Pull up a chair folks, this story may take a little while...

I have a very good friend (and former co-worker) who is the executrix of her uncle's estate.  Although I never met the man, he sounded like an intersting fellow and he collected several interesting things.  After distributing specifically bequeathed items, my friend was saddled with the task of liquidating the collections on behalf of the estate.  She found a coin expert to sell his considerable coin collection, a watch expert to sell his railroad pocketwatches, etc.  Now I don't claim to be a "gun expert," but his gun collection was quite small compared to his other collections and she asked if I could sell it for her.  

{Let me briefly clarify my use of the word "collection."  I normally wouldn't use "collection" to describe 30-40 firearms - I own over 150 firearms and personally hesitate to call what I have a "collection" because most of mine are shooters, not safe queens (FWIW, I usually plant tongue firmly in cheek and call mine an "arsenal" just to tweak the liberals ).  I have a few family heirlooms and antiques, but the vast majority of my firearms are modern and are fired (a lot!).  But this gentleman was much more of a collector than a shooter.  Most of the pieces in his collection are valuable and in excellent condition - many are antiques and some appear never to have been fired.  His niece tells me that he wore cotton gloves when he took them out of the safe to handle them and that he rarely shot most of them.}

She and her husband are not "gun people," but she knows that I am and assumed (correctly so) that there might be a piece or two in the collection that I would want for myself.  I visited with them and tried to look up approximate values in the Blue Book to give them a rough idea of asking prices for family members who might want to buy some before turning them over to me.  They let the family members who were interested have first choice and ended up selling about half of the collection directly to family (needless to say, some of the items I really wanted (Clark Custom 1911, Browning HP, Colt Python, a couple of Winchester 94s) went to family - but hey, they're family and I'm not...).

So now I have the remaining 18 items and I am trying to get a better idea of their individual values.  Over the next few weeks I will choose the ones I will buy for myself, my Dad is interested in one or two, and I have a close friend/neighbor/shooting buddy who wants one or two.  The rest will be offered for sale to the public once I have established appropriate sale prices.  Even though my friend, my Dad, and I will be buying some of the firearms, I am handling this on behalf of a good friend and I want to be sure and establish a fair and appropriate "bottom floor price" for each item that will not cheat the estate in any way.  They have kindly offered me a commission for doing this (which I plan to just deduct from the cost of the ones I choose to keep), so I must admit I have a vested interest in getting the most for the ones which will be sold.

The remaining items are a really "mixed bag" and include a boxed set of English duelling pistols, a Civil War S&W Model 2 tip-up revolver, a WWII Luger, a pair of Remington .41RF derringers, a Colt SAA .45, a Colt Gov't .380, a Walther PPK/s, a Berretta 84, a Berretta 1934, a Mauser HSc, a Mauser rifle, a Civil War musket, an L.C. Smith double 20 ga., a SAKO Forester, a BRNO 21H, and a few other items.  Most of these are pristine and several are in their original boxes.

Because of my love for this site, I plan to offer the items I don't buy (or sell in person) for sale here on the Equipment Exchange before I post them on one of the firearm auction sites - but PLEASE don't post/e-mail me trying to buy them before I post them for sale on EE.  I don't yet know which ones will be for sale and I am still establishing values on most of them.  (When I do decide, I will post the final outcome here.)  

The remaining items are now for sale and are/will be posted in EE before posting for auction.

I have posted pictures and descriptions of each item in the appropriate forums here and hope to discuss them - some of you know much more about what they are worth than I do.  Here are links to those individual threads:  Links removed because items are now for sale - didn't want to break any "cross-posting" rules.

English duelling pistols - to be professionally auctioned

Civil War S&W Model 2 tip-up revolver - to be professionally auctioned

WWII-era Luger - sold

Colt SAA .45 - for sale

Ruby .38 - sold

Colt Gov't .380 - sold

Walther PPK/S - sale pending

Berretta 84 - sold

Berretta 1934 - sale pending

Mauser HSc - for sale

Mauser rifle - sold

Civil War musket - for sale

L.C. Smith double 20 ga. - for sale

Fulton Arms single-shot 12 ga. - for sale

SAKO Forester - sold

BRNO 21H - sold

Remington .41RF derringer - for sale

You might want to email Hannah_R about the Luger - if she doesn't know off the top of her head, she can probably point you to an online forum for this kind of stuff.

hardshell check your IM please

mike

This spring a heard a tale of woe that I missed out on, though a friend managed to pick up a few shotguns on the second hand transaction....   seems the widow was selling off here husbands collection of several hundred guns.  Her selling price was $200 for 10 guns.  Cough, gasp, gage...   if you were quiet you could hear hubby spinning over in his grave.

I couldn't get the Luger link to open. can you please send me a picture of it? Thanks

i might be interested in the mauser rifle.  depends on import mark/code though.

link doesn't work yet for me either.  please IM me about the mauser.

Oooooooh!  If only I had the $$ for that Colt Government 380!  THOSE GUNS KICK ASS!

If you're not smart enough to buy that for yourself, you should just GIVE IT TO ME FOR FREE!  [BD]  That's one SWEET LITTLE GUN!

Shoot it before you decided not to keep it!  [:D]  You'd keep it after that!

The perfect summer CCW gun!  Matches all outfits too...  [;D]

I'd be happy to talk to you about the Colt .380 myself.[:D]

I have established prices for all of the firearms & the remaining ones are now for sale - I am in the process of listing them on EE (all the links have been removed from the original post in this thread.)  Thanks.