Inevitably, at some point customers are going to want to sell their firearms collection. For a firearms dealer, this is a unique and special circumstance where some care has to be taken. Estate sales are not just another used gun sale where someone wants to sell a single gun and you have to haggle back and forth for an hour on the purchase. Estate sales can involve dozens or hundreds of firearms that need evaluating. The advantages for customers and dealers of estate sales typically include in-home valuations for larger collections, and a single sales opportunity to to sell or purchase an entire collection. Service and integrity from a dealer becomes especially important when working with sellers who potentially do not understand firearms or the gun sales process or who do not want the hassle of lugging a large number of guns from one store to another. For dealers, estate sales offer an opportunity to very efficiently volume purchase in one transaction while potentially understanding the firearm provenance.
Building a High-Integrity Reputation
It is important to understand that most estate firearm sales will occur almost exclusively from personal referrals and previous dealer experiences from former customers. Becoming the go-to estate sales dealer requires a long-term reputation for honesty and integrity. Building this reputation comes from assuring that any customers selling guns feel they are treated fairly, even if they do not receive what they are expecting from a valuation perspective.
While an elderly lady was waiting for assistance from a large gun retailer with an expansive and impressive gun library, one of the “experts” informed her that an exceptional quality $500-$1,000 Japanese Arisaka and accessories was worth about $50 on the high side. When she asked to inspect the Blue Book gun value he was referencing, the dealer angrily slammed the book shut and refused to show the value to her. The nice lady noted she had done her research and “this was obviously not a place to recommend when selling a high-grade 7.7mm bolt action with all matching Chrysanthemums.” She added, “Since you are cheats, I guess you have also lost my .38 Special ammo business for my carry gun,” grabbed her Arisaka and rather spryly walked out. You never know which customers know about guns. Be honest and fair.
High-Trust Transaction
Estate sales are one of the highest-trust transactions dealers will likely ever conduct with customers. Since most of these valuations are in-home services, requiring time and expertise, they must be managed with the dealer’s most seasoned and trained used gun sellers. As guests inside someone’s home, potentially evaluating sentimental firearms, care should be taken to even take time to consider the low-value firearms as part of the estate.
Reasons for Estate Firearms Sales
A customer may be selling their estate of guns for a variety of reasons, which usually require some sensitivity in managing. Typical reasons include incapacitated individuals, death in the family, an immediate need for money, an older collector wanting to divest a lifelong firearms collection, or potentially a collector who physically no longer enjoys shooting. In most of these situations, dealers will need to work through family members who have limited knowledge of the collection or have been told exaggerated collection values. Regardless of the situation, these types of estate sales need to be handled more with a white-glove approach than what would normally be handled with a single gun purchase. Noting the above reasons for estate sales, it is considered rude to cherry pick through an estate collection vs making an offer on the entire collection.
Pricing Estate Sales Valuations
Dealers should charge an evaluation fee for non-deal collection valuation. This could be a flat fee and/or per-gun evaluation fee for in-home collection valuations which fully covers the cost of the employee facilitating the evaluations. Customers have the option to pay the valuation fee or accept an offer which waives the fee.
Some customers may say they want to do an estate sale just to understand the value of the collection for other purposes, such as insurance appraisal. Charging for the evaluation process prevents wasted time for staff on free in-home gun evaluations. Dealers should offer the same fee for documented firearms insurance appraisals that offer retail valuations and used gun purchase prices. This extra service builds long-term trust, can entice customers to sell, help customers understand the overall collection value, and clarifies the purpose up front of the need for an estate valuation.
Dealers should provide per-gun written offers that include the required ATF book information and the sources used to value each firearm. It is likely that sellers will check with a “gun person” they know, and being able to talk through how the dealer valued each gun improves your trust and reputation as an honest dealer.
Helping Customers Understand Valuations
It should be obvious, but being fair is of paramount importance. The customer’s perception of fairness is usually measured by how customers understand the legal gun sales process, gun condition value impacts, used sales versus in-store pricing, and valuation sources used — typically Blue Book of Gun Value, Gun Trader’s Guide, and similar books. Explanation of other sources such as GunBroker completed auction data, specialty books such as M1 Garand Book, or other C&R valuation books used is also helpful.
Reviewing the ATF and dealer’s sales process plus any gunsmith or shipping costs, and the line-by-line valuation of each firearm in the collection, allows the seller to understand the context of the offer. This is especially important when there are sentimental feelings or inaccurate valuation information that has been shared — such as when my mother arbitrarily noted my Browning Sweet 16 shotgun was rare and worth $10,000, which it is not.
Most customers needed the most help understanding the valuation, condition impacts and value sources. One very experienced dealer who purchased most of his used firearms through estate sales noted important points. He would explain what was required to sell a firearm as a consumer and his requirements as a dealer and the costs involved in-store or online. He would also explain firearm condition impacts on value and often show online examples of other gun conditions. Another helpful example would be discussing how market values have changed since the publish date of the book valuations. He found that most sellers did not want to manage that process and understood the need for the dealer to make money in the transaction.
Buying More Than Just Guns
For dealers who specialize heavily on used guns, they should ask about any available accessories, boxed ammunition, reloading equipment and other accessories. These are often forgotten items in estate purchases that can have extremely high resale value. Accessories items such as cases, boxed ammunition, reloading equipment and components, holsters and cleaning equipment can all be used as packaged offers when selling the used guns from the collections. Savvy dealers will find a way to work all these items into the estate purchase.
