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What is to beware of? Quite a few estate auctions are sprinkled with new items made to look old. But that stuff is so obvious as to be funny.

A collectable auction might be a big spoon auction where some mighty fine stuff is being offfered and the money will crank up to match the quality. One always has to know the merch..just as there have been things that get overpriced some things fall through the cracks.

Then there are th smaller local estate or consignment auctions that might or might not be selling a specific type of merch...Then it comes down to weeding out the good stuff from the run of the mill. Prices at this level on the bigger ticket items is usually less than at the big specific type of merch auctions. It comes down to the concentration of good stuff that attracts a lot of buyers with dinero to purchase that stuff. So prices are generally higher a big collectable auctions. Also one supposes that a lot of people do not have the time to dumpster dive.

It can be quite lucrative to dumpster dive. For example a week ago Friday at an auction in Ill. a Jacobs Dbl Rifle was sold for about $2500. Few were made in 1860 as it had a unique type of rifling. I have seen two ads for those rifles one for $6750 and the other for $7500. Let us suppose that your sale price is going to be the average of the price of the two for sale rifles discounted by 20% and you have $5725.00. That is a 129% profit...

They also had a mint Wm Lawerence high grade percussion rifle that went for $2500. I sold one with a Malcomb scope at auction for $9000. I was the under bidder on this rifle..


I just did not have the money to throw this time around. Or I just can't get them all.
I did get a nice RJ Howland percussion tgt rifle with false muzzle and short starter for just under $1900. Those usually go for around $3500 up...