James D. Julia Auction has become a division of another auction house called Morphy Auctions effective of December 14th, 2017. The merger was announced on December 21st by Dan Morphy, the president and founder of Morphy Auction Company.

As claimed in the press release, Morphy auction’s annual sales of $35 million and James D. Julia’s $43 million combined make their joint sales $78 million which in turn makes them one of the largest antique auction houses in North America. These are not only firearm sales but combined prices of a variety of antique item auctions. It would be interesting to know what is the combined percentage of the firearm sales and how does it compare to other auction houses of the industry like the Rock Island Auction Company.

The upcoming James D. Julia Spring 2018 Extraordinary Firearms Auction held in March will take place in the usual location of Fairfield, Maine. All the succeeding auctions and consignments will be arranged at Morphy Auction’s two locations in Denver, Pennsylvania and Las Vegas, Nevada. Such schedule is chosen to ensure a smooth transition process.

You can read the full text of this announcement published on James D. Julia Auction’s website by clicking here.

Whether this move will anyhow affect the firearms industry or not is hard to guess. What do you think the firearm collectors community should expect from this merger?