"Book gun" thoughts

ditch68

ditch68

I Like Bunnies
So, I own the byf44 on the back dust jacket of the "Kreigsmodell" book. I was a tiny part of it, (I did a small article on Winterabzug,) and this rifle went back & forth between Bruce & I over the years. Its in the book at least 5 times with detail pics, including a full photo plate. The bolt is the victim of late war sloppiness, the bolt serial has 2 numbers transposed, and the receiver has prominent, rough "helical" machining, all in a beautiful unsanded white glue stock.

Now, as some of you may have noticed, I have gotten out of collecting these, and I have another pending priority, need to raise "vehicle money", utilitarian, not a toy...

Where would one even start to value this thing?


I also have a bolt matching G.33/40, dot 42 no letter block, with what appears to be a replacement stock, (wrong 5 digit serial on the wrist side), the rest is legit except a Sarco sight hood...I THINK, anyway. Meaning not sure if the hood is original, but it looks to be so.


I would greatly appreciate any insights
Jeff
 
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Honestly, on the Byf44… I would think it would deserve to get a premium price bump due to the fact that it’s fully featured in a famous collector’s book. That earns it notoriety, bragging rights, validity, etc….

A mint Byf44 with untouched stock would probably have an asking price of $2500-$2800 on the trader. Add the “book lore” to it… and I wouldn’t be surprised an asking of $3500-$4000. Just my opinion on it. I’m not sure if I’m totally off base but that’s where I’m at with my thinking.
 
Mauserguy85 said:
Honestly, on the Byf44… I would think it would deserve to get a premium price bump due to the fact that it’s fully featured in a famous collector’s book. That earns it notoriety, bragging rights, validity, etc….

A mint Byf44 with untouched stock would probably have an asking price of $2500-$2800 on the trader. Add the “book lore” to it… and I wouldn’t be surprised an asking of $3500-$4000. Just my opinion on it. I’m not sure if I’m totally off base but that’s where I’m at with my thinking.
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While I agree that being “in the book” helps some with validity & thus value, in the end, it’s really just more “story”, it doesn’t make it more rare or unusual. Not ss or depot marked /built etc, etc. It certainly makes resale easier as the seller can reference the book photos to a prospective buyer.

IMO, your estimate of enhanced selling price is too high, by a lot. Some increase, but 30-50%? Hard NO. Fame & ‘bragging rights’ aren’t worth that kind of $$ in MY book. I’d pick an unknown rifle over a ‘famous’ one with an inflated value every time, other factors being equal. This isn’t gun stoker.
 
You also have to consider a couple of things and I know this first hand with buying and selling (rare for me because I’m a hoarder) here.

A lot of senior collectors will not admit pricing or deal publicly on wtb posts but instead deal via PM. I know quite a few well known members here who I converse with often and they have told what they bought and for what price and sometimes the prices leave me saying “wow”, but for whatever reason it’s something they badly wanted.

You can’t really tell what’s something worth to a collector who has pretty much everything but wants that one “full spread featured book gun”. Common matching k98ks in excellent condition are hovering around the $2500 mark. You can see them on our trader and yes sometimes they sit until price drops occur. On auction they are going for more. The OP did not specify we wants to only sell here. Perhaps he wants to consider an auction setting and with the right description and layout I certainly think he can achieve those higher numbers.
 
I can see this going for more on GB with the verified reference of being in Das Buch not so much that it is worth more but because a trusted source verifies it as authentic and that would create greater demand from more bidders.
I have owned 150+ K98ks over the last 20 years almost all mismatch etc. I have bought about 10 all matching 100% K98ks.
One was actually a 100% KM and one of the respected members here got that from me. The other 9 were in some way humped some stock did not match, others the bolt was humped (First one cost me big time and I had no idea people did that but boy did I learn LOL) others bands etc etc

Verified by the highest rated K98k source on earth is like buying a CPO Mercedes or one off Craigslist. Which would you trust more?
BTW after I learned a hard lessen about humping every so called matching gun I bought I posted on WWII or here and as you can see 90% I went Scheise they got me again.
IMO
 
I have owned a couple rifles that were featured in the books and I never paid a premium for them.

And frankly, its cool that yours is featured so heavily, but at the end of the day is a byf44. Its a common code and an easy gun to authenticate.

I would say being a byf44 from the books its worth maybe on the upper end of byf44 pricing. Like $2500 or so seems fair.

If you are paying $4k for a byf44 because it has a photo spread you are being a bit silly.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, I think the best is to just let an auction decide, like the posts above, opinions vary, and they exist at both ends of the spectrum from "Pffft, you're ripping someone off, its just a gun" to "Hell yes, some people find value in that". Those who feel no premium is warranted, wont bid above a point, and those who do may also act accordingly.

Im not trying to gouge or rip anybody off, just sell for what its worth (whatever that may be).

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Remember how stupid things got on WAF several years back with the XRF Ray-Gun, Fake SS Helmets and crooked dealers selling and authenticating the SS helmets as the real deal?

Not my Circus, not my Monkeys.
 
Inclusion does add value imo, though nominally and not factually. Ultimately a rifle must rest on its merits but its history-pedigree matters too, that it was included means it has merit in some way - just as a rifle owned by Jon Speed, CB or MarkW would interest me more than a "stray".
 
Loewe said:
Inclusion does add value imo, though nominally and not factually. Ultimately a rifle must rest on its merits but its history-pedigree matters too, that it was included means it has merit in some way - just as a rifle owned by Jon Speed, CB or MarkW would interest me more than a "stray".
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^ +1 ^
 
At the end of the day you got to ask yourself:

Is a Book Gun really any different than a posted Forum Gun that gets vetted by many Forum members and gets the OK online?

It’s just a different form of media to show something.
 
Winchester Cowboy said:
At the end of the day you got to ask yourself:

Is a Book Gun really any different than a posted Forum Gun that gets vetted by many Forum members and gets the OK online?

It’s just a different form of media to show something.
Click to expand...
Short answer? Yes.

Maybe not to you, maybe not to me, maybe not to advanced collectors who are engaged in online forums and have a bunch of collector friends who they swap pics with etc. Getting something like that evaluated and authenticated isn't a big deal for us, and that's assuming that it's something the collector in question can't just eyeball themselves based on their own knowledge.

But for your average beginning or intermediate collector who is browsing GB, maybe buying a few books, and who otherwise isn't super involved in the more arcane aspects of the hobby? Absolutely. There are a ton of people out there, especially people who are well off, who are willing to pay a nice premium for something that they feel confident has been vetted. This isn't unique to guns, you see it in pretty much ever collectible from slabbed trading cards and comics on through entire academic disciplines existing to establish provenance for artworks.

And yes, it's extremely open to abuse when the people providing those authentication services realize that they have a license to print money. See recent scandals in helmet collecting, recent similar scandals involving counterfeit materials in classic video game collecting, and literally hundreds of years of scandals involving art forgeries.

But, all things being equal, a gun being prominently featured like that in a book drives the potential market price up. All you have to do is look at auctions for guns featured that way - the sellers wouldn't prominently mention the fact that it's a book gun if it didn't help move it along.

Heck, even just association with a well known collector drives the price up. Plenty of people out there assume that if it was in Joe The Big Collector's estate that it must have been real, because everyone knows he was an expert. Again, advanced collectors who know what the community and standards were like in the 80s might not, but that's also not the target RIA is aiming at when writing auction copy - they want that well to do retired lawyer with four beers in his gut who sees association with that collector as a short cut to authentication.
 
Something my dad always told me was "something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it." You might have something for sale that is of zero interest to everyone on Earth except for one person, and that person would trade their 401k for what you have. You just never know. As for this particular situation, I'd actually say there's a fairly decent chance of you being able to fetch a slightly higher premium for the rifle based on it's pedigree as a model for the book. That being said, you'd only be able to command that premium from someone who cares that that rifle was featured in that book. No offense to the series, it's the gold standard for K98k publications, but I'm sure there's collectors out there who simply look at the rifle and nothing else. And that's okay. But I'd imagine that there are some people, especially if you offer it for sale on this forum, that would find it super neat to own THE rifle on the back cover of the books. You just have to find the right buyer, that's all.
 
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