Guns auctions and reserves

[Bindlestiff]

I stole this from another thread, I don't want to disrupt the flow of that thread.

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

The fact that a gun "hammered" is no indication that it met reserve.

It simply means that the high bid was recorded.
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That is my main issue with the way auctions in New England seem to be run. When I first started going to auctions many years ago, any item that had a reserve was advertised as such, both in the auction listing and at the start of the items auction. They never reveled the reserve value but announced that an item had a reserve when it went "on the auction block". And, just as important, when the hammer dropped, they announced "no sale" if that reserve was not reached.

I watch high end auto and farm equipment auctions today and they announce reserve items and "no sales", as I would expect. I wonder why all the high end gun auctions I go to here in New England never follow that practice?

I have often wondered if this "sloppy" handling of reserve items is only a New England issue. There must be a reason other than laziness that they don't handle reserve items in a clear and obvious way.

Outside New England, how do gun auctions handle reserve items?