Diggory Hadoke looks at upcoming auctions

ARE SHOWS WORTH ALL THE PALAVER?

Diggory Hadoke explores how major trade members approach the big US shows then looks forward to some hot ticket items coming up for sale

THE American shows are over and the feedback was interesting.

There was a good effort put in by most of the British gunmakers. Rigby, Westley Richards, Purdey, Holland & Holland, Longthorne, Frederick Beesley, Boss and John Dickson all had a presence.

The size of the investment varied from taking space on a shared stand with a local dealer or partner, to Rigby’s huge, five-stand statement, complete with Rigby Land Rover, working artists and new model launches.

Holts was represented by Simon Reinhold as a roving presence at Dallas Safari Club and Gavin Gardiner did something similar at Safari Club International. However, the US auctions are dominated by Rock Island, whose UK and European interests are handled by ex-Holts, ex-Christie's expert Howard Dixon.

The US shows remain important, but the nature of participation is not yet settled. Just how many big ticket sales by regular clients get sealed at a show that could not be similarly handled by a discreet visit or a conversation over a meal?

The shows are great for networking but are they really major sales opportunities? The jury is out, some company bosses telling me they may reduce their presence to a small ‘meet and chat’ booth, rather than a big display, while others are still going all-in to sell as much as possible.

I think the decision hinges largely on whether you sell a lot of items at a wide range of prices or you sell a relatively small number and are set firmly at the top end of the market.

An uncomfortable truism in business is that nothing stays the same and if you don’t adapt, you get left behind. That is true for the US shows as it is for our own, like the Game Fair and The British Shooting Show, which I will be attending this month.

Gavel action

Back on British soil, attention turns to the next wave of auction dates here. Among the auctioneers listing sporting guns in the first quarter of the year we had Cadmore Auctions on 26 February, Moore, Allen & Innocent on 21 February, Special Auction Services on 20 February, Anderson & Garland on 29 February, Dore & Rees on 21 February, Wilkinson Auctioneers on 24 February and Holts on 25 March.

The most macabre lot I spotted was a bullet fired from the gun that killed John Lennon, framed. It was a gift made to a British policeman visiting the New York Police Department in 1984. He was given the opportunity to fire the revolver and retain the bullet and the case. The lot was up for sale at Anderson & Garland in Newcastle on 29 February, with a reserve of £1,500.

Later on, we have a sale on 1 May at Gavin Gardiner’s, for which he is still taking consignments, while Bonhams have yet to post the next sale date on their website.

Hammerless

Holts are listing a very rare Charles Lancaster 20-bore four-barrelled hammerless sporting gun. It is built on Thorn’s patent of 1885 and it is a bizarre, yet strangely handsome, beast. Weighing 7lbs 7oz with 28” Damascus barrels, it is operated by a rotary under-lever.

Four-barrelled and three-barrelled sporting guns were a dead-end in the late 19th century search for the ideal game gun. For utility and defensive purposes, shotguns with a multi-shot-shell capacity feeding a single barrel made more sense than a gun with multiple barrels, in the same way that revolvers and semiautomatic pistols made more sense than pepperbox pistols or multi-barrel, handturned revolving rifles.

It was inevitable that gunmakers would try all these options to see what would prove most useful but for sporting gun purposes, a pair of hammerless ejector 12-bores, used in tandem with a loader, proved the best option for achieving a continuous rate of fire for the average sportsman.

Purdey has, in the Long Room collection, a similar four-barrelled 20-bore they sold to a French General in the late 19th century; but he returned it following ridicule by his fellows when he used it in polite company, opting instead for a pair of side-lock ejectors. Driven shooting is a social sport and the approval of your peers and ‘fitting-in’ must have been very influential factors in the hierarchical and conservative circles which typified Victorian England.

If you fancy bucking convention and outraging your companions at Warter Priory next season, this could be yours, if you have between £11,000 and £16,000 to spend, according to Holt’s estimate.

It is none of the auctioneer’s business why he buys it nor what he pays for it

A fine pair

Interesting to note was the large number of pairs of 12-bore side-lock ejectors at Holts with estimates under £10,000. The market is not in love with pairs at present, especially the American market.

There was always something of a yearning among aspirational shooters to one day own a pair of best London sidelocks. The purchase heralded something of a milestone in one’s career. That no longer seems to be the case, with the general preference for over-and-under guns undermining the attraction of the traditional pair.

The spectre of the lead shot ban, which will almost certainly arrive in the next five years, has also stimulated some owners to move on their side-by-sides now, rather than wait. Prices are historically low but there has not been a dramatic crash. Yet.

The ‘off-ticket’ sector remains robust, with air rifles and air pistols, as well as percussion and flintlock arms, and Section 58 rifles selling well and apparently holding their value strongly. The attraction of licence-free collecting is certainly a factor in this continuing trend, though 10-bore and 8-bore sporting shotguns still languish at the bottom of the sector, making them good buys if you are collecting for interest and pleasure rather than speculating.

As always, when checking attractivesounding auction lots, pay close attention to the barrel wall-thickness and the bore dimensions. I spotted a beautiful Dickson side-lock ejector at Holts, estimated with a tempting £1,000 reserve. Closer inspection revealed the wall thickness at just 16 thou.

There is no legal minimum wall thickness; as long as the barrels appear in good condition, the bore dimensions conform to the proof laws and do not exceed the wear limits set (these depend on when it

was last proof tested), it is legal to sell. Is it safe to shoot regularly however? Is it ‘fit for purpose’?

These issues do not trouble auctioneers in the way they do gun dealers. If you buy a gun from a dealer, it is his duty to find out what you are buying it for and to ensure it is fit for purpose.

When an auctioneer sells a gun, or anything else, he has a responsibility to not mis-represent it (claim it is a Purdey when it isn’t, or say it has 30” barrels when they are 28” etc).

However, the onus is on the buyer to decide his reasons for buying that particular lot, for whatever he decides to bid for it. It is none of the auctioneer’s business why he buys it nor what he pays for it.

With today’s auctions far more akin to retail sales than they once were, there is a risk to the public in inadvertently buying a gun not fit for purpose. The catalogue may say the walls are 16 thou, but what if you are a casual shooter who does not understand the significance of that fact and you buy the gun expecting to shoot twenty 300 bird days a year with it? The answer is ‘bad luck’.

In fact, despite the legal get-out-clause of ‘buyer beware’, the big auctioneers are very good at talking to customers about any gun and offering advice which is honest and helpful. It is important, if in doubt, that potential bidders either inspect it, have it inspected, or get a proper condition report and do not just bid blind on the evidence of a nice photo on the internet.