Guides to selling firearms in Michigan.

Start here, depending on why you’re looking

Someone died and there are guns in the house

Read the inherited firearms guide first, and before anything else do nothing to them. Cleaning is irreversible and it’s the single most expensive mistake in this whole process. There’s no hurry — firearms in a locked safe aren’t a problem getting worse, and almost every bad outcome we see came from moving fast.

You want to know what something is worth

What actually sets the priceexplains the four things that move a number, in the order they move it. The short version is that condition beats everything else combined, and that age on its own is worth close to nothing — a common shotgun from 1955 in poor shape is worth less than a well-kept rifle from 2015.

You have decided to sell and want to do it well

How to sell a collectionlays out the four routes — dealer, consignment, auction, private sale — and what each is genuinely good for. Two of them aren’t us, and it says so, because a guide that concludes "and therefore sell to a dealer" is an advertisement wearing a guide's clothes.

The three mistakes that cost the most

1. Cleaning it up first. Polishing, oiling, re-bluing or refinishing a stock can remove most of a collectible gun's value in an afternoon, and it can’t be undone. Dirt is recoverable. A refinish is not.
2. Throwing away the boxes and paperwork. They look like clutter in a clear-out. On the right firearm the original box and papers are a third of what it’s worth.
3. Letting someone take only the good ones. Four buyers each taking the two pieces they wanted leaves a family holding everything no one wanted, and no simple way to move it.