Holts Auctioneers

[SteveLHadley]

Hi guys,

I wondered if anyone had experienced any problems with Holts ?

I successfully bid £40 for a BSA Scorpion pistol back in December and finally received it this weekend after quite a bit of chasing.

It had to be sent to an RFD who charged me £20 to take delivery and Holts added £25 for a courier as they said it could not go with Royal Mail / Parcel Force. The RFD was actually very helpful and said Royal Mail recorded would have been fine. I subsequently found the courier cost was actually £11.40.

Bottom line - this cost me over £95 once all charges were included. And the real kick in the pants, although I accept this is the danger with an auction I didn't attend, the pistol is in pretty rough condition and I wouldn't have paid more than £20 for it.

Thank God I wasn't succesful bidding for one of the rifles !

Cheers,

Steve

[Paddy_SP]

Thanks for posting your experiences - I guess that's a lesson learned for us all...

[Garvin]

Yep, thanks Steve. Do you think they insisted on it going to an RFD because of the face to face requirement? Holts is a business so guns sold at their auctions would have to be sold face to face, wouldn't they? Did the RFD put your details into his airgun register? £25 courier for a pistol is daylight robbery. RMSD would have cost about £6, insured for £500.

[copperjacket]

I would check their Terms and Conditions - both the delay and shipping charges seem a touch excessive.

[Co2]

Think yourself lucky I bought an air cane from a certain auction house.
They don't post the items they have some Mail collecting company do it.

I got in touch with the Mail collection company, sorry cannot give you a price until we know what we are dealing with. fair enough!
Three weeks later still heard nothing from mail firm, phoned them up, Oh we haven't got around to collecting it yet! Oh great!

So I phoned up the Auction house just to complain about the service they recommended, they said nothing to do with them.
Five weeks later I phoned the mail firm again whats happening? Oh we are going out this afternoon to get them?
Phoned following day have you got my lot, one stroppy person on the other end of the line, yes, ok how much to ship it.
£50.00
WHAT!
Thats how much its going to cost,
Thats ridiculous.
Take it or leave it we will take it back to auction house.
So with no other chose I had to pay £50 to get it sent to me.
The air cane arrived in a 5'x1'x1' box they had wrapped the cane up in a piece bubble wrap 4'x1' long then tipped those plastic foam chips in it.

The break down was something along the lines of £12.50 materials. £12.00 labor, postage costs, £25.00 (the next day delivery service) plus V.A.T
I was not a happy bunny.

However on a lighter note, I bought another antique rifle at auction, can you post? No sorry we use a mail collecting service
I had a thought, can I send you an empty box for you to put the rifle in, I will pre pay Parcelforce to pick it up.
Yes no problem.
Send one large empty box cost £6.30 apparently it arrived the following day as I had a call from the AH to say it had arrived.
Parcel force (pre paid pick up £14.50 ish) picked it up in the afternoon.
It arrived two days later.
total cost £20.80
So mail collecting services you can kiss my A#@$E

[Jerry Cornelius]

I have also been stung with the £20 delivery for a pistol, and let's say that although it wasn't in that bad condition, their idea of "near mint" is not the same as mine. If they had been a BBS seller I probably would have decided not to deal again.

Its simply untrue that you cannot send an air pistol by royal mail.

Now that we have the VCR nonsense on top, I'd have to REALLY want something, and I'd bid at a level that reflected my doubts about their descriptions.

[Co2]

Yep, thanks Steve. Do you think they insisted on it going to an RFD because of the face to face requirement? Holts is a business so guns sold at their auctions would have to be sold face to face, wouldn't they? Did the RFD put your details into his airgun register? £25 courier for a pistol is daylight robbery. RMSD would have cost about £6, insured for £500.

Now this is interesting if an Auction house sells an air gun DO they have to sent it to an RFD.
They are not a retailer of arms as such!
Or would they still come under this latest bit of red tape.

If so does that mean nobody who cannot appear in person to collect the item would be allowed to bid in the first place.

Which would be a disaster for the likes of Holt's and W & W to name a few they could only sell in the room?
Or suffer having to pay through the nose to an RFD and anybody else in the chain who want a piece of the action!

I am talking about air guns.

[ora8i]

I was at Byrnes, if I had bought an Air Rifle I could have taken it away.

With ALL real auctions you must find out in advance what the charges are, so do what I did and ask them!!!


Ora

[SteveLHadley]

Hi,

I feel strangely better that I'm not the only one feeling dissatisfied. I think the requirement of sending to an RFD is down to the recent legislation and the guy in the shop did take some details down of the consignment. I think a tenner might have been a fairer price for taking delivery though.

As for auctions - I've learnt my lesson. There are probably good deals to be had if you can attend, inspect and take the goods away with you but otherwise, be very careful.

So, does anyone know a good place to get a Scorpion re-blued?

Cheers,

Steve

[lightning22]

So, does anyone know a good place to get a Scorpion re-blued?

Col@mag on here did a beautiful job on my old Scorpion.

Rich

[slug-gun]

The key phrase in the new legislation is "by way of a trade or business". If a person or firm is selling an airgun, post 1939, as a part of their business then the deal has to be 'face to face'.
So Holts, being in the business of selling air weapons, were corrrect to send to an RFD, who has then taken a financial advantage from the legislation by charging so much.
If he had done it for nothing I am sure the new owner of the Scorpion would have repaid him somewhere down the line by spending money in his shop?
A bit short sighted of the RFD I think.
As for auctions the bottom line it is best to be there to view, buy & collect, otherwise you are likely to be disappointed with the goods bought relative to the amount paid, due to poor catalogue descriptions, and exhorbitant shipping charges, now made worse still by the new law.
It only means taking time off work and travelling hundreds of miles - well worth it!

[mjohno]

Hi guys,

I wondered if anyone had experienced any problems with Holts ?

I successfully bid £40 for a BSA Scorpion pistol back in December and finally received it this weekend after quite a bit of chasing.

It had to be sent to an RFD who charged me £20 to take delivery and Holts added £25 for a courier as they said it could not go with Royal Mail / Parcel Force. The RFD was actually very helpful and said Royal Mail recorded would have been fine. I subsequently found the courier cost was actually £11.40.

Bottom line - this cost me over £95 once all charges were included. And the real kick in the pants, although I accept this is the danger with an auction I didn't attend, the pistol is in pretty rough condition and I wouldn't have paid more than £20 for it.

Thank God I wasn't succesful bidding for one of the rifles !

Cheers,

Steve

I would guess the item you bid on was from the sealed bid section of the sale.

The only single BSA pistol listed in that part of the sale is described as good working order guide price £20-£30

Holt's fees will normally brake down as follows £15 TNT and £10 for packing etc.

[Muskett]

Auction houses are big businesses so everything they do is expensive and they have no reason to make life better for their customers. Anything less than £200 is a loss as their overheads and staffing costs are huge. Most of the low cost items are only in the auction room as they came with high cost items. They contract out the shipping because its a real head ache but also charge the shipping company for the ready business.

Their charges add up: buyers commission and sellers commission plus VAT can be near 40% on low cost items - makes #### and Pay Pal look reasonable

Unfortunately, there is often no where else to go. Competition between auction houses is not great and they have been known a few times to fix their rates. However, they do shift a whole lot of stuff that wouldn't move otherwise.

[coburn]

I've been to four of these so far and have bid several times finally wining a BSA L pattern. The process is quite drawn out and once you add comm and postage my £56 bid became a final cost of £86. On the subject of what your bidding on, most of the stuff there is pretty well used, but there are some good/rare items.(the latest sale features a Mercury S in .177), what I would suggest if you see something you like ask via this site if anyone is going to the viewing and ask their opinion of the gun. At the last sale I looked at a couple of Webley pistols for a member on here and even emailed him photo's. The Holts staff were happy for me to do this and generally very helpful.

In fact I was on my way out of the saleroom passing a room that looked more like a walk in safe. I asked the Holts guy in there what was in there. It was all the section 5 pistols that they can sell to RFDs. I had to remain outside and could not touch but he showed me a Walther P38 and Colt 1911 Gold Cup they had in the sale......and we had a friendly natter about fullbore handguns.

[OMS Raider]

I have bid with Holts and Bonhams a number of times, both in sealed bid and main auction. Have been successful too and would say their charges are made clear up front and more often than not (not saying people didn't do this) buyers skim read the charges and then feel disappointed once the total cost cost of their 'bargain' win accumulates. Basically for every £10 bid the cost is £12.35. For postal you'll pay a basic of £12 P&P, someone to pack/wrap it and £2.50 for every pound of weight thereafter. There is always the option to go to the sale and pick up on the day, if you choose not to then you will need to expect to pay shipping. Furthermore, if you do not organise this you can be charged £1 per day per item for storage - so make these checks.
I guess the bottom line is spend some time understanding the costs and allow for the variables outside of the bid.
Also, if you feel you have been treated poorly call Holts, Nick Holt and team are a pretty pro-gun, pro-hunting crew and would probably offer alternatives.
Hope this helps.