DRB Railway Eagle in Antique Store

[rogge16]

Ben: I missed that one. $750 would of been a deal of a lifetime. A bronze one would be great to own but at those prices I'll have to live without one. I only saw two at the Max and they were both over $5,000! It's a shame the seller didn't check around before he sold.

Luke

[Horst]

As stated above ,at least the seller at a show has the opportunity to go from dealer to dealer - the worst are the so called "Motel Buyers" these guys travel from city to city putting ads in the local paper that they will be in the area and give free estimates on military items so bring them in - To prove a point to my wife we took a Teno leader dagger with hangers to one of these, I wanted to prove a point to my wife that these guys are crooks - the fella showed us a very old dagger price list showing that the teno leader sold for $350. although at this time these were bringing with hangers around $3000+.
He offered the $350 as it had the hanger, we said no thanks, then he uped the price to$500 we also said no thanks and left- as we were in the car he came running and asked if we would consider $1000 we also said No and left.
These so called "motel Buyers" are the worst , they thrive on the unknowing Vets and their families.

Horst

[MD Helmets]

I saw an Ad in my county paper for the exact same type of buyer. Soliciting people to bring all military valuables to a hotel for appraisals and to buy. I should have gone but didnt think about it. Maybe next time I see the Ad I will make a point to take an item just to hear their bogus offer.

[Sir Payne]

Last summer I did a similar thing. I posted an ad on Craig's List showing a bunch of items from my collection for sale, just to see what kind of offers I could get. I wasn't actually going to sell them. I wrote that I got it all from a storage locker and I'm not sure of the value. I had 2 complete SD Heer helmets, a gravity knife, HJ dagger, one Japanese Canteen, and three NSDAP armbands in the photo. The first offer was $300.00!!! The second email came with a description of each item and its value as it was probably 25 years ago and an offer to meet to discuss a deal. The third offer was for $400.00. I replied to the third offer and said "sorry I sold everything for $450 about 2 days ago, I forgot to take down the ad". The guy said back, "Really? I hope not, you could have gotten over 6 times that amount!" A week later this third-offer-guy emailed me again out of the blue and asked if I had anything else for sale.

[MD Helmets]

The way I see it, if I'm selling an item I come up with a price, and im open to negotiation. What drives me crazy is when someone trying to sell an item fails to list a price and simply says, "make an offer." That drives me nuts. It's your item, you name a price and if I dont agree with it ill make an offer, and we can go from there. It's the sellers responsibility to do their homework and know what they have, what its worth and what they want for it. If the owner of the brass eagle failed to do his homework and blindly asked for $750, than that's on him. The dealer got a steal of a deal. I saw it happen last year with a M16 Camo helmet with liner and strap. The owner did not know a damn thing about the helmet, the dealer fed him some lines and threw him a low offer. The idiot took the first offer and thought he got a good amount. That's the incident I referred to earlier when I called out a dealer, that was the dealer. The owner heard me too and stopped in his tracks. Too late to make a difference. They are both to blame.