How frank do you want me to be smitty? I've been to a half a dozen, over the last 40 years. I stopped going about 10/15 years ago. I used to wander into Pawn shops on occasion as well, 10/15 years ago but don't do Pawn shops anymore either, for some of the same reasons.
The main reason I no longer go is because of the Internet,ie: On-line auctions, KSL Classifieds, Craig List and Facebook.
Pre-Internet, it was much more difficult to find buyers for used equipment, hunt, camping, and fishing stuff included. Classified ads in newspapers or Niffy Nickle flyers where the main methods people let other people know what was used and for sale. Those methods only allowed local people to see what was being offered.
So......when a Gun Show came to town, local sportsmen knew a bunch of people who were potential used gun buyers would be there, so they got a booth, and took their used stuff down and offered it at pretty good prices, to this larger group of "interested buyers". Even the guys with the Pawn shop and retail sporting goods stories took their used guns down and set them out to sell.
That has changed, or so it seems me. Anyone, especially Pawn shops and even full retail sporting goods stores have all got well developed Internet accounts on ebay (for non-gun sales), Gun Broker, Auction Arms, GunsAmerica, ArmsList, AntigueGuns, etc. etc. Now you have world wide access to KSL Classified Ad, (free to the seller and the buyer) and countless places like Utah Gun Exchange and CraigsList , Monster Muley Classified threads, where people like the Pawn shops and the used sporting goods retailers, and people like you and I can offer our used products for sale, to a limitless number of buyers, not just local people, like we were limited to in the old days.
The result is Pawn shops and Gun shop vendors have been able to sell their used items for much higher prices, because they have a much larger market place to offer their goods to. A guy with a Gun Shows booth pretty much knows what his used stuff will bring because he can watch what people are paying for it, at the on-line auctions, etc and he will price his products accordingly. What that means is people going to Gun Shows aren't getting the "good deals" they once were and the vendors are not offering the good deals they once were. Actually it make perfect since for the sellers, so far as getting the best price they can for their used goods.
It seemed to me, when I stopped going, the prices where far higher than they once were, the vendors were mostly just there for a "social event" and the buyers were a different culture of sportsmen than they were 30 years ago. Very little buying was taking place and a lot of $4 Asian made knives, spent brass, para-military weapons, cheap dried food, paint ball supplies, mixed in with a little "Arian Nation" propaganda, and a few over priced, old worn out, beat-up rifles, shot guns and hand guns where about all that was for sale.
smitty, unless your looking for a week end of socializing with the folks, I think you could sell your used equipment quicker and probably get more money for it, by putting it on KSL Classified, Utah Gun Exchange or Monster Muley Classified.
Of course that's just my bias opinion, heavy on the bias!!!!
Well you did ask for opinions.
DC
