The most
expensive guns at south Florida shows can
usually be found at Vito Servideo’s tables. His
Pompano Beach store (above) sells machine guns
and grenade launchers. [Photo: Aaron Ansarov]
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The Specialist
Vito Servideo’s Only The Best Firearms holds
the distinction at south Florida gun shows of
having the most expensive merchandise on the
floor. He has hundreds of high-priced weapons in
locked display cases, the most expensive a $20,000
German-made Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine
gun. He has a Minimi machine gun at his store that
sells for $75,000.
A collector himself before opening his Pompano
Beach business eight years ago, Servideo has a
Class III federal dealer’s license, allowing him
to trade in machine guns, silencers, grenade
launchers, destructive devices and other, as his
website says, “investment grade firearms.”
Buying machine guns generally isn’t fast, easy
or cheap. Only weapons registered before a 1986
law are allowed to be bought and sold. Scarcity
drives prices up. There’s a $200 federal transfer
tax. In addition to a fingerprint check, the
buyer’s local chief law enforcement officer —
typically, a sheriff or police chief — has to sign
off that there’s no known reason against the buyer
owning one. Some law officers won’t sign off for
anyone.
Servideo’s inventory includes higher end
conventional firearms and storied weapons like the
Thompson submachine gun, the Browning Automatic
Rifle and the Grease Gun. “Most of the stuff we
sell is expensive and rare. We sell the normal
stuff just to pay the bills,” he says.
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