Guitar value?

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As i've got a couple of shortscales i'm thinking of either pt/exing or selling my RI69 competition CAR mustang (2003),its got wear, buckle rash etc but is still a nice player with an sd jb jnr fitted.
I was offered 250 against a mex tele in one music shop which i thought was a bit low.
Anyone have a rough idea on its value?i was thinking around 400 tbh.
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Comments

  • From a shop that sounds like a very fair price. I'd be surprised if it is worth £400 to a private buyer if its not mint.

    Retailers rarely make a profit on p/ex'd gear. Those which take them (and some don't, or are very reticent about doing) do it mainly to assist them in getting existing stock out.

    By the time they've cleaned a guitar up, restrung it and paid VAT, the profit's gone....
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71957
    edited August 2013
    From a shop you'll get a maximum of about two-thirds of what they can sell it for, which will be about two thirds of the new price, less the value of any 'upgrades' (yes, I did mean less and not plus) or less the cost of putting it back to original if you still have the old parts, plus the secondhand value of the replacement part which is typically half the new price, less the cost of strings and a setup.

    So £250 from a shop for one in less than perfect condition and with a non-original pickup sounds somewhere between fair and generous, to me. If you want £400 you'll need to try privately, and even that sounds a bit optimistic in the current market.

    Sorry, but that's the reality of it.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • streethawkstreethawk Frets: 1631
    I would take that deal. 
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  • grungebobgrungebob Frets: 3299
    Before finding my recent new guitar I watched ebay a lot for mustangs, yours would fetch 350 tops based on completed listings. A Kurt cobain mustang sold for 375!
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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2582
    From a shop that sounds like a very fair price. I'd be surprised if it is worth £400 to a private buyer if its not mint.

    Retailers rarely make a profit on p/ex'd gear. Those which take them (and some don't, or are very reticent about doing) do it mainly to assist them in getting existing stock out.

    By the time they've cleaned a guitar up, restrung it and paid VAT, the profit's gone....
    I've often wondered about the economics of this but I can't see it as being that simple.  A quick look round Ebay will show that the asking prices on guitars sold by retailers are pretty substantially higher than the prices obtained in private deals, so much so that I often wonder how they get these things sold.  Given that on the whole trade in prices are lower than private deal prices, on the face of it there's a decent profit being made.

    (To give an example, I was recently offered a trade in price on a guitar of £1100 by a dealer who told me he thought I'd get £1500 for it on ebay.  I bet he'd have priced it at £1800 or so. A potential £700 profit on an outlay of £1100 looks pretty attractive).

    But as you correctly say dealers are not generally falling over themselves to get trade-ins, so there must be a calculation going on making what on the face of it looks like lucrative bit of business not so attractive if you see the bigger picture.

    My guess would be it's an opportunity cost thing.  If the dealer has £1100 to spend he can buy in a new guitar and stick it on his wall. And my guess would be that he believes he can buy a guitar that will achieve better mark-up and/or will sell more quickly than my used one.  One reason being that when selling a used guitar he is competing with private sellers who don't have overheads to consider.


    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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  • jaygtrjaygtr Frets: 218
    When I asked about trading in my black dove tele for a real one , I was told that for fenders and gibsons in good nick they would offer a 1/3 of the new price and aim to sell it at 2/3's of the new price.For other makes quite a bit less would be offered.
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71957
    edited August 2013
    Retailer prices are always higher than private because they offer a warranty (even second-hand they legally must, even if they don't explicitly say so - goods must still be fit for purpose), can take payment by card, and can take trade-ins which most private sellers won't. Even then the price is often negotiable if you're paying cash and not trading anything in, so you'll be back close to the private price but with a warranty.

    And if you think a £700 profit on an £1100 outlay is a lot - even assuming they got the full price, and didn't have to restring or set it up - then you're clearly not in musical instrument retail... for a start, on an £1800 sale, £360 goes to the government immediately in VAT which can't be recovered if it came from a private individual rather than a VAT-registered distributor.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • impmannimpmann Frets: 12645
    /\ WHS plus they are in the business of making money. No profit, no food on the table. Simple as. And its not like any of us would work for free...
    Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever.

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  • NickNick Frets: 98
    The chaps above are absolutely correct. In most cases you will receive the highest offer in a private sale, as retailers have to combat a lot of different overheads when it comes to second-hand stock (less so with commission sales).
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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2582

    ICBM said:
    Retailer prices are always higher than private because they offer a warranty (even second-hand they legally must, even if they don't explicitly say so - goods must still be fit for purpose), can take payment by card, and can take trade-ins which most private sellers won't. Even then the price is often negotiable if you're paying cash and not trading anything in, so you'll be back close to the private price but with a warranty.

    And if you think a £700 profit on an £1100 outlay is a lot - even assuming they got the full price, and didn't have to restring or set it up - then you're clearly not in musical instrument retail... for a start, on an £1800 sale, £360 goes to the government immediately in VAT which can't be recovered if it came from a private individual rather than a VAT-registered distributor.

    I certainly didn't claim to be in music instrument (or any other kind) of retail - in fact my post makes clear that I've been trying to make sense of the numbers, in other words that I'm not an insider.

    But wouldn't these sales be within the second hand goods scheme, in which case VAT is accountable only on the margin?
    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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