I've been buying through Proxibid for years and do very little bidding or buying anymore.

I have gotten many great deals and have gotten stuck a few times with dogs but rarely. Some of that is good luck but a lot of it, actually, is knowing what I am looking at and seeing what others may not see, good and bad. Being an active member of this forum has helped me tremendously in learning how to evaluate firearms well and looking for small clues in the pictures and item descriptions that tell me things others may not know or see. That's the way to get an advantage over others.

There is a ton of info to pass on but here are a few.

When you place a "high bid", say the maximum you are willing to pay, understand that most auction houses, as disclosed in the "fine print" know what your max bid is and will often "surprisingly" always have the item bid to at least your max bid. This is wrong and is abused and shouldn't be allowed but, heck, it's disclosed and you don't have to bid anyway.

Someone in house "onsite" has the advantage over you. Even if you place a higher bid weeks earlier, it can sell to an onsite bidder at the same price, or lower (!) than your bid. I have called them on this and they just say that the online bidding doesn't always keep up with the on site bidding.

Most auction houses are honest and try to give accurate item descriptions. But, most people don't know military firearms, especially Krags, and make mistakes in their descriptions. Some are outright funny or terribly wrong, some are small and simple mistakes. Buyer beware. I won't buy from Cowan's anymore because the firearms "expert" is an asshole and tried to rip me off on a sale. A nice exec refunded everything to me including postage which made me feel better for a Krag I returned.

The auction houses have gotten blatant in their extortion of profits. The buyer premiums have jumped to 20-25% and then they will charge huge fees for packaging, sending and sometimes transfer fees for firearms.