New poster with a question about the CPS3200...

[Cpt. Gringo]

Hey everybody.

Not really used to meassage boards but you all seem to be the experts. Let me preface my question with a little story about my personal super soaker history (If you dont want the history just skip down past this paragraph):

My first gun was a SS60 the year it came out. Later on when the CPS line came out i got the 1500. I thought I kept losing water wars because the 1500 wasn't very good. Looking back it was probably because I was always outnumbered (my older bros both had 2500's and would gang up on me). But one summer I saved up a whole bunch of money and bought the 3200. My friend was inspired and he also bought the 3200. Not quite the amazing improvement in battle that I had hoped for (the 3200 is quite encumbering for an 11 year old), but I loved the gun nonetheless. Here I am several years later and I just cleaned out my shed. My gun doesn't look new, but it's not ugly and it wasn't working great (leaks, broken clips, stripped threads, etc.). So I spent a weekend fixing it up. I bought new METAL clips... these guys wont break. Got a new hose and sealed everything with PVC cement and silicone. So this bad boy is all fixed up and working like a champ (I even fixed the QFD), when all of a sudden my friend reminds me that he had one and he doesn't really want it anymore. So he needs some money so I offer him $20 for this bad boy. I get the gun and aesthetically, it's near flawless. All original stickers and parts with minimal sun bleaching (he never really used it).

So to make a a long story short, I have my personally modified gun which I intend to keep for my own amusement. But in addition, I have this other gun, aesthetically perfect, but I had to do some minor, unintrusive repairs (you can't really tell I did anything). So now it works quite well, but it has been tampered with. So how much would this be worth? Is it worth selling it or should I keep it for parts in case something on my modified gun breaks?

(If I'm in the wrong place, I would appreciate it if someone would direct me to the right place.)

[steelboot.]

Hmm, as for the first soaker, if it looks beat up, but works, I'd hazard a guess that it go for up to $120 on eBay. However, the other one, the one that looks almost new with minimal sun fading, that could get close to $170 on eBay.

Should you keep both, one, or none?

It's really up to you. Do you trust the repairs you made to the personally modified gun? Will you ever get into soaking as a hobby? If so, the more soakers the merrier. If I were yo, I'd keep them both. But I'm more of a user than a profit-seeker. Perhaps to a collector, it would be more appealing to put one, or both on eBay.

Hopefully others will shed some more light on this, perhaps I'll post again later.

EDIT: Wrong expected prices.

[Cpt. Gringo]

Thanks for the reply.

As for my personal super soaker, I love the repairs I made to it and I'm sure I could make them again if necessary. I'm just not sure if there are other parts on the 3200 that are prone to breaking that you really can't replace these days unless you have the factory parts.

The only thing I did to the one in good condition was i put some silicone under the fitting on the hose to seal some leakage. You can't see the changes and I feel like it makes it perform better. But I really don't know, because some may feel that this tampering makes the gun less valuable.

I also feel that keeping just the one I modified would be fine for my personal use. I don't really need two, but if I could make good cash off of the nice looking one, I would like to.

[Silence]

Check out this page – one CPS 3200 (we know there was only one because of the double asterisk) was sold two summers ago for 150 US dollars (don't know where you live). Prices are down this year and we're a couple months past the May/June rush, so expect substantially less money for that water gun if you sell it now.

If you get into water guns again, keep it! If you're trying to make a quick buck, sell it. If you want to make the most bucks, keep it for some months (maybe over a year) and then sell it.

Don't worry about the minor repairs. Make an off-hand comment if you want and say that the gun works like new now. Call that spin, but it's the truth, and there aren't too many pristine CPS 3200s out there.

[Cpt. Gringo]

Thank you.

With all this information in mind, I think I'll probably keep it for a year or so. I guess I could see how things go over time with my modified gun and if all is well, I could sell off the nice one next summer. Maybe a year from now people won't mind the idea of dropping some serious cash on a super soaker.

But anymore advice is certainly welcome from anybody who has any opinion or experience.

On another note, hypothetically, what would you all consider to be a reasonable trade for a 3200? Giving a few ideas is fine.