Have any of you rented a table at your local gun show for private sales?

Years ago, so prices are probably more.
$35 a day for a standard 8' table.
I was only selling a huge amount of Linotype (8,000 Lbs of it) when our print shop went digital & we sold off the font sets as we could get $10.00 for a 10Lb box to reloaders & the owner's "cousin" who was "in the business" offered so little it was worth renting the truck & table. :D
 
$50 to $100 a day for a table around me now. I just looked as I had a few thinking about selling. You can take one or two and walk around for free. I almost always took a gun I haven't shot in a while and ask ridiculous prices for it as I walked around. Once or twice someone bought them.
I think the local shows now require a background check on private sales. Not sure how they enforce that. All they can do is throw you out as it isn't a law. I haven't been for years.
 
I remember listening in on a conversation at a private sales table at a show some years back. The seller wanted to put the buyers drivers license data on a receipt format. The buyer didn't want to furnish any identification, just pay and walk.

The conversation went a lot like this :

If you don't want to furnish identification I have to assume you are prohibited from buying a gun and won't sell to you.

I'm not a felon, I just don't trust the government.

Then you're paranoid and I won't sell to you. I'm not the government.

It went downhill from there, if that's possible.
 
That has been my experience as well with private sales. Selling at a show is different from selling on the street or the local McDonald's parking lot where you meet to seal the deal.

You may have to pay sales tax from your proceeds even if you aren't a dealer. The tax boys usually hit late in the show (I'm told), which might be the reason you see sellers leave after a day.... don't know. Just a thought.

Be sure to set prices and don't be wishy-washy about it. Your the seller, you set the price.
 
I have never done that in general. So can not comment on that aspect.

However there was a time years ago when I made Bullet (Cartridge) key chains and other novelty items and sold those at gun shows. Occasionally a gun that I no longer wanted ended up on the table. Selling it was no problem.

However in todays environment I would caution against renting a table at a gun show and selling guns as a non FFL. I get that its legal as long as you are not "engaged in the business of" - however that is a very fluid and subjective definition as its written in law. And I can see where some young BATFE undercover agent may try to make a case against you being an unlicensed "dealer". Do you really want to take a chance with that right now ??

May I suggest you consider consignment sales through local gun or pawn shops. That way you are 100% covered.

Regards,

Rob
 
I would not be concerned about taking up a table for one or two shows to sell your excess collection pieces, unless you're liquidating a collection of AK47s or something.

Any change in the BATFE definition of what a dealer is, is going to done through a public process with a date certain for the new policy, plenty of time to cancel a table rental if you need to.

The BATFE is not going to swoop into six hundred gun shows and start putting thousands of citizens in handcuffs.

If they see you at every show in your area for a year, with you selling stuff you bought at the last show, then you're on the radar, but not until then.
 
I've thought about getting a table because I have heard that a lot of good deals happen between vendors on the friday setup day. You get first shot at products with low inventories (primers, powder) and a chance to check out everyone else's guns and perhaps strike a deal. Worth $75 to me. I may not even setup a table or if I do have very little on it.
 
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