It wasn’t me although I did consider bidding. I was fortunate enough to get a pretty nice example of the same rifle and caliber in a Poulins auction a few years ago, so I wasn’t prepared to get aggressive on this one. Would like to have had it though!

Interestingly there was a guy who listed yet another one of these rifles (Type M 8x51) on gunbroker five or six years ago. He listed it with a buy it now option at around $3250. In the text of the ad he noted that he would drop the buy it now price incrementally each time the ad cycled without a buyer. Somebody finally bought it at about $2,900. Five years on, there is a lot more interest in this variation and prices seem to be up 75% or so.

I’ve narrowly missed so many auction items that I don’t take it too hard nowadays. Usually I’m over the loss in a day or two.