Terms of sale and of use

1. Who you are dealing with

This site is operated by Antique Gun Parts, Inc.. Some items are sold by Antique Gun Parts, Inc. directly; others are sold by independent dealers using this marketplace. Every listing says which. Where a third-party dealer is the seller, your contract of sale is with that dealer, and Antique Gun Parts, Inc. acts as the marketplace through which it is made.

2. What may be sold here

Components for antique arms of pre-1899 design, and nothing else. The full list of what is excluded — complete firearms, frames and receivers, modern firearm parts, ammunition and propellant, NFA items — is set out on the compliance page and forms part of these terms. It binds dealers as well as us.

3. Buying

3.1 Orders and stock

Most items here are one of a kind. Placing an order reserves the stock immediately; if an item sells in the moments between you adding it and checking out, you will be told at checkout and nothing will be taken.

3.2 Payment

Card payment is not yet open online. An order placed today is a reservation: the parts are held, nothing is charged, and an invoice follows by email. You are under no obligation when you see it — say no and the hold is released. When online card payment opens, this clause will be updated before it is switched on, not after.

3.3 Prices

In US dollars. Sales tax is not currently charged; if that changes it will be shown in the cart before you agree to anything.

3.4 Condition, and what we promise

Items are sold as-is on condition — see postage and returns for what that means in practice. What is promised is that an item is accurately described. If it is not, you get all your money back including postage both ways.

3.5 Identification and attribution

Attributions on this site — which arm a part came off, which pattern, which arsenal — are expert opinion, given honestly and often with the evidence cited. On arms with no serial number they are sometimes the best available judgement rather than a certainty, and where that is so the listing says so. They are not a guarantee of provenance and must not be relied on as one for insurance or resale.

4. Selling

4.1 Approval

Dealers are approved individually. Approval can be refused without a reason being given, and can be withdrawn if these terms are breached.

4.2 Your stock never leaves your hands

Antique Gun Parts, Inc. never takes possession of a dealer’s items. Vetting is documentary — photographs and paperwork. You will never be asked to ship an item here for inspection, before or after a sale. You pack and post your own sales directly to the buyer.

4.3 The fee

5% of the sale price, charged to the seller, and nothing else. No listing fee. No monthly fee on the standard tier. Paid tiers reduce that rate; nothing raises it above 5%, and this is enforced in the software rather than promised in prose.

4.4 Payouts

On a fortnightly cycle, for orders that have been paid and despatched. A payout may be held while a dispute or a return is open on the order it relates to.

4.5 What you are responsible for

• That you own what you list and may lawfully sell it.
• That your descriptions and photographs are honest, including about damage. The house standard requires the worst flaw to be photographed.
• That nothing you list falls into the excluded categories in §2.
• Packing and posting promptly, and answering buyers.
• Your own taxes.

4.6 Moderation

New dealers’ listings are read before they go live. Once a record is established, that requirement is lifted. A listing can be removed at any time if it breaches these terms.

5. The reference material

The encyclopedia, guides, diagrams and identification content on this site are provided for study. Much of it draws on public-domain sources which are cited; the compilation, the photography and the written material are ours. You are welcome to read, link and quote with attribution. You may not scrape the site or reproduce it wholesale.

Content marked as expert-verified has been checked by Butch Schoeller personally. Content that is not so marked is sourced but unverified, and says so where it appears.

6. The forum and Ask Butch

Posting is anonymous and everything is read by a person before it appears. By posting you grant permission for what you wrote to be published here and, where it is a good answer, to be worked into the reference material with credit. Anything unlawful, commercial spam, or abusive is simply not published.

7. Limits

Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. Subject to that, and other than the refund commitment in §3.4, liability for any claim arising from a sale is limited to what you paid for the item.

Fitting antique components to antique arms, and shooting antique arms, is undertaken at your own risk and should involve a competent gunsmith. We sell parts; we do not certify that any arm is safe to fire.

8. Changes

These terms may change. The date at the top says when they last did, and the version in force for an order is the one published when it was placed.

9. Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and of the state in which Antique Gun Parts, Inc. is established.