Ok guys, I've seen a guitar that i want on a website. I think it's advertised way too high based on the last couple of these that sold.

Let's say the seller is advertising it at 1000 and the last two sold for 500.

I've tried offering the 500 that the others sold for, but I was rejected. How do I get this guitar without over paying?

Teach me the art of low balling...

Were the 2 at $500 private or dealer? And are we talking apples to apples in spec and condition/year/etc?

The two that went were both private sales. The one I'm looking at now is in a store here in the U.K.

The two that went looked to be in better condition than the one I've got my sights on now (still cursing myself for missing them but stuff happens) the finish colours were different but the same 'level' and the years are roughly the same, with no particular benefit to any individual year on this model.

Honestly then the bottom line is keep shopping for the "right" guitar. The dealer probably had to pay/trade the value the others sold for, and it's a dealer. If he's not the brightest bulb he may even paid way more. But if the market for private sales is that much better, forget the dealer and just keep looking.

Thanks Rich, this is a tricky one, I didn't see any of these come up for ages, then literally four within a year. I've got two in my sights but they're both in stores.

I'll play the waiting game and see if I can snag an even nicer one

Patience is one of your virtues, exercise it

Just setup some basic alerts for any guitars you're interested in and wait for one to show up at a good price, eventually one will and then you can buy it. You don't really even need to negotiate that way., That's pretty much how I used to buy my gear until I became a dealer and started getting high on my own supply like a filthy n00b.

I like getting high on my own supply!

Took me 3 years to find the right early SR for HUSA, price, condition, etc.

To Rich's point, maybe trading something to this dealer is the best way to go?

Good luck!

local store... go in face to face offer cash. Email offers often read too rudely and easy to [DELETE].

The only real way to "low ball" someone (cut price in half) is to have them at a huge advantage at the right time... they are desperate to clear stock to pay bills typically.

Just remember some dealers are more than happy to sit on inventory like a blow hard (ed roman back in the day and his disciples) or simply to bring customers to the store (want variety). good luck.

I used to take the second approach and hold discontinued inventory sometimes for years and would always be pleasantly surprised when 3 years later somebody would come along and that was exactly what they were looking for and they wanted to pay the price for a brand new version.

Then as I grew space became too much of a problem, especially how Hoshino has been killing off and replacing models [over 60 I handle in 1 year alone] and there was just no space to hold all the old inventory and add the new. So I started acting more like a regular dealer than the HOG who would have brand new decade old guitars.

to Rich's point in-store experiences seem to be getting fewer and fewer and smaller and smaller... so you just won't have the inventory overseas. The exception imho is the larger superstores (GC) who might have 100 stores and 100 used axes per store really spreading out the inventory for 1,000 axes.

Hoshino [and I expect all other distributors] are really starting to streamline inventory flow so they just don't have those large lots of unsold models to closeout. Now, they may have a few of each, maybe 10 is the most I've seen on the closeout sheets.

makes sense i never understood "closeouts" at the distributor level especially right after the tail end of a new model... just wreaks of not understanding the needs of your customers (in the distributor's case the dealer's needs).

Having been there it's easy to be trapped. You could order 5 of something you think will be hot, sell 4 immediately, reorder, and that's where the buyer interest stopped. So now you're sitting on a stack of what should be a winner just waiting for them to drop MAP so you can blow them off the rack