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Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
A couple of years ago I bought an SG from someone for what I considered a fair price. It became obvious he'd bought it about 18 months before, and on clearance. I was OK with the fact he was probably making about £50 to £100 on it, as I did think the price was fair. Within the year I began to think about selling it, but, being a bit undecided, I listed it for £250 more than I'd paid - expecting offers close to what I paid, at which point I could decided if I really did want to let it go. Someone came along and offered the price I was asking. So that SG went up £300 or so from new, within three years.
Over the last 4 or 5 years, I've also bought and sold a few new guitars - four have made a profit of some sort, two sold for what I paid new, and just a couple have made a small loss. Of course, there are a few I still have that would make a larger loss if I sold them - thankfully they're keepers, (at least for now!), and if I ever did sell them, they would've 'earned their keep'.
I suspect some models can achieve such an increase from full retail: The 'Captain Kirk' SG is a good example. It was basically a limited run Custom for Standard prices, and Gibson's prices have gone up dramatically since then. I rarely see them for sale, but when I do, they're always more than the original RRP from 2013.
Used prices for recent or current models must be closely related to the cost of buying new, regardless of the elements of tax or mark up. Of course, there are other factors such as desirability and rarity, but I don't see the relevance of VAT or mark up in terms of resale values.
Similarly, if I decide to buy a used guitar that’s 12 months old, I have no idea what’s happened to it in that 12 month period - buy new and I know what I’m getting 100% - if it develops a fault, the maker will rectify. If I buy used, who knows what faults may develop - and as a “sold as seen item” I’m forking out for repairs.
The ones I want to buy seems to all be at the original RRP, or sometimes higher.
How does that work?
So £2000 - 20% is £1600 - 30% = £1120.
I usually think that the used price for a guitar is about 60% of the retail price, which is slightly higher than what the dealer buys it from the manufacturer or distributor for. So in that sense guitars don't really lose much at all.
Here in Singapore used prices are higher than 60% of retail because it is a much smaller market and people buy from abroad.
What I am saying here is it is all about supply and demand and nothing to do with the guitar itself.
The best Les Paul in the world is worth exactly the same as any other Les Paul with the same spec to most people.
The notion that 'certain' guitars are worth more because they are 'just so good' is nonsense though.
We all like different things.
My absolute favourite guitar in the world is an Anderson strat that I know had at least two owners before I bought it.
It is the best guitar I have ever played and yet two people decided that it wasn't for them.
Go figure.
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if you pay with paypal there is protection for months (within reason)
I have never encountered a guitar that has needed its warranty used
I sold a guitar last week and I’m pretty sure 3 of the people contacting me were his sock puppets. 2 of them were sending me really lowball offers while one was more reasonable but still less than I wanted to take. Thankfully I sold it for the asking price to someone else and didn’t have to deal with him.
There are obvious caveats to that, mostly revolving around sale prices and/or location. I paid a shade over 1600 for my ES-330 between a great sale price and an excellent VAT reclaim as I live outside the UK. In the UAE market there are no other ES-330s (it's quite likely mine is the only one in the country, at least red/VOS ones), so I expect to easily clear that figure if I sell it on the used market. But there's also a much smaller base of guitar players with money for gear, so finding a buyer would likely take more time. My Dove was a similar story - it took 4 months to find a seller but I got a chunk more than I would have in the UK.
That said, there is no real reason for depreciation on an already-used guitar. Depreciation, in theory, is about the useful life of an item. A 5-year old Strat isn't any less useful than a 1-year old one assuming the same levels of fretwear etc.