I have read over the years about y’all discussing making arrangements for gun collections and ammo.

Here is my perspective from last year:

My dad died early in May 2020 at the height of COVID restrictions. He had been on hospice for CHF since December 2019 and sick for the year prior. Despite all this, he was in pretty serious denial about the fact that his time was very limited until right up to the very end. He kept talking about selling a bunch of stuff but never did.

He was a lifetime swapper and collector and had almost 80 guns, a whole houseful of 1000s and 1000s of rounds of ammunition (to the point we thought it was a serious fire hazard), numerous knives and lots and lots of silver (some inherited from his best friend) and gold. Add enough tools for a professional shop (he taught high school vocational auto mechanics program and early on did construction work), 66 Fastback restored Mustang and 100th Anniversary low miles Harley.

He did keep some nominal records on the guns as to when purchased, from whom/where, and not-necessarily up-to-date values that he could look up in books, but he was not a computer user for current info.

This was a huge issue for us as far as safety and settling the estate. Cabela’s was not doing in-house collection evaluation/purchases. We really had no idea of current value on things-so many esoteric things go into gun valuations. We REALLY did not want more people than already did know in a small town how much “stuff” Daddy had. We really needed to limit the number of folks in and out of the house to not have our Mom very vulnerable. Anyway, we ended up selling virtually everything to a single individual friend who we believe was more-or-less fair. Could we have made far more off the sale if it was not done “in bulk” Most probably. This was all extremely anxiety provoking.

Anyway, just wanted all of you to hear first-hand what a very vulnerable situation this can put your loved ones in. We had nightmares about someone coming in the house at night ordering Mom to open safes.

Tough situation that your family had to be in. Glad everything is finally completed. Sorry about your father.

Sorry for your loss. After going through this with parents and grandparents we decided to do what we could to help our kids avoid this situation.

We downsized hard. We can’t take it with us.

Sorry about your dad.
This has been on my mind as well. I’m not getting any younger and I just have too much stuff.

As kind of a weird reversal of the usual, this can be a bigger deal in a “safe” smaller town than a big city because in small towns everyone know about other folk business and “stuff.” When my Dad’s best friend died and Daddy was his executor and primary heir, he was immediately pounced on by all the vultures in town who knew (or thought they knew) about all the good stuff friend had.

Condolences for your loss.

I'm not getting any younger, and have had multiple bouts with cancer and 2 heart attacks. I've formally asked one of my best friends, another retired LEO and avid shooter, to help my wife with the disposal of my collection. I hate to burden him, but my half-unit just won't have any idea of the value of any individual piece, or the total value. Heck, even I'd have to guess as to what it's worth now.

I do try to keep a spreadsheet with the inventory on it as up to date as possible. We are moving soon, and I've come to the realization that even I'm not certain of what I have anymore. My knives are completely out of control. They obviously are breeding in the dark, cause I keep finding "new" ones.

quote:

Originally posted by kidcop:
Condolences for your loss.

I'm not getting any younger, and have had multiple bouts with cancer and 2 heart attacks. I've formally asked one of my best friends, another retired LEO and avid shooter, to help my wife with the disposal of my collection. I hate to burden him, but my half-unit just won't have any idea of the value of any individual piece, or the total value. Heck, even I'd have to guess as to what it's worth now.

I do try to keep a spreadsheet with the inventory on it as up to date as possible. We are moving soon, and I've come to the realization that even I'm not certain of what I have anymore. My knives are completely out of control. They obviously are breeding in the dark, cause I keep finding "new" ones.

One of my Dad’s best friends asked that he and another friend do this for the widow as well. Problem was, in the middle of Daddy and friend trying to do the evaluation the kids and grandkids kept coming in and taking things and the widow was letting them. Daddy and other friend finally realized they were wasting their time and just quit.

Sorry to hear about your dad.



I have a spreadsheet with serial numbers, when I bought it and price, also-yearly I price the guns on gunbroker to give a real value....

The spreadsheet has a bunch other information on it. Mrs Mike is aware how much guns should go for in case I get hit by a Buffalo. And so she won’t get taken to the cleaners.

Sorry for your loss, Melissa.

This hits home for me a bit. I live alone and only have a few heirs, none of whom would be interested in my collection.

I better get my shit together and catalog/price what I have. Who knows, my ammo might be worth more now.

We had this same discussion maybe 10 years ago, and probably over on Para's other forum. It might still be there, but good luck wading thru the crap of ads and what not. It went from the very best to just crap. Para got out and gave/sold it to what became commercial interests.

Basically what it comes down to is widows aren't doing you a favor, they're burdening you with and unworkable weight. Its one thing to do a friends wife/widow a favor, but she's got to do her share and help back. Us old guys are seeing more and more of this and buddies die off. It seems like widows come in two flavors. One thinks everything their lost one had is worth a fortune and the other just wanting it gone. If they want to be in the middle of every transaction and question every price, just let them do the hard work too. For a medium to large size collection, its a bunch of work.

An above poster, in all honesty I assume, said he goes thru and reprices items yearly. I'd guess that's overpricing things by a bundle. Even auction houses charge 15%. Keep in mind that just because you saw a similar item sell for $1000 might mean the seller only yielded $850, if that.

A while back one friend thought he's stumbled upon a treasure. A widow wanted to sell off the hubby's stuff and he was one of the first asked if he wanted any. So he saw a pigeon and called me. Turned out the collection was just junk. Well worn and minimally cared for hunting weapons. Most had been bought from a Wally World type of outlet, and bottom line brands at that. The widow was sure her hubby was a smart buyer and only had the best of things. None of which I would allow under my roof.

Just make sure helping a widow out doesn't turn into you being played as a sucker. I don't need a first job, much less working full time for free.

This is pretty typical of what I'm seeing with widows. I shoot with 2 different groups of guys, with each group at least once a week and yes, we're mostly retired older guys, so we've lost a few friends.

So far I've sold off the guns/ammo/reloading supplies for 2 different widows. Neither of them had lists or amounts or anything at all documenting what they had, so I had to do that as well as selling it for them.

One thing I did stumble across is the fact that a number of gun stores will buy small to medium sized collections in their entirely for cash, and they do it with fair pricing, but it's still good to figure out a price before they come over.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
but it's still good to figure out a price before they come over.

When my buddy/undertaker/coroner passed away 14 years ago, his widow just had a gun shop come over with a couple of vans to haul it all away. Women almost never know what the hubby has acquired. We want it that way. They paid her a price and took it all away. I'm not saying they cheated her, but they did. Another guy from down on the lake (Cumberland or Cumberbund) croaked. The same shop came along, did an inventory and then gave her a price. Like $270,000) She couldn't make up her mind, so she procrastinated. Then a few years later David Carroll stopped. He made her a different kind of offer. He'd haul it all away and sell of the stuff, taking a 15% commission.

No guarantees, and taking a low ball offer does have the advantage of eliminating the waiting and any doubts. So he took the lions share of the "stuff" to a Dixon show then sold the rest at auction. I never heard a final figure, but the last I heard it was over $500,000 and climbing. A high price to pay for quick money.

I priced out the stuff on Gunbroker and a couple of other sites, put it all on paper, totaled it up and gave a small slip of paper with the number on it to the widow.

When the guy from the gun store came over, he spent a couple of hours going over everything, took notes, then handed us a piece of paper with his offer on it.

It was around $1,000.00 more than the figure I came up with. He was an honest man and is the Mayor of Apache Junction, Az today.

I keep mine on a spreadsheet with all descriptive info and prices on it just in case.

quote:

Originally posted by BOATTRASH1:
Sorry about your dad.
This has been on my mind as well. I’m not getting any younger and I just have too much stuff.

You and me both. My closest relatives are 2 nephews in a distant city, and neither one is a gun person. My designated Executor is my Best Friend, and he is concerned.

flashguy

Quite sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Melissa, I'm not trying to be your psychologist but it seems to me you're understandably grieving over your loss of your dad. It's not about the collections he left; it's that he left your family. And I'm sorry about that.

What he left that you're seeing is just "stuff." My mother died 3 years ago. It took us at least 3 weeks of cleaning out the apartment she lived in. While we were able to donate some of the stuff she left, most of it ended up in the dump because we finished loading the U-Haul on a Sunday and Goodwill and Salvation Army were closed for accepting donations. We spent $300 for the dumping fee that included an antique sewing machine. One of the dump guys grabbed that even before it touched the ground.

I got my collections of guns and pens directed to go to a nephew when I die.

I have helped value and sometimes buy several estates gun/ammo knife collection

No one is ever going to pay 90-100% value on a large collection, say over $20k
Too much work, a shop has to make money and even a flippers time is worth something.

I’ve always thought a shop that offer consignment and sells on GB and eBay Is the way to go.

You will get top dollar, no one gets screwed.
Around 30% if the seller covers all fees is probably fair, nets 15-20 for their time.

There is a new shop that does that here, not really for estates but for non computer people wanting to sell why prices are high.
Here in WV they did like 300k on GB last month

sorry for your loss

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I'm sure many of us can relate to this problem both as dealing with the after part and as having acquired a lot of "stuff" that others will have to deal with someday.

Firearms and related items are much easier than other possessions in many ways. They are relatively compact, mostly easy to identify and price with minimal help.

One thing that comes to mind that most of us could do is write out an inventory list with information that someone with limited knowledge could use to efficiently deal with our things. I would include instructions on who to contact that is trustworthy and knowledgeable for each type of asset.

I've been an FFL and have valued two different estates, I did it for free just to help them out. It does take a lot of time to do it properly, I ended up giving them two values for each firearm, one for insurance value if they keep them and one for resale value. From my experience most gun shops will give you about 50% of what they will sell it for. If you want more than that then sell yourself. I have also made one offer to buy an entire estate collection of firearms but the seller did not accept my offer. You are not going to get retail value from an FFL, a lot goes into reselling and the dealer is not going to do it for free. People usually think if it sells for a certain amount on Gunbroker then they should get that amount. They never consider the fees or cost of time to clean, check and list them for sale.

People become vultures in these situations, one estate I valued was where the father had nice stuff and left it for the son who had no interest in firearms. His wife was actually anti-gun. "Family" ended up ripping the guy off, he ignored my values and listened to the family members tell him the stuff was junk and not worth much (even though I gave him values on everything).

It was a shame, his dad had extensive records on loads he used for target shooting and hunting. He had Nightforce scopes on his rifles and he had quality firearms. I needed up buying one pistol for the resale value I gave him (I never asked to get paid for valuing the collection and did not offer). I got an ammo can of hand loads with the pistol which I never knew came with it.