Is Ebay the kelly blue book of guitars?

[Rich Roger]

Has anyone noticed the Ebay "BS" Users with (0) feedback or (-1) bidding and over pricing items like guitars, in general. Heres an example.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

I've been on the hunt for a Jem 777 Sk to replace, so I'm looking for a near mint and don't mind paying what its worth but when a seller asking way to much for a item to begin with. Starting a bid of 800.00 reserve not met, for a badly faded jem.

Then a user with 0 feedback bids on the item skyrocketing the price to where a good-mint condition jem is worth winds up hurting the buyers who really want the guitar.

I don't want anyone to think I am picking on users with zero feedback, I myself was one of those people 5 years ago.

I drive buy a local pawn shop the other day and notice a pink guitar out of the corner of my eye. I go inside and low and behold a 777 sk. in better shape then the one on ebay. So I ask the guy, how much he says "let me go on ebay and see what these are selling for.

He types in "ibanez jem' and clicks on completed items, logs in and there it is a list of some normal priced jems and others way to high. Granted that certain models are worth more than others its an SK not a LNG.

At the end the guy wanted way to much, he had a Squire strat beat to crap hanging for $250.00

Its not even Pawnshops, I was just giving this as an example of personal exprience.

Has anyone else had to deal with this? or noticed this?

Thanks guys

Rich

[Jem777LNG]

We can thank the chuckleheads on evilbay for making the prices of certain guitars sky rocket . Just because 1 guitar got $1000.0 on there doesnt mean that you can get it for yours. It just means some over excited ebayer's got cought up in the bidding frenzie(sp?) or got pissed off cause someone out bid them and they couldnt afford it anymore " that f$%ker, I'll make sure he doesnt get it either. How dare he outbid me".

A perfect example, a while ago some one got like $1200.00 or something like that for a old Charvel model 6 ,99.9% of the time you can find them in the $400 -$500 range . Now everyone thinks the beat to death model 6 that they got when they were 15 is worth at least a grand. Another one is the Kramer NIghtswan in the last 2 years the prices have went from good to "are you f*&king ret@rded."

I've had they pawnshop thing happen to me also they wanted way to much for a mexi strat and i asked who told them it was worth the $450 tthat they were asking and the guy looked at me and said "thats what there selling for on ebay". This is the same pawn shop where i bought a '85 kramer baretta for $125 and almost bought a 80's gibson explorer for $200 . That was before the days of evilbay .Now they like everyone else thinks ebay is the holy grail of guitar values. Ireally miss the days when you could go in to a pawnshop and ask "how much for this?" and the reply was always "i dont know , how much do you think its worth."

if anyone every quotes me a price from ebay i hang up on them , and dont buy it.

[the.godfather]

Yeah, I think I know what your saying. I was selling somethimg on Ebay a while back. And a day into the auction someone bidded £100. I wouldnt mind usually but the thing I was selling wasnt worth more than about £40.
So I was already a little suspicious. But the person who made the bid had zero feedback, and was a new user.
Gary - The.Godfather

[jemsite]

good post. ebay is obviously not the "bluebook" on anything except stupidity where people buy used stuff at a higher price than new stuff in walmart, Macys or elsewhere. ROTF. Unfortunately many have not come to this realization yet.

you can think of ebay as the "i need it now, will likely overpay and hope not to get scammed" reference textbook... glen

[track7]

I have to agree man that ebya is making used prices stupid stupid stupid. I've watched tube screamers (808's) go from normal used vintage prices i.e ($250) up to the now common place prices of 350 - 500 dollars "because its just like stevie rays you know". (incidentally how many people realise that stevie also used the ts-9 and the ts-10 deluxe for quite extensive periods of time later in his career and he always sound ****in awesome)

Mesa Boogies are the same. 2 years ago i was seriously contemplating getting a mark IIc+ (before i discovered nomads) and i've watched the price go up an up an up from like 1200-1500 to the now 2500-3000 range with no simulclass, reverb eq etc in some cases.

It is evil, occasionally there are still some good things about it, and if you want to buy stuff that is still in production you got more chace of getting a good deal, but discontinued or vintage rare stuff is becoming stupid. Its totally not worth it anymore. People are so brain dead that they think some beat up ****ty piece of green ancent electronics is going to make their sound the dogz bollox. When they could pummel the plank for hours a day and maybe get a fulldrive 2 for 1/5th the price and it sounds 5 times the tone lol imo.

Good ole rants huh

Dave

[Rich]

This is hillarious!

You guys will bitch and moan about how ebay is making everything more expensive, that it's stupid people spending too much, gotta have it now, yadda yadda. ebay is a marketplace that sorts itself out. Try listening to the doll collectors that are bitchin and moaning that ebay has so devalued their collectibles they're almost not worth selling anymore!! [and many many other fields] My girlfriend is a doll collector and I just bought her a doll that would always sell in the collectible papers at $4000, off ebay for $240 shipped. Bitch and moan all you want, you can get great deals on ebay or you can pay full fare and higher. It's all about who sees it and who wants it and if he's got to fight somebody else that can pay just as much.

[jemsite]

was it a doll of a guy playing a chromeboy ... glen

[Rich]

It's a girlie doll collectors doll

[it was her birthday present]

[track7]

So...rich are you saying that the silly ebay frenzy hasn't drove up the prices of such things like tube screamers, mesa amps blah blah...

i do hear what your saying and like i said you can still get good deals but it seems like they're getting fewer and further between.

Or if its gonna sort itself out as you say you reckon that the prices wil l start coming down?

Well i'll be waiting for the day i can pick me up a IIc+ for 1200 bucks then

dave

p.s and come on rich you know its good to piss and moan, in fact we brits are exceptionally good at it, try it you to could turn into a pessimistic, sarcastic, cynical english person!

[Rich]

I'm saying that if the prices on what is basically common material [and let's not ever think TS808's aren't] then the demand is driving the pricing. When/if the demand slacks off so will the prices.

[the.godfather]

Good point, its kinda like trends. Trends will come and go. So when the demand dies down, the prices will drop. Thats why I always wait if I know that a product I am after is too expensive. For example a little while back I was after a Nokia 6600. At that point they were going for way too much money than I was prepared to pay. I waited a week to see if the frenzy would die down, and luckily the average price dropped by about £100.
Demands and trends come and go. But on the whole as Rich said......I tend to think that Ebay is quite cheap, and you can find some hella bargains and even sell them on more expensive quite easily!
Gary - The.Godfather

[Given to Fly]

Overall I think Ebay is a pretty good place to look for stuff. Say I had $1200 to spend on a guitar, on Ebay that could go alot farther than in a music store. Granted that's the nature of used things, but I think Ebay still offers so much more than any music store ever could.
The comment about a music store looking up prices on Ebay to price their own items, that's kinda shady to me. First off, if they need to do that, they probably do not have a huge amount of knowledge about the product. Now I'm not saying music stores should know everything about every guitar and amp, but they should hopefully have a good estimate. On the other hand though, music stores will probably be hurt more than helped if they try to compete with Ebay. There have been UV777BK's on Ebay on occasion around the $1400 price range. I don't think they have ever sold but they have been on there enough to notice. I went into a music pawnshop kind of place and saw a UV in there. I would maybe have paid $300 - $400 today for it. It was not in good shape. I think with a good setup it would have played fine, but something about the huge gash that took out a peice of wood lowered the value for me. The guy wanted $1400!!! I imagine that he looked on Ebay saw what some were on there for and priced it. Or he thought I might be stupid and pay that much. But he certainly did not look in the Kelly Blue Book or anywhere else that might have given him an idea.

[Paul Secondino]

Ebay is definitely a problem with reselling gear.It's not really about bitching. It's more about greed.The exhorbitant prices that some excited buyers pay is generally giving private sellers and pawn shops,etc as mentioned by Rich that they have power.

I suggest simply not jumping the gun to anyone who is interested in something on ebay.Because unfortunately, this is a situation that none of us can do much about.But when something jumps up that you want and is reasonably pricede, then jump on it.

[Rich]

This topic is about a brick and morter store comparing and pricing to ebay. Bottom line, why the he!! should a guy paying rent and employees take any less than anybody that can list an item for a $1 listing fee? He should be comparring apples to apples, condition to condition, and then adding at least another 10-15% to what the "average" price for the "apples" are on ebay. He's paying lots of expenses, and you're hbuying in person where you can physically inspect the goods with zero chance of getting ripped by some compromised ebay account or straight up con.

[LLL777]

The printed blue books/CD Roms are so out of touch with reality that they are virtually useless. eBay is the closest thing you have to a "market price". Sure there are scammers and shills but for the most part, you see a free market economy in motion.....what a lot of people are willing to pay or won't pay.

For every argument that something is overpriced, I'm sure someone can come up with one why it's underpriced. What do you expect when you have soccer mom's, pawn shops, guitar shop chains, scammers, newbies, old timers, Indonesians, pro guitarists and flea market merchants all thrown into the mix?