Does anyone have any suggestions for getting a realistic valuation of a firearms collection? My wife's friends husband passed away recently and he had an extensive firearm collection. She really just wants a appraisal at this time and not to sell any of them at this time. They live about an hour south of Fort Worth.

GunBroker should give you a realistic value of what firearms are "selling" (not asking price) for.

Get an account on Gunbroker and determine price by what guns have sold for. With the account you can see closed auctions for if it sold or not.

Have helped with same chore before.

If the collection was very extensive, you will need a detailed inventory. This may be quite time consuming. I recall a local widow that asked for help with a few guns that her husband left behind. When it was all said and done, there were 1100 long guns, 600 handguns, and 300 bows/crossbows that were turned up in the house inspection.