Moving and need to get rid of guns!

K

karim0028

Inactive
**this is not a solicitiation to sell***

Hey Guys,



Im moving outta the country for a couple years and have two glocks (Gen 3, 19 & 26) i need to get rid of....

Whats the best way to sell them? Ive got a one way ticket in 12 days and i cant take them with me....

Whats the best way to get rid of them and not get taken on the price?

Would appreciate input, bc im pretty sure the dealers will rape you on the price...

Thanks!
H
 
My advice is to find a dealer who does consignment and is willing to send you a check wherever it is that you're going.* The dealer will usually charge a consignment fee of 5%-25% of the final selling price, but you'll generally get more money this way than selling the pistols to the same dealer for cash, as most dealers typically pay only 1/3 to 2/3 of the retail value.

Be aware that most jurisdictions require the same paperwork, background check, registration, and/or waiting period (as applicable) to reclaim a consignment gun as they would for the purchase of a new gun. However, if you don't believe there's any chance you'll need to reclaim the guns, this is probably not a factor.

*Foonote: Since you're leaving the country, I'd suggest leaving a couple of postage-paid self-addressed envelopes, just to ensure that the dealer doesn't mangle the postal code or address format.
 
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Just sell them to a dealer and be done.
The possibility of a long distance hassle isn't worth the small difference in price for selling them any other way.
 
I'd try and hang on to them if I was you. The value of guns isn't going down. Do you not have anyone who can keep them for you for a while? :confused:
 
Model12Win said:
The value of guns isn't going down.
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However, for a pair of popular modern Glocks, the value also isn't likely to significantly go up.
Model12Win said:
Do you not have anyone who can keep them for you for a while?
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Barring some sort of unforeseen ban, the OP should be able to easily replace them if/when he/she moves back to the United States. State laws don't always make it easy for someone else to store your guns, and there are all sorts of conceivable long-distance hassles that could occur (recipient unexpectedly has to move, he/she has a falling-out with the OP, his/her new spouse doesn't like guns, his/her state of residence enacts a WA-style UBC law, house is burglarized and guns are stolen, etc). All this potential trouble over only a couple of easily replaceable guns?

Besides, if they ARE banned, the OP likely won't be able to easily and lawfully reclaim them anyway.
g.willikers said:
Just sell them to a dealer and be done.
The possibility of a long distance hassle isn't worth the small difference in price for selling them any other way.
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Despite my earlier advice, this may be more practical, particularly considering that we're talking about only two pistols that are very commonplace and aren't particularly valuable.
 
If your state/municipality allows it, you could try selling them as a private party sale at a local gun show. Before you even consider doing so, check of the legality of doing this where you live. In Tennessee, it is perfectly legal for private party sales, but the laws where you live may be different.

Of course, this also depends on having a local gun show before you have to move. If it's not legal, and/or there isn't going to be a gunshow before you move, consignment or an outright sale to a dealer are likely to be your only choices.

If you are willing to post the state you live in, I'd bet someone here could tell you if private party sales are legal or not in your state.
 
The OP apparently has 12 days in which to sell the guns. That severely limits the amount of hassle he can deal with and the amount of time and energy he can put into the project. The guns are also common, modern Glocks produced in very large quantities and models already superseded by new models, so they're unlikely to have any collectors value.

Unfortunately, needing to do something quickly and making the best deal are mutually exclusive. In the OP's place, I'd sell the guns quickly to a dealer for whatever I could get and not look back.
 
Given 12 days, and a bazillion Glocks out there, just consign them or sell them to a dealer.

Put the money in the bank for your gun budget when you come back.
 
Seems kind of last minute, but I don't know the situation (nor do I need to)

Another option, if its possible, is to simply find a dealer who will store them for you. And how much they would charge. Consider that the $400 GLock of today might be a $600 or $800 Glock in a few years, not because of an increase in value, but because of a decrease in our money. SO, even though replacement a couple years down the road might be possible, what will it cost you then?

You might be further ahead just to pay for a couple years storage. depending on how much it is, of course. And when you get back, you can still probably sell them, if you want...

Just a thought.
 
44 AMP said:
Another option, if its possible, is to simply find a dealer who will store them for you. And how much they would charge. Consider that the $400 GLock of today might be a $600 or $800 Glock in a few years, not because of an increase in value, but because of a decrease in our money.
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The following factors would have to be considered...
  • Whether the OP actually returns to the United States as planned.
  • Whether the conceivable difference in value will be eaten up by the storage fees before he/she returns.
  • The future exchange rate of the currency in the destination country vs. the U.S. dollar, which is even more unpredictable than the inflation rate of the dollar itself.
  • What happens if there's a dispute with the dealer, or the dealer closes up shop on short notice? The OP may get little or nothing, particularly considering the potential legal costs vs. the limited value of the two guns (equal to ~3 billable hours of a good attorney's time, and probably less than a round-trip plane ticket back). This risk also exists with a consignment, but the risk greatly increases the longer the guns are there.
Not worth it IMHO.
 
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Ordinarily I'd suggest consignment rather than outright sale to a dealer. But ... the 12-day window has to be considered, as does the fact that the OP will be moving out of the country. That complicates things.

There's a small gun shop a few miles from me. I frequently stop in on Saturdays just to chat and look for anything new and of interest (and affordable). Over the past two or three MONTHS I have been seeing pretty much the same used handguns in the display cases. I happen to have a .38 Special revolver on consignment at a different gun shop. Both the shop owner and I think it's priced very reasonably -- it has been there for at least three months, and the shop owner says only a couple of people have even asked to look at it.

The boom is over, and sales are very flat. If these guns are left on consignment, how is the FFL supposed to get the money to the OP? International transfers are a nuisance, and even if they use Western Union (which is probably the easiest way), there's a fee of approximately 10 percent of the amount transferred. And the consignment commission is typically (around here, at least) 15 percent. So we're looking at a total overhead of 25 percent to sell a couple of easily available firearms. Plus, there's no way to predict how quickly or how slowly they may sell.

Is it worth it? Because they are readily available, they won't (can't) sell for a premium. IMHO, if the OP wants or needs to sell them before leaving the country, he should just sell them outright to a local FFL and be done with it.
 
Offer them for sale here at a really good price. Something half-way between what a dealer would pay you (roughly 50% of what they are worth) and what they are actually selling for on gunbroker. Lower the price a little bit each day until you have it sold.

Require immediate payment by postal money order so that you can quickly ship the gun(s) to the Buyer's FFL. You can easily make this happen in the next 12 days. I've completed firearms sales within 3-4 days of winning an auction. Be prepared to provide Buyer with your personal information so he/she can verify that you are not a fraud. Also, be prepared to forward detailed pictures of YOUR gun to any potential buyer, with the buyer's email address written on a piece of paper and physically placed over the gun you are selling.
 
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Frank Ettin said:
Unfortunately, needing to do something quickly and making the best deal are mutually exclusive. In the OP's place, I'd sell the guns quickly to a dealer for whatever I could get and not look back.
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I think this sums it up.

While there's a price at which anything will move, the higher the price, the more specific you are being in looking for a buyer. The more specific the buyer, the longer it is likely to take to sell them.

At less than two weeks you can't even begin to expect you'll find someone willing to pay near new prices for them. Maybe if you knew somebody who wanted one. I'd say post them here but your newness of membership won't let you have access to the classifieds section. You could try Armslist or some other similar online classified ad system, but even then you have to know it is highly unlikely you'll get a good deal for you out of them in that short span of time.

I might say to try something like that, but only give it a week or so... once you get within a couple days of having to leave, then at that point you'll need to sell them fast, which means a dealer... which means you'll get less. If you can't store them, the lost value is going to have to get taken as a loss- just chalk it up to what the opportunity is costing you and don't look back.
 
I would just give them to a friend or family member to keep until I got back. But, while that's legal on a federal level (provided that person isn't prohibited from possessing firearms), that may not be legal in the OP's state. That's why it would help to know which state he or she is in.
 
Snyper said:
carguychris said:
However, for a pair of popular modern Glocks, the value also isn't likely to significantly go up.
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I bet folks said the same about AR-15's before Sandy Hook
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AR-15s are at the same prices they were before Sandy Hook. Sure, the threat of gun control sometimes causes spikes in demand that temporarily raise prices, but they go back down pretty quickly. The post Sandy Hook craziness lasted longer than usual, but prices on AR-15s have been back down to normal levels for a while now.

Unless the OP comes back to the states during a gun-control-fueled gun buying spree, it's unlikely for his Glocks to be worth much more than they are now.
 
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