Gun Shows

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Bucksnort1

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Just because you are at a gun show, doesn't mean you will always find great prices. I'm sure you know this but you must shop the entire show. For example, at the Tanner show, last weekend, I found a number of vendors selling HP-38 for $25 per pound except at one table where it was $20.
 
I find most gun shows are pretty bad deals for the most part...there is the occasional deal to be had, and you can always haggle... but they are certainly not like they used to be.
 
Pogybait. I was at Tanner last Saturday. One vendor, whom I have patronized for many years, tried to gouge me for $35 for a pound of Unique. I was insulted! No more of my money will that vendor get (unless I get really desperate). Just down the aisle was the same powder for $28.

Couple shows ago I did get what I felt was a great deal on a Winchester Winder musket. I guess you just have to keep your eyes open, and as they say, even a blind hog will find a truffle now and again.

As I was walking out of the show, I remember when I first got started in this, a pound of Unique was well under $10.

If you haven't been, you need to go to the collector's show in May, especially if you want to see prices that will cause your eyebrows to reach your hairline. :eek:
 
Gun shows seem to be getting a lot of guys selling trying to make big money. The deals that used to be there are not there any longer.
 
I set up at a show in Virginia twice a year. It's a small collector show, one of the last of the non-profits. I also occasionally go to the huge Nation's Show that come up every 6 or 8 weeks. You are liable to find almost anything in the way of goods or deals at either one. There is nothing to prevent the most blatant piracy from being practiced, and sometimes someone just has to sell something really nice and somebody else goes home a winner.
I mostly sell books and nick-knacks and try to find interesting things. I never go home disappointed because I don't expect to make any money.
Be aware too that with the shortages in components we have been seeing lately, it is possible that a vendor might have paid more for something yesterday than it costs today. Various levels of officialdom have also been conspiring of late to complicate the sale of gun-related stuff, especially powder and primers.
 
I stopped going to the gun shows about 6 years ago. The "deals" that used to be out there had all dried up and I could find better pricing on-line for the powder, bullets, or whatever else I was looking for.
 
The last show I went to some years ago, too. I went to buy a Marlin 1895 and never spotted a good price and tried haggling to learn the minimum I would have to pay. But then, just because it was nearby, after leaving the show frustrated I went to a local gun shop, and there was a new 1895 for about 15% less than the best show price I could haggle. That's the one I own now, of course.

Back in the 1980's the gun shows were great. Tables would set you back $10 for the weekend and lots of folks who just wanted to socialize were there with odds and ends out for sale on their tables. Lots of junk, of course, but a few serious collectors had really nice things on display. There were just a few commercial dealers mixed in and sometimes Springfield Armory or a bullet maker would show up at the big shows and you could buy seconds and blemished items often for a song.

But then the commercial promoters came along and took it over the old club sponsored shows. The table fees got too big for most of the casual table holders (though some of that was due to liability insurance hikes caused by law suits). The small private sellers and collectors were gradually replaced by full time gun show circuit sellers with regular travel and other overhead expenses. The resulting loss of private seller competition drove prices up. The Clinton administration decided, as a matter of policy, to drive tens of thousands of small FFL holders out of the system by raising the annual FFL renewal fee ten fold, thereby creating a new class of private seller. Finally, of course, the Internet has grown in leaps and bounds as a venue for commercial and private sellers alike, so a lot of them no longer feel the need to pay for gun show tables.
 
I found a number of vendors selling HP-38 for $25 per pound except at one table where it was $20.
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$25 is a fair price for the powder, I would check how old that $20.00 a pound powder was? Last gun show I went to was over 4 years ago. Most items and guns were over priced.

Good luck on finding a bargain and stay safe.
Jim
 
Nemesiss, I agree. The attraction for me is seeing so much stuff under one roof and an occasional good deal. You'd have to spend an entire lifetime visiting every gun store west of the Mississippi River to see all this.
 
stubbicatt,

I went to a collector's show, many years ago. I wasn't excited about it because I didn't see many tables with everything from apples to hand held nuclear weapons. These are my favorites places to scrounge through at these shows. It was nice to see the collector firearms displays. I have not been to one since. Maybe I'll make an exception, this year. Thanks.
 
Jim243, I did not check the manufacture date on the powder, if there is one. It is packaged in the modern day black plastic one pound container complete with factory seal.
 
most gun show sellers are not motivated to sell to you cheap, as they have to have something to put on the tables next week, & there are lines of people coming through...

but not all... I buy 2 tables to one local show every year... I tell people to make me an offer, I'm not going to a show next week, & I'd rather sell it cheap, than haul it home & store it for a whole year... granted I don't want to give stuff away, but if you really wanted something, & it's not looking like I'll sell it to the next person that comes along, I'll usually take any reasonable offer... & I'm more motivated the 2nd half of the last day, than I am the 1st hour of the 1st day
 
Magnum Wheel Man,

I agree with you. When I go to garage sales, I see people trying to sell some items for a lot more money than they are worth. For me, the spirit of the garage sale is to get rid of items and make a few bucks. This is similar to gun shows.

I always make an offer on some items or ask for a better price. I did this, a few months ago, when I bought a S&W, 686, 3", .357. I asked for a reduction of $100 and got it. I was satisfied with my purchase. Actually, I got a better deal than the seller wanted because he had two. One was used and the other was new. I asked for a price reduction on the new. I now believe he thought I was buying the used, which is the reason he agreed with my price. Initially, I picked up the used gun which I did not know was used. I asked him if it was new to which he said, yes. I could tell the gun had been fired more than one or two times by the powder marks on the front of the cylinder. I did not say anything to him, which I should have.
 
I have watched shows go down hill for a couple years. I have not been to one in a long time, but some people that still go say they are really thinning out. I suspect on line auctions are going to eventually replace the shows.
 
Some of my best deals have been at gun shows, but not with dealers. I gotten much better prices buying and selling with other people attending the shows also looking to buy or sell. In TX we can sell FTF to other nonprohibited TX residents without a transfer through a FFL.
 
Same in Virginia. I keep renewing my table so I can sell a gun for something close to retail. Of course, with a 6 ft table now at $70, these is really no economic sense to it. Sometimes I don't even gross $70. I do it to visit with old friends and make new ones, and to see what comes in the door. From what I have seen so far this year, the economy has definitely slowed down.
 
Last year I went to a local show, and powder prices weren't terrible but everything else seemed ridiculous. This was the opening morning so I probably could have made some good deals on the second day.
The most notable thing was a fella with a semicircle of 6 tables and had new in the box Ar15 type rifles, when the doors opened the tables were full and stacked 3 deep, by the time I left, which was a few hours, he only had a few and fellas were filling out forms left and right, now that fella must have made those rifles really affordable. .
I have no need for one, so I never inquired, but I should have anyway.
The tables I like are rifle parts and stocks, and milsurp ammo. I look for deals on that stuff, a fella can't have too many mauser ot 03 parts right???
 
What makes them so much fun is that each one is unique. At the bigger ones you can still find craftsmen working leather or metal, and fascinating stuff from all around the world. At the little show I do they say no flea-market, and you can find serious collections - old Colts and Winchesters, WW II guns in perfect condition, classic S&W in the box. You bet they want an arm and a leg. If they sell they just move to a different table. There is a guy with 10 or 12 tables covered with new guns. I think he's the biggest dealer in Virginia, with stores in the south and west, where rents are cheap. By doing shows he get exposure to the population centers and he does a lot of business. I don't buy new anymore but I think his prices are very reasonable.
 
Also estate sales, I was at one that had used 38 special brass for $10 a box of 50!

Open box's of 38 semi wad cutters --retail plus.

But then sometimes they don't know what they have, I bought a new shot maker for $10!

Remember it is not our job to educate these people but rather make the best deal we can.
 
At one gun show looking through a table of high priced lever actions, came across one several hundred dollars less than the others. Caliber was .32 Winchester Special that no one was interested in so I scooped it up since I didn't have that caliber. At another show came across an almost like new .375 Winchester lever action at a real decent price and jumped at that one. But at another show a dealer was pricing 20X Unertl scopes at $1000, the same I had paid $100 for some years back. Obviously no deal there. But occasionally find Trail Boss powder at usually good gun show price of $20 per 9 oz can.
 
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