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Art, gun and antique dealers buy at auction. One can move a piece from one auction to anonther and make bank.

Over pay, yep I have done that on speciality items where one might not see another one for years. Mostly no, I know where to draw the line.

Recently Little John's in OC, CA (one of the big antique gun auctioneers in the USA) had a Hensoldt Wetzlar Spotting Scope circa 1960, it sold with a stand for $750. On E-bay that afternoon the exact same scope sold for $157.00. A week later one with a tripod mount sold for $137.00 on the bay.

The most amazing thing I have seen at auciton was a S&W Registered 357 Mag that had an auction estimate of $1800 to $2200 go for $17,000. What the fk did I miss in this story was my thought. The auctioneer didn't measure the barrel correctly and it was a special order gun with an unusal barrel length. I thought oh my, somebody knows something here....so about a year later I bought one NIB for about $3000, about 6 months later several were sold for around $12000. Today one can count on around $8000 without a problem. Then again I have seen guys put out 750K without a problem for a gun.