If you thought PRS' we're difficult to value, check this out...

matt1973

As we all know there are so many different permutations to your basic PRS models that sometimes ascertaining a true value can be quite troublesome. However no matter what model you have, if this ebay auction is anything to go by, values are certainly on the up:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Prs-Hollowbody-Hb-Offcut-Rare-/301152981588?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item461e1dd254

markslade07

It needs a bigs.....I'll get my coat

axisus

I always said that relic'd PRS look wrong.

ESchap

He's taking offers .... I'd offer to have him psychiatrically assessed! 

ICBM

I was thinking of offering £2.00 for it, but on the other hand that would buy me a half pint even in Edinburgh.

Forge

So he took the "sell your guitar in bits" advice to the letter...

cpcompany

This is the most brazen ebay sale I have ever seen.

matt1973

He really ought to mention that there is a sizable chip to the bottom of the body.

Gizmo

Hummm interesting,i wonder if you could fit a singlecoil tele pup in that neck route

ThePrettyDamned

I've seen these before - did prs sell them as furniture or something?

DrJazzTap

Is this classed as a "fixer upper"? May need some slight attention and all that.

Antique_Guitars

If what the seller is claiming is true, then as I said in a Facebook reply to this auction:

Destroying guitars bodies that are not up to scratch is really environmentally irresponsible, shame on PRS if that is their business policy.

ICBM

I don't agree. The relative proportion of waste in making a guitar is horrendous anyway, and since scrapping a sub-par guitar means that the company can't sell it, the economic incentive to improve quality and not have to scrap as many in future is strong. Notice that they saved all the other parts, including the neck.

I admire PRS for putting long-term quality above the short-term profit of selling a 'second'.

Antique_Guitars

Yes but a good maker will recycle scrap wood in numerous ways, even shavings and dust can be recycled.

I think they would be better making something else out of it rather than scraping it, I would be interested to know how or if they recycle things like that.

I don't really care about their business or if they produce quality guitars or not, quality control is something they should be on top of anyway.

Seeing wood/trees wasted for no reason really annoys me.

fretfinder

I'd display it in a flower pot and tell everyone I was trying to grow a neck on it.

usedtobe

ICBM said:

I was thinking of offering £2.00 for it, but on the other hand that would buy me a half pint even in Edinburgh.

£4 a pint up there, now..?  :-O

ICBM

Pretty much . Some of the really good stuff is even more in the posher bars. I had a pint of Harviestoun Schiehallion up there recently... £4.50 :-O.

Still better value for money than half a bandsawed guitar body though.

Antique_Guitars said:

Yes but a good maker will recycle scrap wood in numerous ways, even shavings and dust can be recycled.



I think they would be better making something else out of it rather than scraping it, I would be interested to know how or if they recycle things like that.



I don't really care about their business or if they produce quality guitars or not, quality control is something they should be on top of anyway.



Seeing wood/trees wasted for no reason really annoys me.

Me too, but if you agree with making guitars from wood at all you're already accepting a wastage rate of probably 75-90% from tree to finished instrument - actually made worse by some of the 'environmental' rules... check out how companies are forced to import ebony and rosewood in oversized blanks - guaranteeing a huge waste proportion - if you want to be shocked.

It's even more so with this particular guitar - a PRS Hollowbody is machined from solid, and probably 80% of the internal body wood is routed away even on one which makes it to a finished product. So scrapping this one is throwing away only a few percent of the original trees it came from.

I totally agree that manufacturers should try to avoid wastage, and given the cost of wood I'd be very surprised if they don't, but it can't be prevented entirely - even hand builders occasionally find flaws in wood at a late stage and have no choice but to scrap it.

I just think this one should have ended up where all the other unusable offcuts and shavings go - chipboard factory or whatever. I doubt PRS simply dumps it, even that sort of waste is worth something in bulk.

WezV

Paul is well know for saying the guitars he personally makes when he gets chance often don't pass QC and get chopped, at least he did before  they used 'made by Paul himself' as a selling point on some more  recent models.   this must be one of his

 

I think the practice is a good one, in an ideal world every last square inch of wood would be recycled, but for something like this the most you will get is a few pen blanks.   Mahogany pen blanks are not too desirable but the maple ones might be, maybe you get 10 of them from each scrapped guitar with  quite a bit of labour to make them usable.   Or instead you can give away the scrap as a decorative item on factory tours etc  somebody gets a nice but useless gift.  There is some value as scrap wood for repairing a PRS but given the age of the instruments in question its not actually hard to find appropriate repair wood

Gibson have done the cutting in half in the past, then they wen't through a stage of marking them with a 2 somewhere as a second and selling them cheaply to staff and locals.  now i think they just sell them as stock models    Buying a proper old chopped gibson for £200 would be worth it if it had enough wood, binding or inlay that could be used for repairs.  

 

 

Antique_Guitars

My mate keeps pretty much everything from the wood he uses, and if the scraps are too small he sands them to dust and puts the dust in old tic tax boxes for repair or filling work. I have a box of ebony dust myself which has proved useful on numerous occasions. Although that might be offset by the abrasives used ha ha.

Antique_Guitars

But I understand what you mean about wastage at the lumber processing stages.

ICBM

I think it should just go in a woodchipper and have chipboard made out of it. They need *something* to make low-quality speaker cabinets out of, why not use a PRS?