The saddest part of all this is that Mitchell's will prove P. T. Barnum correct; some sucker will fall for the ridiculous hype and think he's making an investment.

I believe that a decent lawyer could make the case that Mitchell's is, at the very least, guilty of "puffery" and false advertisement. I'd think they would be considered "experts" and as such responsible for having their facts straight. That's just my opinion as I'm not an attorney but did sell real estate for 13 years and Realtors have to be very careful not to overstate or puff up the properties.

It's safe to say that Mitchell's and I will never do business.

Just could not resist...
 

I wondered why in the world a purportedly legitimate enterprise would say (and price!) such things in a listing. I wrote the following to the 2 email addresses given for the sales staff:

"Hi,
I don't mean to be an instigator...well, maybe I do.
Either your firm and its offerings are grossly misunderstood, or you folks have some work to do in repairing your reputation. Check this out: http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthread.php?t=26671
Thought you might be interested."

And how telling is this response? I took it to mean that they are pretty much standing their ground in the way that they do these:


"Thanks for the heads up.

Internet techs who think they know enough to edit gun descriptions are
dangerous. We took him out back, and after a very brief ceremony, we shot
him.

Then we clarified the history of the last Luger on the special Luger page.

Thanks for informing us.

As to the other expressed concerns:
Yes, prices are high and are going higher. There are no more Lugers
available. Just go to Europe and try to buy some! It is a free market.
People who know what's happening are napping them up. Our generous customer
satisfaction guarantee protects the customer. Ten's of thousands of happy
customers bear witness to the value we deliver.

The only way you'll find a cheaper quality Luger is if you can find some
poor soldier's widow who hates guns and will sell her husband's trophy Luger
below market. (Let your conscience be your guide.)

Thanks again for your help.
Let us know if we can do any thing else for you.

Thank you,

Michael
Mitchell’s Mausers"

Perhaps a thread that simply lists horror stories from dealing with these flippers, greedy dealers, and outright frauds might help...sort of a mini "Angie's List" of sellers to avoid or trust, with descriptions of the transactions with them.

I can't think of why there would be a rush involved with buying an overpriced or misrepresented gun, so there would be time for checking with the forums--the obvious the first step for a buyer who does not want to be burned. A sticky with these tales would be handy to check. And perhaps it would persuade some to clean up their acts, or at least behave more reasonably when making/negotiating an offering.

David Parker

Ten's of thousands of happy
customers bear witness to the value we deliver.

I guess you can fool some of the people all of the time.

Would be interesting what a luger carbine would
cost on this place 250000.- or so i think.

regards

Otto