Another auction house closes its doors

[rovercoupe]

Just seen today that scotarms is no longer trading, used to enjoy a trip there to a proper non online auction and a rummage through the boxes of random stuff that turned up there. Sad times as I thought auctions were doing well with there huge fees these days.

the one in beccles seems to have gone too had a few nice guns from there in the past.

[marsh man]

9 minutes ago, rovercoupe said:

Just seen today that scotarms is no longer trading, used to enjoy a trip there to a proper non online auction and a rummage through the boxes of random stuff that turned up there. Sad times as I thought auctions were doing well with there huge fees these days.

the one in beccles seems to have gone too had a few nice guns from there in the past.

Not sure about the one in Beccles , but Gaze in Diss is still trading , or as far as I know .

I used to love going to the Collings sporting auction at Gaywood near Kings Lynn , had two a year and I treated it as a good night out , bought stuff that I didn't really want like you do and bought a couple of cheap guns that were a bargain , now the nearest one is Horners at Acle , in the Summer they put another sale on for guns as they had more than they could cope with in one sale , they seem to be doing very , very well .   MM

[ditchman]

2 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Not sure about the one in Beccles , but Gaze in Diss is still trading , or as far as I know .

I used to love going to the Collings sporting auction at Gaywood near Kings Lynn , had two a year and I treated it as a good night out , bought stuff that I didn't really want like you do and bought a couple of cheap guns that were a bargain , now the nearest one is Horners at Acle , in the Summer they put another sale on for guns as they had more than they could cope with in one sale , they seem to be doing very , very well .   MM

god i bought some carp in the gaywood one......it was the favourite venue for the drunken contingent of kings lynn wildfolwers (of which i was one)

[marsh man]

Just now, ditchman said:

god i bought some carp in the gaywood one......it was the favourite venue for the drunken contingent of kings lynn wildfolwers (of which i was one)

I had bought a few cheese rolls there along with a plastic cup of tea over the years , you might had been there when they made a rush to the front just before they started and who knows weather it was you who was the next highest bidder when I was bidding for more junk , then to even it up , I might had pushed the price up when you were bidding for yet more junk , Happy days. 

[Miserableolgit]

12 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Not sure about the one in Beccles , but Gaze in Diss is still trading , or as far as I know .

I used to love going to the Collings sporting auction at Gaywood near Kings Lynn , had two a year and I treated it as a good night out , bought stuff that I didn't really want like you do and bought a couple of cheap guns that were a bargain , now the nearest one is Horners at Acle , in the Summer they put another sale on for guns as they had more than they could cope with in one sale , they seem to be doing very , very well .   MM

Yes Gaze's are still going, SWMBO and I are regulars and have bought and sold there for quite a few years. They seem to be doing ok but like most the fees are a bit eye watering. 

[ditchman]

57 minutes ago, marsh man said:

I had bought a few cheese rolls there along with a plastic cup of tea over the years , you might had been there when they made a rush to the front just before they started and who knows weather it was you who was the next highest bidder when I was bidding for more junk , then to even it up , I might had pushed the price up when you were bidding for yet more junk , Happy days. 

think i told you this before....me and my mate mick howard were at the auction one time and it was packed out and i couldnt get to see the items being sold...i wanted a couple of cartridge bags ..and in my drunken state i bid for a 8 lot of leather cartridge bags..got them for £8 quid each......when i paid and picked them up ....THEY WERE BLOODY CHINESE MADE LADIES HAND BAGS

christ i was savage.......the dockers next day when i was there working on the Lenne Rigis dredger were walking up and down the wharf doing bloody teapot impressions.............

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, ditchman said:

think i told you this before....me and my mate mick howard were at the auction one time and it was packed out and i couldnt get to see the items being sold...i wanted a couple of cartridge bags ..and in my drunken state i bid for a 8 lot of leather cartridge bags..got them for £8 quid each......when i paid and picked them up ....THEY WERE BLOODY CHINESE MADE LADIES HAND BAGS

christ i was savage.......the dockers next day when i was there working on the Lenne Rigis dredger were walking up and down the wharf doing bloody teapot impressions.............

Next door to the sale room is a pub called the Wildfowler and going out of Kings Lynn on the way to Lincolnshire is another pub called the Wildfowler , strange how you get two pubs within a fairly short distance both called The Wildfowler , did you have your meetings in either of them ?  MM

[ditchman]

16 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Next door to the sale room is a pub called the Wildfowler and going out of Kings Lynn on the way to Lincolnshire is another pub called the Wildfowler , strange how you get two pubs within a fairly short distance both called The Wildfowler , did you have your meetings in either of them ?  MM

no we didnt ..not during my time ....we had AGM's in the part of lynn where the fishermen lived.....

[Pushandpull]

The Wildfowler on Gayton Road. Lynn. is being refurbished and renamed The Queen Elizabeth. The Wildfowler at Terrington St. Clement (on the corner of Marshland Street - how appropriate) is still going strong. The Wildfowler on the Wash at Gedney Drove End bore this name for a short time but is now closed. The first two had no particular association with the local clubs that I am aware of, at least back to the sixties.

[Pushandpull]

Back in the day, general meetings were usually at the Dock Labour Board, dances at the South Lynn Community Centre. Subs could be paid in cash at the Fisherman's Arms in Pilot Street and later at The Bentinck on Loke Road.

Across the river, the Fenland club always  met in Wisbech, rather than in the Marshland villages, until recent years.

[marsh man]

19 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

The Wildfowler on Gayton Road. Lynn. is being refurbished and renamed The Queen Elizabeth. The Wildfowler at Terrington St. Clement (on the corner of Marshland Street - how appropriate) is still going strong. The Wildfowler on the Wash at Gedney Drove End bore this name for a short time but is now closed. The first two had no particular association with the local clubs that I am aware of, at least back to the sixties.

 

6 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

Back in the day, general meetings were usually at the Dock Labour Board, dances at the South Lynn Community Centre. Subs could be paid in cash at the Fisherman's Arms in Pilot Street and later at The Bentinck on Loke Road.

Across the river, the Fenland club always  met in Wisbech, rather than in the Marshland villages, until recent years.

That was the one I was thinking of at Terrington St Clement P + P , we passed that pub once on the way to a game fair and I said to my brother we will drop in on our back and have a pint , thinking the place would be covered in wildfowling bits and pieces , sadly it wasn't and apart from the name I don't think it had much to do with fowling , I never knew there was another pub with the same name at Gedney drove End , it's a wonder they didn't have a hotel named the Wildfowler around the Wash area with the amount of fowlers making there way to the mecca in the peak years , maybe they stayed at the pubs bearing the same name .

[Pushandpull]

Back in the day, there were two best-known places to stay for visitors, first the Bridge Hotel at Sutton Bridge. The artist Hugh Monahan paid his bills with pictures and they hung on the walls. The other was the Bull at Long Sutton, kept by the wonderful Mrs. Mitchell. There are many tales of this in the old Shooting Times from Peter Whitaker, including the guest who claimed to have slipped on the ice on the bathroom floor. She died, it closed, and still remains shut to this day. If you have seen the James Robertson Justice punting video it is where he is standing for the introduction.

[enfieldspares]

I have known Mike Scott for forty five plus years from when he was a Leicester RFD trading from an upstairs gallery at his private house in Glenfield near Leicester. We were members of the same rifle and pistol club and Mike would often bring down interesting items from his stock in hand. I can recall a 7 1/2" barrel Webley Fosbery and also...which I fired...a fine .470 Nitro Express Holland & Holland double rifles. I like Mike Scot. A bit "Marmite" to some but I liked him. 

I think though the only gun I ever purchased from him was an early Browning High-Power. The model that had the machined thumb recess on the slide to aid taking the pistol down. But I digress.

Now a Mike Scott story told to me by a friend who ended up acquiring it. Again many years ago he used to stand at the now long gone Nottingham Arms Fairs. In the days when these arms fairs actually sold...well...arms. Not the badge and button jamoborees they've now become. Mike had a fine Westley Richards double muzzleloading shot gun for sale and was being "badgered" by some punter who was quibbling on wanting a £25 price reduction on its £500 price.

Mike would have none of it and, as my friend said, was clearly getting more and more irritated by the man's persistent attempt at haggling the price down. My friend was at the arms fair with an acquaintance who knew, as I did, Mike quite well in a business sense. All of use were regulars at Weller & Dufty which Mike subsequently much later acquired. So at this acquaintance's urging of "Just go up and ask how much he wants for it while the persistent haggler is still there" my friend did.

"Hello how much do you want for it?" he asked Mike Scott interrupting the haggler's continuing attempts to get his £25 off. Back came the reply. "To you £400." My friend said his acquaintance looked at him, just smiled, and said "Pay the man." Which he did and walked off with his purchase leaving the now much deflated persistent haggler open mouthed.

Edited August 12 by enfieldspares

[Vince Green]

A friend has been trying to sell a .243 Browning without sucess . In the end he thought he would have to put it in an auction but Holts would not take it. Full up or words to that effect.

I think the auctions are suffering all the same problems as the rest of the trade.

[udderlyoffroad]

Harper Field had one of their sales last week and stuff seemed to be fetching some pretty hefty prices.  Pretty sure it was all direct to the public as I doubt RFDs would be able to make any money given what some of the lots were fetching.

There was the usual abundance of SxS that went for £20, and a lot of them attracted no bids, so yet more have gone to scrap.  Also some people seemed to paying more for cartridges of unknown provenance than you’d pay at a dealer, or certainly not with enough of a saving to justify the faff.
 

[Andy H]

Yes  i have bought quite a bit from Scotty from when I was an RFD  , That big vault door at Weller and Dufty I and  will always remember carrying a cannon out that dungeon with one of the fellow RFD dealers that he had purchased.

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Harper Field had one of their sales last week and stuff seemed to be fetching some pretty hefty prices.  Pretty sure it was all direct to the public as I doubt RFDs would be able to make any money given what some of the lots were fetching.

There was the usual abundance of SxS that went for £20, and a lot of them attracted no bids, so yet more have gone to scrap.  Also some people seemed to paying more for cartridges of unknown provenance than you’d pay at a dealer, or certainly not with enough of a saving to justify the faff.
 

I took two hammer guns to our auction house earlier on in the Summer , one was a tidy T Wild of Birmingham and the other was a very old Midland , the chap was friendly enough and we had a good yarn , he then looked at the Midland and said in his opinion I would be wasting my £10 fee they charge for a gunsmith to make sure they are safe to sell plus a 20% fee for selling it , the T Wild was about the same , he said it would most likely sell but if I didn't put a reserve on it then it might make next to nothing , and if I did put a reserve on it and it didn't make it would cost me getting on for £15 time they take there £10 out for the gunsmith and then there is a fee to enter it .

Cartridges do make good money , a lot of people don't add the fee on to the winning bid , so a slab of cartridges that went for £60 hammer price soon become over £70 when you go and pay for them , so the auction get it both ways , from the buyer and seller without parting with a penny ,     MM

[enfieldspares]

I collected a gun from Stonehouse today in fact. With the wife and the eleven year old. Then in to Gloucester for jollof rice and chicken for lunch at Madam Jossy's Kitchen on Vauxhall Road followed by the Soldiers of Gloucester Museum and then back to Madam Jossy's for some suya we'd asked her to have ready for our return and then home. Yes there was a gentleman there being advised that having tried to sell the shotguns he had entered bit without success that they decline holding them to try a second time.

Edited August 13 by enfieldspares

[ditchman]

4 hours ago, marsh man said:

I took two hammer guns to our auction house earlier on in the Summer , one was a tidy T Wild of Birmingham and the other was a very old Midland , the chap was friendly enough and we had a good yarn , he then looked at the Midland and said in his opinion I would be wasting my £10 fee they charge for a gunsmith to make sure they are safe to sell plus a 20% fee for selling it , the T Wild was about the same , he said it would most likely sell but if I didn't put a reserve on it then it might make next to nothing , and if I did put a reserve on it and it didn't make it would cost me getting on for £15 time they take there £10 out for the gunsmith and then there is a fee to enter it .

Cartridges do make good money , a lot of people don't add the fee on to the winning bid , so a slab of cartridges that went for £60 hammer price soon become over £70 when you go and pay for them , so the auction get it both ways , from the buyer and seller without parting with a penny ,     MM

here you are...this is an idea ive had for a while............

buy up all the stuffed hammer guns you can...cut em up except the LOCKS....then polish them up and set them in good quality perspex and sell them for desk/paper weights......

[marsh man]

46 minutes ago, ditchman said:

here you are...this is an idea ive had for a while............

buy up all the stuffed hammer guns you can...cut em up except the LOCKS....then polish them up and set them in good quality perspex and sell them for desk/paper weights......

You can get good money by making them into table lamps . problem is the stock with the action and the hammers would be classed as a working part of the gun and I believe it would need to be activated , might be wrong , perhaps someone who know could clarify this , Richardson's quoted around £150 / 160 , although they no longer do that service .  MM

[Old Boggy]

8 hours ago, marsh man said:

You can get good money by making them into table lamps . problem is the stock with the action and the hammers would be classed as a working part of the gun and I believe it would need to be activated , might be wrong , perhaps someone who know could clarify this , Richardson's quoted around £150 / 160 , although they no longer do that service .  MM

I thought ( maybe wrong though) that the stock action and forends (i.e. without the barrels) can be bought at auction without a SGC, so buying the locks could be a viable proposition to either make paperweights or perhaps mount the locks in a frame.

OB

 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

9 hours ago, ditchman said:

here you are...this is an idea ive had for a while............buy up all the stuffed hammer guns you can...cut em up except the LOCKS....then polish them up and set them in good quality perspex and sell them for desk/paper weights......

And as soon as you started to have multiple guns on your SGC the Police would expect you to apply for your RFD Ticket.

9 hours ago, marsh man said:

You can get good money by making them into table lamps . problem is the stock with the action and the hammers would be classed as a working part of the gun and I believe it would need to be activated , might be wrong , perhaps someone who know could clarify this , Richardson's quoted around £150 / 160 , although they no longer do that service .  MM

There are only so many light stands and paperweights that will sell

54 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

I thought ( maybe wrong though) that the stock action and forends (i.e. without the barrels) can be bought at auction without a SGC, so buying the locks could be a viable proposition to either make paperweights or perhaps mount the locks in a frame.

Not as far as I am aware, unless someone has deactivated them with certification or a chap like Wabbitbosher saws them up and informs his authority of their destruction.

[Old Boggy]

Just now, TIGHTCHOKE said:

And as soon as you started to have multiple guns on your SGC the Police would expect you to apply for your RFD Ticket.

There are only so many light stands and paperweights that will sell

Not as far as I am aware, unless someone has deactivated them with certification or a chap like Wabbitbosher saws them up and informs his authority of their destruction.

Ok, thanks for clarifying that Dave, I just wasn`t sure, but should have known really.

[marsh man]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

And as soon as you started to have multiple guns on your SGC the Police would expect you to apply for your RFD Ticket.

There are only so many light stands and paperweights that will sell

Not as far as I am aware, unless someone has deactivated them with certification or a chap like Wabbitbosher saws them up and informs his authority of their destruction.

 

1 hour ago, Old Boggy said:

Ok, thanks for clarifying that Dave, I just wasn`t sure, but should have known really.

THANKS for the advise chaps ... I have seen the odd complete hammer gun stock on the bay that were making as much if not more than the complete gun would be worth but I don't think the police would think to kindly if you just handed in the barrels and you kept the rest to try and sell , I was told you could keep the pair of metal hammers and that was about it .

I gave my Midland hammer gun away to a ticket holder and he was going to get it de activated for his dad as a Christmas present , that is how I found out it cost around £150 to have it sorted out , even the gun dealers don't want them as a gift , no wonder so many are ending up on the scrapheap , bit like me really