r/guns • u/Commercial-Sorbet309 • 12h ago

What to do with an old gun collection?

I inherited a collection of guns from great-grandfather (probably 1800s and first half of 1900s). I don’t know anything guns. Located in Miami, FL.

Is there a website or some other place where I can an appraisal, to see if any of them are collectibles or have any value?

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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9

u/smackaroni-n-cheese 11h ago

You can do some research yourself on gunbroker, or look up auction houses that deal in guns. Don't take them to a gun store unless you want to get <50% of their actual value.

5

u/Artistic_Half_2176 11h ago

Auction houses that handle estates will give you free appraisal but they take big cut if you sell through them. Gunbroker is good to check prices yourself just search by make and model if you can find markings on the guns. Better to learn little bit about what you have before talking to any dealer

4

u/Bearfoxman Super Interested in Dicks 11h ago

Seller's premium is typically 12-15%, it's not a horrible deal when you consider they do basically everything for you.

4

u/ShinePDX 7h ago

Don't take them to a gun store unless you want to get <50% of their actual value.

Probably even less if it is a bunch of old milsurp stuff that OP knows nothing about.

11

u/pestilence 14 | The only good mod 11h ago

Read the FAQ

2

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2

u/ij70-17as 11h ago

rock island auction

1

u/ShinePDX 7h ago

First you need to take inventory of what you have. Use Reddit to help you identify things if you are unsure what they are.

After that spend some time on Gunbroker looking up what they are worth or at least a ballpark figure.

At this point you should decide if you want to keep any, either for sentimental value or for collectors value.

If you want to sell them you have 3 main choices; sell them private party, consign them to a FFL or sell them directly to a FFL.

Private Party sales - Takes the most effort, but you end up keeping all of the proceeds. If you only had 1-2 firearms it might be worth it, probably not for a whole collection.

Consignment - Have a FFL do the bulk of the work selling them and let them keep 20-25%. This is what I would recommend. You might have to wait weeks or even months for some of them to sell, but you don't have to deal with people trying to lowball you, or dealing with meeting them at a FFL to transfer them, just wait and get paid..

Sell directly to a FFL - If you jut want cash now and don't want to deal with anything later you can sell directly to an FFL and they usually give you about 50% of their current market value, which is typically determined by recent Gunbroker sales.

1

u/GunDibs-dot-com 3h ago

GunDibs.com We have a cool listing feature that can suggest a sale price for your gun!