Thoughts on Keeping Same Serial # Sets Together

[RCA230]

I have been planning on selling the rest of my Ruger collection for quite a while now. This is not a problem with individual guns that have no particular relationship to one another, however, when it comes to multiples with the same serial #'s, or a set of RCA "full membership offering" guns, I wonder if it would be better to first offer these as sets rather than list them separately?

It would be a shame to break up a set that has been together for so many years, but in today's economy, I'm not sure that many could justify such an expensive purchase.

Just wondering how others feel about this subject.

 

[T.A. WORKMAN]

I would do everything I could to see that they stayed together, I know that this is often not the case when one is selling a Collection in todays economy. I wish you well in your future sales and hope you list them here in the classifieds.
Terry

 

[contender]

I agree that you should try hard to keep them together. It takes a lot to put things together, and once separated,, it starts all over again by someone else down the road. Or, even worse,, a nice condition set gets separated, and one of them gets the old "pickup truck gun" treatment, and the set is forever changed.
It may take longer, or require a bit of judicious haggling,, but many collectors would enjoy many "sets" of guns.

 

[rugerguy]

As Terry noted, if you can , yes that would be nice,BUT in "reality" and for the most part, in all the years we been dealing guns, not often ,hardly EVER does ONE party have the resources to "buy it all" and even then when one does, the so called "sets" get split up anyway,and among those who "pooled" their money, to get the entire set ( or a collection) yes, MOST people "cherry pick" and if they do buy any 'set' they end up selling off what they do NOT want or what does NOT "fit" in their realm ( scheme) of collecting, we all have our 'likes' ( niche) or favorites...........last couple of RCA Members guns (sets) we sold for them ALL got 'split up, also in this way, some items got 'top dollar' versus selling it all off "one money" and diluting them across the board, to make them 'affordable',as a "set"......I wish you luck and yes, of course at least "TRY" selling as a set, my wife did "try" and for the most part was lucky she made any money over and above what she put into them,,,,,,got history and memories for the most part. 8)

 

[RCA230]

Thanks for the thoughts. Since I'm not in any particular rush to sell them, I will probably start off with listing (at least the RCA guns) as a set, and will do it here first.

Since the RCA set is the most complete, I'd hate to see it broken up. But like you say, someone may buy it with the intention of doing just that.

Nothing lasts forever.

 

[RCA230]

After going through my inventory, and reading member's posts and p.m.'s on the matter, I'm now leaning towards listing the same serial # sets individually.

Because there are so many guns in these sets (at least 40) with a span almost 60 years, and huge gaps in models in the 3 digit # set, I'm thinking that the huge sum it would require to purchase them all at once, would be out of reach for most.

The R.C.A. "full membership offering" guns, although this is a complete set (at least until the mid 1990's anyway) might be a really difficult sell. I think the last R.C.A. special offering gun in the set is the KNR-5 Jerred engraved, and cased issue. If there were others after this one, I didn't buy them.

I'll be busy listing other collectible Ruger guns in the coming weeks, but I'll give this some more thought before making the final decision.

Thanks to all for the input received thus far.