Safe Queens.com: A New Auction Site Making Collecting Simpler & Easier

Have you ever found yourself huddled over your keyboard or glued to your phone as an auction counts down on that item you’ve been coveting for days? Have you ever missed out at the last minute, pipped at the post by someone swooping in at the last second? Well there’s a new website that is making online gun auctions easier and possibly less stressful!

SafeQueens.com is a new online firearms auction site which aims to empower its users and make buyer and seller experiences hassle free. The site has a number of key features that makes bidding on that dream firearm easier. These include an auto-bidding feature, bespoke notifications, a feature that prevents last second bid sniping and a live buyer questions section. Once the auction is over the site then facilitates contact between the buyer and seller and …

Safe Queens has a clean and intuitive layout, and feels less cluttered and confusing than some other auction sites. The clean user interface allows users to find information intuitively and provides all the details an interested buyer needs at a glance. The main page lists ‘live auctions’ and ‘past auctions’ [so you can torture yourself looking at what you missed out on!]. Clicking through on the live auctions section you can scroll through all the current auctions with large boxes giving information about the auction item, its starting price, reserve and how long the auction has left to run. You can scroll through the listings and a handy ‘watch’ button allows you to bookmark listings you’re interested in. Once you click through onto a listing users can see how many times an auction item has been viewed, watched and bid on.

Collectors get a curated auction experience

A quick browse of Safe Queens will leave anyone on the hunt for a mall ninja AR pistol build or a garishly finished Glock clone disappointed. They are definitely focused on quality, firearms Active auctions, at the time of writing, show a strong historical side to the site’s listing and include a World War One DWM-manufactured Luger P08 in pristine condition and an elegant but practical “U.S. PROPERTY”-marked Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless. But there’s also some modern classics like a pristine 1981-production Colt 6inch Diamondback. Other auctions for the discerning collector include a 1914-dated Colt Police Positive Target revolver and a beautiful antique Smith & Wesson Model 1 dating to the 1860s.

According to the Safe Queens team, once they receive a listing they work with the seller to write up the item description for them. This not only saves the seller some hard work but it also means the buyer can always rely on descriptions on Safe Queens being clear, well written and alleviated of seller bias – removing exaggerations and providing the most authentic description of the item possible.

Making Winning Stress-free

The site has a number of helpful features. First up is Bid-Guard. If an item you want to bid on is coming up just as you head out to work, have to take the trash out or are like me just forgetful, then BidGuard makes the bids for you. The Bid-Guard lets you set your maximum bid and will then bid on the listings you’re interested in on your behalf to keep you in the lead until the auction ends. This is especially handy if more than one item you’re interested in ends around the same time. Another handy feature of Bid-Guard is that it will only bid up to the limit you set. So if you don’t want to bid too high on that vintage Colt Python you’ve had your eye on then Bid-Guard sets a bid ceiling for you. Safe Queens explain that “bid amounts have minimum increments based on the current price range at the time of the bid. Bid increments increase as the auction price rises.”

SafeQueens say their aim is to ‘connect enthusiasts for a better auction experience’ and a key way they’re doing this is by having a live question section on each listing. This allows buyers to ask direct questions (with the sellers receiving instant email notifications prompting them to reply). So if you need to know the year of manufacture of a WW2 US army pistol holster or if a factory letter is included with the Colt 1903 you have your eyes on – you can ask.

After browsing through quite a few of the site’s listings its clear than emphasis is put on high quality good resolution imagery, with sellers typically including more than a dozen images of all of the items’ nooks and crannies showing the important things like areas prone to stress on a revolver or the all important slide markings for well informed collectors.

Perhaps my favorite feature, however, is the 2 minute auction extension when someone tries to jump in at the last second. Basically if a new highest bid is added less than 2 minutes before the end of the auction, the auction is extended and doesn’t end until 2 full minutes have passed since the new highest bid was placed. This continues until there’s a winning bid. Safe Queens say that “This prevents last-second sniping bids and keeps auctions fair for everyone.”

The site also provides customisable notifications of new listings. So if you’re looking for a particular type or model of pistol or rifle then you get an email the minute a listing goes live on the site. 

How to get started

Browsing is easy and so is registering to buy and sell. Once registered you can ‘watch’ items and customize your notifications to alert you when the items you come up for auction.

Helpfully, Safe Queen have made some videos explaining it how the site works, like this one which explains how to place a bid once you’ve found that must have: