Don’t Sell Your Guns at Estate Sales Near Me!

As many baby boomers begin to retire, they are downsizing their large family homes and offloading possessions that they no longer need. Consequently, many are holding large estate sales to quickly transition into the next chapter of their lives. Estate sales are highly effective at selling belongings quickly but getting a fair value for the goods can be a real challenge. It’s especially difficult to sell high-value, seldom-use belongings such as estate sale china, estate sale fine furniture and estate sale guns. In this article we discuss what estate sales are and how they work, what belongings are easier and more difficult to sell at these sales and alternatives to estate sales for difficult-to-sell belongings.

What Are Estate Sales & How Do They Work?

Estate sales, aka Tag Sales, are sales in which one or more people wish to sell the belongings of a family or estate. The scale of an estate sale will generally be much larger than garage sales and yard sales.

What events provoke estate sales?

• When a resident downsizes from a large residence to a small residence
• When a resident plans to move
• When two people get divorced
• When a resident files for bankruptcy
• When a death causes an estate to change hands

How do estate sales work in practice?

At estate sales, the public is welcomed into the residence in question. There they may purchase any item that has been marked for sale. Estate sales stand in contrast to estate auctions where all the belongings are auctioned instead of being sold for previously decided upon prices.

When a member of the public wishes to purchase an item at an estate sale, the member generally carries the item on his or her person while continuing to shop until he or she is ready to “check out”. If an item is too big to reasonably carry, the purchaser may request a “marked sold” sticker to be placed on the item by a sale representative. Many estate sales operate on a First-Come-First-Served policy. Sales operating on this policy allow the first person offering to buy an item to buy that item. Deciding what value a belonging has and what price to charge for it can be a real challenge. This is especially true for high-value belongings.

In some cases, estate sale representatives may allow the public to bid below the marked price on select items. Should another buyer wish to pay the marked price, the lower bidder would then forfeit the right to the item.

Estate sales are fantastic for people who don’t care about the possessions they are selling. Many conductors of estates sales, though, are doing so to say goodbye to possessions that have been in the family for generations. Family heirlooms such as jewelry collections and gun collections are highly unlikely to be sold at estate sales for their actual value.

We at Cash My Guns celebrate family and tradition. We understand that gun collections are more than objects for sale. We treat gun collections as pieces of history, and we’ll pay you for them accordingly.

What Do People Sell at Estate Sales?

Estate sale graphic

As previously stated, a property owner may wish to sell or not sell any item associated with an estate. Some common belongings are often found to be easy or difficult to sell based on the nature of the belonging, the location of the sale and the likely participants in the sale.

Belongings that rarely get used are often difficult to sell. The fine china and crystal glasses that have been handed down through generations in a family often hold high sentimental value and perhaps some monetary value, but the advent of dishwasher-safe dishes has caused many to favor practicality over elegance.

The location of the sale will also increase or decrease the value of certain items. For example, selling a boat in a landlocked state may be more difficult than selling a boat in a coastal state. Similarly, certain states make it easy to purchase and sell guns while others do not. People placing an ad for “Estate Sales NJ” may not find many buyers for that old gun collection due to new restrictive gun laws there. People placing an ad for “Estate Sales TX” might attract a ton of gun buyers for that old gun collection.

You might not guess it, but the age of prospective buyers also plays a factor in how quickly estate items will sell. A number of recent articles suggest that millennials, the generation with the most buying power right now, are much less likely to seek out the same valuables as their parents or grandparents. Millennials are said to strongly favor experiences over possessions. If you find yourself conducting an estate sale in a neighborhood populated by a lot of millennials, you may find it difficult to sell a wide variety of previously sought-after possessions.

In summary, it’s getting increasingly difficult to sell high-value, seldom-use possessions. Guns in particular fit that hard-to-sell description to a T. Unsold guns at estate sales may later be put up for auction where sellers will only receive a small fraction of the collection’s value. Worse yet, unsold guns at estate sales are sometimes surrendered to local law enforcement and destroyed.

Sell Guns Via the Best Estate Sale Alternative

The gun collection at your estate sale needn’t be sold for a fraction of its worth. Savvy gun buyers know that buying a gun at an estate sale is a great opportunity to get a steal on a gun collection because sellers are often looking to liquidate their assets quickly. Don’t allow your estate guns for sale to be auctioned for pennies or destroyed.

There is no reason for you to leave money on the table!

We at Cash My Guns are licensed to buy and ship firearms under our Federal Firearms License (FFL), and we follow the rules laid out by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives). Our FFL allows us to help you sell your gun collection without going to a local firearms dealer in person.

You can sell your gun collection from the comfort and safety of your own home using Cashmyguns.com.

Sell your gun collection without leaving the house graphic. Guy in front of fireplace.

We professionally appraise every firearm that comes to us. We can also help you identify the guns in your collection if you’re unsure of their makes and models. Our gun appraisals follow strict guidelines based on: make, model, metal finish, wood & composite finish, overall condition & functionality, rarity, and comparative sales. Our appraisals are always fair, and we are always willing to explain our value assessment upon request.

We pay for the shipping and transaction costs associated with selling a gun collection. We pay to have the shipping supplies sent to you. Our firearm transfer methods are approved by the ATF and major shipping carriers. By using Cash My Guns, you save money in fees, not to mention the time and resources needed to sell a gun collection private party.

We allow you to track your gun shipment during the entire process. You can feel safe knowing that your firearm collection will arrive at our warehouse quickly, safely and that you get paid.

Cash My Guns makes it as easy as possible for you to sell your unwanted firearms at no cost. Once your gun collection has been received, we send you a check for an agreed-to value. Not ready to ditch your whole collection? No problem! Dip your toes and explore our process by starting with the sale of one gun, but remember, you’ll get more bang for your buck when you sell in bulk!

Begin our safe, discrete and legal process here.