When is the "best" time to sell a guitar?

Rocker

Is there a busy buying period or is it a case of advertse it and the buyers will come?

Iamnobody

It will depend on the guitar you are selling - rarity, value and demand all come into play.

You could broadly say a lot of people are short of disposable income in Jan after being hit in the wallet over the festive period.

Or you might find the oppsite someone has received Xmas money and they are looking to buy.

A beginner guitar might sell easier in the run up to Xmas.

However if someone’s looking to spunk five figures or more on a guitar I doubt time of year even comes into play.

Just advertise and see...

JezWynd

Night time is the right time. Usually after 11pm when buyer is loaded.

mikeyrob73

4:36 pm on a Friday 

lovestrat74

Especially if it's a Tele ..

Dominic

when you need the money or when you realise you don't play it very much

maw4neu

7.30 pm . . .  I’m sorry . . . Ive just watched Ronnie Corbett on YouTube . . .

Flink_Poyd

It's usually when the buyer is looking for what you are selling and is willing to pay something close to your price. 

richardhomer

If it has some kind of artist association and the artist has just died....

Schnozz

Not now - It's really difficult to sell anything unless you're willing to go down to bargain prices.

adamm82

JezWynd said:

Night time is the right time. Usually after 11pm when buyer is loaded.

I have made most of my deals at this time. Usually as the wife has gone to bed and work depression is kicking in. 

Chalky

When you get the eBay message offering "only pay a maximum of £3 when you sell".

cruxiform

JezWynd said:

Night time is the right time. Usually after 11pm when buyer is loaded.

If I’m selling anything on ebay, my auctions always finish on a Friday or Saturday night at 9pm, for the same reason

BloodEagle

JezWynd said:

Night time is the right time. Usually after 11pm when buyer is loaded.

Friday and Saturday night are great selling times, the downside is they are also great buying times and its very easy to be on the other side of the equation and wake up to find you’ve spent quite a bit haha

amarok1971

List on eBay 8pm Thursday for 10 days, this finishes on a Sunday evening after tea when everyone is pissed off about having to go to work the next day. Another plus is that you get 2 weekends viewing in that.

Dominic

Schnozz said:

Not now - It's really difficult to sell anything unless you're willing to go down to bargain prices.

I don't see it like that ;
There is NEVER going to be a time when secondhand prices unilaterally lift 20 % across the board ............ultimately the value is what anybody is prepared to pay at any given time.
It's all swings and roundabouts .........you rarely win on both ...if you are selling and buying other gear then you should get a correspondingly decent bargain when you buy
Sadly not so good if you are selling up and downsizing/ hanging up your guitar strap but putting it away for a couple of years isn't going to make any significant difference other than stop you using the money for something else.Life's too short.

Roland

We always see more For Sale threads in January, with a lot of sellers mentioning their empty pockets. This year I’ve also noticed a surge in WTB threads. New year resolutions, or simply long dark evenings, may also be a cause. So the post Christmas cash shortage is counter balanced to some extent.

Personally I expect lower priced guitars to hang around in January and February because of peoples cash situation, but higher priced guitars to be less affected because, as I think someone has already said, they tend to get bought by people with more money to spare. So seasonal impact is different for different items.

Having said all this, if a guitar hangs around then it may eventually go for a lower price. So I would have thought March to June was a good time to sell. Christmas debts have been paid off, and holiday saving hasn’t kicked in. Then a shorter window around October.

BRISTOL86

I just sold an American Special Strat for £20 less than I paid for it (new) about 8 months or so ago.

Just list speculatively on ebay, you never know!

Freebird

About a month before you inadvertantly knock over your guitar breaking the headstock.

JezWynd

BloodEagle said:

JezWynd said:

Night time is the right time. Usually after 11pm when buyer is loaded.

Friday and Saturday night are great selling times, the downside is they are also great buying times and its very easy to be on the other side of the equation and wake up to find you’ve spent quite a bit haha

My experience has been that Friday evening is a good time to sell, Saturday evening not so much. Sunday evening is a good time to end your auction. For picking up bargains, I've found Saturday and Sunday mornings are good - possibly when seller awakes and realises how much cash they trashed the previous evening.

Blueingreen

My impression is used guitars are going for a good bit more than they were a year or two ago.  I missed out on a couple Tom Andersons on Ebay in the past couple of months despite bidding around 25-30% more than the same guitars had gone for in previous transactions.  I was pretty confident because in my mind I was willing to pay above market rate to get something I really wanted, but I'd reckoned without a shift in the market.

 I accept that the market for TAs is a bit niche and may not be indicative of the market generally, but those experiences and the asking prices I'm seeing in general make me think used guitar prices have gone up, at least at the higher end. 

I suspect what we've had is a lag period when price hikes on new instruments  were not flowing through to the used market, and that that's coming to an end.

I still think the market's pretty sluggish, people are understandably reluctant to buy guitars that were significantly cheaper not so long ago, but when sales are being made they're for higher prices.