of even imagining myself a "gun collector".

[Russell E. Cleary]

....due to all that new competition.

But, much appreciated is that such splendid objects of art, industry and utility, as these guns are, can be widely enjoyed, because of the generosity and involvement of Forum posters, quarterly publication contributors and Association activists.

[Harry Collins]

With four grandsons I thought the guns would go to homes that would use them. I'm beginning to seriously doubt it. One wanted a rifle to hunt deer etc for his 14th birthday. I offered him a sporterized 6.5X55 Swedish Mauser with a 2X7 Leuopold. I told him I had 85 grain bullet loads at over 3,000 per second that shoot 1/2" groups all day long for groundhogs, a 129 grain bullet for deer that is sub minute of angle load as well as a 160 gr load. He wasn't the least bit impressed or excited of such prospects. He wanted a new .308 so I purchased a savage for him to use until he was 18 and then it would be his. Other guns I cherish for function and sentiment wouldn't get a second look from the boys. I am seriously thinking of thinning out a few more closets.

[Rich Anderson]

There no love for the classic rifle cartridges (or a Parker, Fox ect) by todays youth. That 6.5X55 is an excellent round and if I were to have another rifle built that would be a strong consideration. There's no dust on that or a 250 Savage, 300 Savage, 257 Roberts or the tried and true 7X57.

At the end of the day were just getting old:)

[Kirk Potter]

To each his own I guess. I have friends and family members who wouldnt think twice about dropping $3-4K on a AR build, but think that dropping over $1k on a shotgun is the height of lunacy. "Don't you know you can get a Turkish made semi auto for $500?!?!"

[Phil Yearout]

Maybe if somebody did a shooting movie that did for shotgunning what A River Runs Through It did for fly fishing, the millennials (or whoever they are) would get into it.

[nick balzano]

Phil , God help us if they ever made a film about vintage double guns similar to "A River Runs Through It", there would never be enough hunting land and good doubles to go around (just joking), but as a serious fly fisherman thats exactly what happened. I agree with most of the other posts as at my local range most of the younger shooters favor "Black" rifles and shotguns.

[Jack Kuzepski]

This is a little off topic,but... Back about 10 years ago, I worked at a high end retirement community in northern Delaware and was in my mid 50's. There was several very pretty girls (late 20's to mid 30's) that worked in food services that hung around together. One day I went to the kitchen to get a coffee and heard them talking about trap and skeet shooting. It peaked my interest so I just stood there to hear what they had to say when one of the girls said "Jack, you used to shoot at Dupont Fish and Game didn't you?" I confirmed that I did, mostly skeet: then she told the other girls that I shot mostly side by side shotguns. So I asked how she knew that. She told me who her grandfather was (a good friend of mine) and he got her a job on weekends at the club taking money for rounds of trap and skeet, selling shells, shot etc.; there were several employee's children that had jobs down there. She then told the girls that my nickname was "Elmer Fudd". I then blurted "Why did you give me that name?" it was the first I had heard of it. She said I was one of the only guy to show up regularly with a side by side shotgun and the only other individual they ever saw with one was Elmer on TV. That really made me laugh. At the time Remington was a wholly owned company by Dupont. All the ammo was Remington and the loaner guns were 1100's and 870's in every gauge.

Jack Kuzepski

[John Dallas]

Jack - Was that the club near Newark? I learned to shoot there, and shot my first skeet straight there (the day after returning from a year in Korea in 1969)

[Jack Kuzepski]

John,

Yes it was. You probably remember the log cabin club house. Years later they made a new club house about 4-5 times that size and updated the trap and skeet fields. It was really nice. It also helped that Dick Heckert was CEO at the time, as he was quite a skeet shooter himself as well as a hunter.

Jack Kuzepski

[Phil Yearout]

Phil , God help us if they ever made a film about vintage double guns similar to "A River Runs Through It", there would never be enough hunting land and good doubles to go around (just joking), but as a serious fly fisherman thats exactly what happened.

Nick, I agree. Kinda hope they never do.