Why do people think there used bits are gold?

[Just Jim]

Gun shows are a circus where you pay a premium for the chance to spend your money. There is the occasional value or thing of interest but as far as I am concerned Internet shopping has for the most part made them obsolete. That does not mean they arnt occasionally fun and dont occasionally get my money.

No matter where you shop you can find deals if you do your homework and have the experience to know what and when to buy

The net is a pain in the butt for deals unless the seller or buyer is close. Buy a gun off gun broker and you have shipping and dealer fees plus you really never know the true condition of the gun until it's in your hands. Know a guy who put up big money to buy a Thompson full auto that returned it because it turned out to not be what was advertised.

Most of the guys selling can't take a picture and certianly have no idea how to sell a gun. They don't even clean them before they take a picture. They don't understand when they offer all the extra parts it creates suspicions as to the quality of the gun. Guy offers a gun with another gas system with it yet in the picture if you look close you can see carbon build up from a leaking gas system. So let's see, extra gas system and leaking one on the gun but just like new in the add.

The net is harder to find the good deal and there are too many guys wanting to buy that you compete with thus driving the price up. I would rather deal with a vendor or a dealer face to face that I can size up and work out a deal.

 

[Just Jim]

Seems I took your value thread and ruined it, I apologize.

 

[IronMonster]

No worries about crapping in my thread. I have a high tolerance for such things.

I don't agree with your assessment at all though. I find it much, much easier to deal on the Internet I can do it from the comfort of my home in my underwear when I have time. Not have to drive an hour just to stand in line for an hour to maybe find what I want after spending all day looking when I should have been in the shop making money.

Every hour I don't work costs me close to a hundred bucks, And I can work every moment I am awake and not run out of paying work. I would be far better off paying retail online for something rather than spending all day at the gunshow pissing away valuable time.

Nope, if I go the the gunshow its to be entertained. I go because it's sometimes fun, more or less like the circus.

 

[Just Jim]

No worries about crapping in my thread. I have a high tolerance for such things.

I don't agree with your assessment at all though. I find it much, much easier to deal on the Internet I can do it from the comfort of my home in my underwear when I have time. Not have to drive an hour just to stand in line for an hour to maybe find what I want after spending all day looking when I should have been in the shop making money.

Every hour I don't work costs me close to a hundred bucks, And I can work every moment I am awake and not run out of paying work. I would be far better off paying retail online for something rather than spending all day at the gunshow pissing away valuable time.

Nope, if I go the the gunshow its to be entertained. I go because it's sometimes fun, more or less like the circus.

Some of us see words as pictures in our heads so please don't talk about you in your underwear, it's a visual that is harmful to some readers.

If I go to a gun show looking for a specific gun then there are many vendors who will carry new guns at matching prices. If I am looking for something special I doubt I will see it on the net. Most net sales are average guns, just tools and nothing nice and collectible. Ya it only takes a few minutes to find tools. Gunshows do have some collectibles that you can see first hand and not waste time driving hours only to see things left out of the pictures.

Big portland show it takes me about two hours to get through it if I know what I want. I have driven two hours to buy a gun off a net deal only to find out it was misrepresented. Some guys go shopping for a gun not knowing what they will come home with from the show, that's entertainment. I go the shows for alot of different reasons, one of many is to compare prices IE learn the value of things.

 

[NoFlinch]

I have driven two hours to buy a gun off a net deal only to find out it was misrepresented.

I would NEVER (never say never) drive more than 1/2 hour without seeing CURRENT photos, in detail, of the subject firearm......or anything for that matter.

Of course, if I wanted to take a drive, and had no specific place to go, that might be another story...

 

[Just Jim]

I would NEVER (never say never) drive more than 1/2 hour without seeing CURRENT photos, in detail, of the subject firearm......or anything for that matter.

Of course, if I wanted to take a drive, and had no specific place to go, that might be another story...

There is always a gunshop or something along the way if a deal doesn't pan out. Being retired my time is worth what I want it to be...to me

 

[Capn Jack]

10-04 Jim. Everyday is Saturday to us and you know what comes after that.

Sometimes it is hard to understand why there are days when everyone is off and I need something done.

 

[bzltyr]

Don't support that store or buy his ammo. Let the suckers pay high price. Gun shows are fine to look and touch and decide what you really want, prices sometimes good. You still have to pay admission and parking, almost $20, which can go to a local store for background and some ammo.

 

[Just Jim]

Price, that is what it's all about and how did that price come about. Guy on here has a most excellent gun for sale at a good price. Deal is he is from Washington and I am from Oregon. If we lived close I would have bought it in a heartbeat for his given price. However once you add on all the dealer fees and shipping plus not being able to look closely at the gun, the deal just won't work.

He has a great price but government stands in the way of commerce, that's a big part of prices.

 

[mkwerx]

See lots of this - some on here, some on Armslist, some elsewhere. The one that really gets me are the guys trying to sell their M&P Shields for $500-600, when the going rate for a NIB gun is $380-390. Some of those $600 jokers think that their $40 Serpa holster adds $200 to the value of their used gun. It's one thing to post something close to retail if it's newer and in good condition - you can negotiate down. It's another to post for more than the going rate for new.

Brand new M&P's have had a price reduction - Steve at Northwest Armory said they dropped their price from $499 to $439 recently, and that's not a sale price. I bought a used M&P 9 full size from NWA for $399 and the thing looked like it had very few, if any rounds through it.

Still see a ton of used guns for $500-600. If these used guns came with a pile of mags, it would be one thing - but a lot of these guns are one mag, maybe the factory case maybe not.

Used Glocks for $600 - when a new gen 4 can be had for $550 and a gen 3 is $479 new.

We all want the best we can get for used guns but some of the guys posting are either out of touch, don't think that other people can research gun prices, or they are scalpers. Of course this isn't limited to internet sales - last time I was in the HK Gun Shop here in Forest Grove, he had a 2nd generation Glock, beat to hell, with one mag (I think a 10 rounder no less) for $600. It was, I believe the only Glock in the store as well. This was at the tail end of the panic, when guns were available again and the ammo was coming back onto shelves.

 

[nehalemguy]

It's the Gun Room marketing strategy.

It's worked for Warren for decades so.......?????

E

 

[raftman]

High prices don't annoy me in and of themselves, if I think they're asking far too much I don't buy it or even waste my time talking to them. No biggie.

Where it does get annoying for me, is like what's mentioned in the OP, where the seller expects to get back all (and then some) they put into customizing/modifying their gun. I have pretty much never seen a "customized" gun that was exactly what I wanted. The OP mentions AR-15's but the SKS would be another classic example. Provided you didn't get ripped off buying an all original one, odds are pretty good you can get back what you paid for it should you sell it. These days, you can get a decent example for about $300 and you probably wouldn't have trouble selling one in that ballpark. But throw in one of those Crapco plastic pistol grip stocks, a detachable magazine that won't feed as reliably as the factory mag, a new receiver cover with a scope mount that won't hold zero, a crappy optic of some type, etc and even though you've spent a sum of $550, you now probably have a $230 gun because would-be buyers have to take into account the cost of undoing what you've done.

 

[NoFlinch]

.................. because would-be buyers have to take into account the cost of undoing what you've done.

HOW many times have I looked at a gun with this in mind?
The number 100 comes to mind...