Illinois collectible firearms seller Rock Island Auction Co. is gearing up for an expansion to Dallas-Fort Worth to capitalize on soaring interest in antique and rare guns and Texas’ avid gun culture.
Rock Island Auction, a company based near Moline, Ill. $121 million in sales annually, is taking over a former Walmart building in Bedford with plans to bring its live and virtual auction events to the area as soon as 2023.
Rock Island has sold notable firearms including the Colt Single Action Army revolver that John Wayne used in the film True Grit, which sold for more than $500,000, and a pair of flintlock pistols carried by Alexander Hamilton in the Revolutionary War, which fetched $1.15 million at auction last year.
Interest in firearms is at an all-time high, Rock Island Auction president Kevin Hogan said, not only because of the political climate around guns but because of the frenzy around any collectibles, from art to trading cards.
“It’s as hot as it’s ever been,” said Hogan, who relocated to North Texas to oversee work on the new facility. “But obviously guns are polarizing; the Second Amendment is polarizing.”
Rock Island has purchased the former Walmart space at 3600 E. Harwood Road, which has 89,000 square feet, along with an adjoining strip mall where it hopes to attract restaurants and retail businesses that will complement several live auctions a year. Auctions typically draw more than 1,000 customers at the company’s Ilinois location.
Documents filed with Bedford say the facility could employ up to 155 people, but Hogan said that’s a hopeful number that would depend on the facility running at full capacity.
Design and construction of the Bedford building won’t be completed until sometime in 2023, and Hogan said it could take even longer due to pandemic-era hiccups in the supply chain and building trades.
The building will include a firearms showroom, an auction hall, a vault and offices, along with shipping space.
“I believe we are going to build the finest auction house in the world,” Hogan said.
When it’s done, the owners of Rock Island Auction expect to roughly double the capacity of their Illinois facility and give the company a new geographic footprint in the southern United States.
“We are not in a huge market where we are in Illinois, and Texas is huge,” Hogan said. “And Texas has the best gun culture in the world.”
Rock Island Auction doesn’t sell many retail firearms, and the company specializes in collectible and antique weapons and accessories. It sold about 48,000 guns last year, Hogan said, many from historical conflicts such as World War I, World War II and the Civil War. It also sells thousands of knives, military items and pieces of artwork.
The company’s premier auction in May did about $30 million in sales, and the average firearm goes for about $5,000.
While interest in collectible firearms has grown in recent years, Hogan said the industry is sometimes frowned upon because of the controversy over guns. Meanwhile, video games and trading cards are selling for record amounts while firearms, despite historical connections, sell for less.
In Bedford, the company hopes to take advantage of access to DFW International Airport, about 2 miles from the planned site, and the state’s favorable political attitude toward guns.
Illinois “gun laws are tougher than most,” Hogan said, noting that moving to Texas is “a hedge against anything political that might happen.”
