Share A Story...

Akhenaten · #1 10-26-2003, 12:35 PM

I know some of you here work in guitar shops and have a few like this. Wanted to read a few...
TOday at work a guy called and asked if we could look at his guitar and see if it was worth anything. He said there wasn't any damage to it, but he got this guitar for 50 bucks while helping a friend move and wanted to know if there was anything inside (braces) that needed repair.

What he brought in (again, for 50 bucks) was a 1927 Martin 0021. It was nearly perfect, aside from the usual finish checking that anything that old would have. And it was actually minimal. No loose braces. No real scratches. No real problem at all. The bridge had been reglued at some point in its history, but it was done well. The only other non-original deal were the bridge pins, which originally were white. These were cheap black plastic ones...

Fifty freakin' dollars...and a few hours moving a refrigerator and some furniture...

pawel · #2 10-26-2003, 01:12 PM

Jeff · #3 10-26-2003, 01:43 PM

Jeff · #4 10-26-2003, 01:43 PM

guitarkatana · #5 10-26-2003, 10:27 PM

darren wilson · #6 10-26-2003, 10:48 PM

Akhenaten · #7 10-27-2003, 02:25 AM

At first I thought it was a double,triple, quad-post...with an extra face for Darren there...

No stories huh...lol

Willin · #8 10-27-2003, 09:30 AM

DAMN! You should have bought it from him and made yourself a rich man. Did you tell him the value of it? What was his reaction? You should seriously tell him to get it insured with his lawyer.

sitting duck · #9 10-27-2003, 03:08 PM

I actually had the opposite experience:

A guy came in to the store just beaming about the 1956 Strat he had just bought. He didn't say specifically, but implied that is was very expensive. We got the pickguard off of it and......... ugh..... it was a plywood body that had been repainted at least twice. Electronics were all wrong and, get this, the pickguard itself was MOTO on the back.... I have no idea how that was rigged up....
Only positive was that the neck MAY have been original......

jay ratkowski · #10 10-27-2003, 03:17 PM

Well I know I've shared this before... but that was ages ago it seems (maybe months?)...

So a lady walks into a Music Go Round with an amp. It belonged to her husband. Area blues player, no one special, but he apparantly had a good deal of stuff. Husband decided to up and leave his wife one day with some other chick down in Chicago. Left everything behind. Wife asked the cops what to do with all his stuff, they said "whatever you want, may as well try and get money out of it." So she did just that. Now the employee that happened to be working was fairly new, and I believe specialized in drums more than guitars/amps... regardless. He looked at the amp and said "that's one beat up reissue." He said he could probably give her like $25-50 for the Fender Deluxe Reissue that had been poorly taken care of. She didn't care and took the cash, they parted ways. Salesman tested the amp, put a pricetag for like $50 or so on it, put it on the sales floor. Later the owner walks in (then just a manager I think). Sees the amp, looks at the tag, proceeds to crap his pants. He immediately takes it to the back room and shreds the tag. It was a '52 Deluxe, all original. They proceeded to print up a price tag of $1500 on it.

Of course I walked in later, owner told me what they had, I paid about half what they were asking and took it home. But man, that salesman should've won employee of the year for scoring that. In the same day he almost potentially lost the store $1400+ (if it sold for $50) and also gave them the biggest profit they'd probably ever seen on a single item.

On the other end of it, I can't tell you how many people I've seen screaming that their old Harmony guitar isn't worth thousands just because it's more than 5 years old.

vaijem777 · #11 10-27-2003, 03:25 PM

I scored several great deals through the 7 years that I managed the little store I worked at. We were an Ibanez and a Washburn dealer, which led to one of the better "bargains"

A guy came in with an '88 77FP that he had purchased brand new from the store back in '88. This was about '94 or so. He decided that he didn't really like the FP anymore and wanted to trade it in for a Washburn Nuno model. At the time, we had both a padauk N4 and a couple of the natural N2s. After playing both, he decided that he loved the N2. He ASKED if I'd do a straight across trade. I could barely conceal my giggles of joy

Of course, I then purchased the guitar from the store for our cost of the N2 plus a generous 10%. I went home with a minty '88 JEM77FP for a grand total of $346.

Probably the best deal that I ran across was a regular customer who had outfitted his church with a nice SoundTech pro soundsystem, etc. He had come in one day and wanted to trade a guitar that he'd had forever for a Takamine cutaway classical. He said that his dad had bought him the guitar as a 17th birthday present back in '65 and that he'd literally only played the guitar in church, etc. I was skeptical, but he was a great customer so I said "bring it in".

The next day he showed up with a Gibson case that looked brand new. Inside was a pristine cherry red 1964 Gibson ES-330 with a Bigsby trem. I was stunned! The Takamine he wanted had a retail price of around $1200, and he said that he really couldn't afford to add much on top of the trade-in. I asked how much he could do, and he said that he had $250 budgeted. So, being the nice guy that I am, I told him that $200 and his guitar would be enough to get the Takamine.

Again, I purchased the Gibson from the store for the cost of the Takamine, which was just over $550. I've still got the ES-330, though it does stay in it's case most of the time. The thing is a total time capsule guitar- looks brand new to this day, aside from some yellowing of the binding and the usual finish checking

Willin · #12 10-27-2003, 03:44 PM

Man, owning a guitar shop would be amazing! I am going to make it a point for me to check garage sales from this day forth for old guitars. If I ever found an old Martin I would probably pass out. There's nothing like 'em! Vaijem, how much would that Gibson sell for?

vaijem777 · #13 10-27-2003, 03:47 PM

In the condition that it's in, the ES-330 would bring upwards of $1500, but that's a pretty average, conservative price. Since I've got the original hang tags and purchase receipt for it, and since it's a 100% original guitar, it'd probably bring closer to $2000+ to the right collector

It's basically an ES-335, but with P-90s and no solid center block. It's all hollow. KILLER tone!

**jim777** · #14 10-27-2003, 03:55 PM

I had a 330 back in maybe 78? and she was fine as long as you didn't face the amp with it plugged in! They might be the most feedback prone axes ever made

jim

vaijem777 · #15 10-27-2003, 05:30 PM

They're no more feedback prone than any all-hollow guitar

I have just as many feedback issues with my Gretsch Setzer, but they're easily solved by being smart and knowing what not to do