New,Used or Ex -Demo..........different attitudes in USA

Dominic

Just been reading forum chats about guitar buying ,mainly American contributors.
It seems they have a big issue with buying "new" guitars that have been hung on a shop wall and expect "New"to mean that a sales assistant scurries out the back of the shop and brings out a sealed unopened box from the storeroom.
If it was the combo- pack Squier strat and amp for $120 I would understand but we are talking about people paying for $4500 dollar guitars.....who are more concerned about the concept of new than how it feels, weight,blemishes etc.
 They have a tendency to regard anything that has been hung up in the shop as EX-Demo .
Whilst it's pedantically true I've never encountered that in UK
Interestingly I assume a dealer qualifies it as ex-demo as soon as it receives it's first ding but until that point, no matter how many have played it /demoed it then it's still a new guitar.

stickyfiddle

I've never quite understood this. Ideally I'd prefer my guitar not to have been mishandled by 20+ other sweaty-handed oiks before it became mine. But *way* more important is that I like the actual guitar I'm demoing, and would expressly not want to say "i'll take it" only for the sales guy to go and get a different one from the storeroom for me to take home. 

further

Merkins are weird,end of.

Fretwired

Dominic said:

Just been reading forum chats about guitar buying ,mainly American contributors.
It seems they have a big issue with buying "new" guitars that have been hung on a shop wall and expect "New"to mean that a sales assistant scurries out the back of the shop and brings out a sealed unopened box from the storeroom.
If it was the combo- pack Squier strat and amp for $120 I would understand but we are talking about people paying for $4500 dollar guitars.....who are more concerned about the concept of new than how it feels, weight,blemishes etc.
 They have a tendency to regard anything that has been hung up in the shop as EX-Demo .
Whilst it's pedantically true I've never encountered that in UK
Interestingly I assume a dealer qualifies it as ex-demo as soon as it receives it's first ding but until that point, no matter how many have played it /demoed it then it's still a new guitar.

I have a mate who thinks like that and tries it on. Sometimes I think he has a point if a guitar has been on a wall for months suffering heat and cold and occasionally being played. The dealer should at least set it up properly. He usually gets a couple of packets of strings or a setup and tends to buy pro level guitars £1K or more.

Philly_Q

Dominic said:

It seems they have a big issue with buying "new" guitars that have been hung on a shop wall and expect "New"to mean that a sales assistant scurries out the back of the shop and brings out a sealed unopened box from the storeroom.

But do they then walk away with that sealed, unopened box, come what may - or do they take it out and have a look at it, potentially turning it into an "ex-demo" item for someone else?

There's a degree of self-centredness (is that a word?) here.  I don't want something that some other oik has played, but if I play it and don't want it, then it's the shop's problem to deal with.

I don't think it's realistic to shop for something like a guitar and expect it to be untouched by human hands.  It's a bit like clothes shopping, if you want to try before you buy you always run the risk that some other sweaty-legged so-and-so has struggled to fit into those trousers before you came along. 

Fuengi

I'll always ask the question if it has been on display, but it wouldn't put me off buying if the answer is 'no'. 

If you really want 'untouched by others' - as you'd get a tailor to make your clothes, get a builder to make your guitar. 

randella

I know a few guitarists in real life, as it were, and they simply aren't arsed about this sort of thing.  I think it's an internet phenomenon.  Folk spend too much time worrying about purchases now, like they feel they have to belong by having what everyone else considers the best - and if you don't buy a guitar on feel, that's all you have.  Appearances.

It's anathema to me.  One of my favourite guitars is a '94 special edition USA Strat which sat on the wall of a particularly grubby shop until I ambled past and bought it for the ticket price in '97.  It felt and sounded like the right guitar, and still does.

randella

I stand corrected.  I did meet one guitarist, a rather passive-aggressive chap who spent 20 minutes telling me all about his USA Standard Strat ("It's American! It's a USA guitar!") and how he'd just had a ding repaired at great expense because it had to be perfect.

He then proceeded to open the case and pull out some late 70's hard-tail CBS effort which, had he even been able to play it, wouldn't stay in tune for more than three bars of a song and had a bridge pickup tone not unlike my dentist's drill.

I suppose some folk are just like that.

jellyroll

Then, of course, there are the folk who, on selling a used guitar, declare that it has "never been played" and is therefore "new."

Hattigol

I'm always wary when I'm buying anything which might be 'shop-soiled'. Especially underpants.

thermionic

My experience of guitar shops in the USA is that the guitars hanging up on the walls get played a *lot*. I've walked into many an inner sanctum in a Guitar Center and casually picked up J45s and HD-28s with hardly a peep from the sales assistants. The guitars in UK shops don't see that kind of action in my experience.- people only ask to play them if they're serious about buying. So I'd guess a USA shop stock guitar would have more signs of wear than it's UK counterpart.

crunchman

I think the geography is a factor as well.  Because of the distances involved, I suspect that there has always been more  mail order/internet buying by people who don't try the guitar first.  It probably breeds a different mindset.

jellyroll

crunchman said:

I think the geography is a factor as well.  Because of the distances involved, I suspect that there has always been more  mail order/internet buying by people who don't try the guitar first.  It probably breeds a different mindset.

True. If you're buying remotely (rightly or wrongly), you haven't tried any guitar, so it makes sense to specify a "new" one.

carlos

In the UK it's the dreaded gig. My gigs tend to be controlled affairs where the guitar is always in its hardcase unless it's being played. However, it seems that to the rest of the guitar selling and buying crowd, gigs are one giant mosh pit where guitars get stomped on, punters take belt sanders and screwdrivers to them, the bartender runs a tap over it, the guitarist smashes it like an axe a few times, and so on. Never been gigged, they say, and thank fuck for that!

impmann

I love this concept that new guitars are somehow untouched by human hand... wtf? Do you honestly think that guys or girls who work in guitar factories (or set up facilities or distribution warehouses) don't handle them?

And its been on display for a while in a shop... where its got hot and cold, and someone else might have played it. So you'd not buy it? But you'd be quite happy for it to come home to your house, get hot and cold and have you play it... er????? Whats the difference... do you never let anyone else play your guitars?

I think some people are a bit precious about these things - they are wood and wires, nothing more.

As for the gig comment above... yes, I'm sure your gigs are very controlled. It sounds like a recital, rather than rock n roll. A lot of the gigs I've played in pubs are rather lacking in space, so often there isn't anywhere to put a hard case, let alone put a guitar in one... Having toured the festival circuit, often you have next to no time (or facilities) to neatly lay out your kit and at the end of the set, you are ushered off the stage as quick as possible. Being anal about one's guitar isn't really condusive to getting acts on and off the stage fast and having witnessed one guy being a prize prick about wiping his guitar down to almost foresnic levels after a performance, and him nearly been thrown off the back of the stage because he was in the way, I wouldn't advise it.
But I take the point about the condition of some guitars after being gigged - my own have some useage marks and the Les Paul does have a scratch on it where I put it down at the end of the night, and wasn't looking carefully enough. Ah well, shit happens. My Tele survived many years of being gigged by someone on the NYC scene during the 1980s - somewhere I have the pictures of it being used to destroy the drum kit on the last night the band played together (they planned to destroy everything - a sort of no going back thing - but the Tele survived). Another acquaintance borrowed it from me and threw it into the crowd at a Festival some years ago - it survived that too, he nearly didn't. He was "in the moment"... and nearly stayed there forever, as it was explained to him the extent of the damage that would be inflicted on the guitar if I battered him around the head with it (none whatsoever).
I have seen some brutal gigs though... and some people's sweat is more corrosive than others. Refer Rory G. And some people sweat more than others. So sweeping statements about gigs and gig 'damage' rarely hold water, in my view as we all do things differently. Not "better", just different.

sinbaadi

We had a similar discussion on here not so long ago.
I'm more in the US camp, but I think everyone is to some extent and I think saying that the only thing that matters is how it plays is just claptrap.
You are paying a "brand new" price.  Of course you make a decision on whether it's worth the money every time you buy anything, but don't pretend that there is no line after which that guitar is not worth "brand new" money.
Untouched by human hand?  Of course not.  On display for a few weeks and played by people who respect others' property?  That is the most I would expect any "brand new" guitar to be subjected to. 

General wear and tear happens to used guitars not "brand new" ones.  If a guitar had an "hours" meter like an aircraft we'd all have our own opinion, but I bet we would all say that 100hours of playing is not a "brand new" guitar anymore.  

(In my opinion, and by the way the guitar might be great, but not worth brand new money just because this used guitar happens to still be in a shop)

MrBump

I get the US view.  I've been visiting and playing lots of new guitars of late, being as I am in the market for one, and some that I've taken off the shelf have a definite second hand feel - dead strings, less than polished finish.

I've no idea how long guitars stay on walls in music shops... Is there a designated lifespan before they hit the equivalent of the Woolies Bargain Bucket?

Dominic

I think the following strategy applies................
1. Find the "new" guitar you like in a shop
2.send a mate in to demo it the next day asking him to make sure he puts a bit of subtle buckle-rash on the back in a very nonchalant way being sure that it isn't too severe and in a very innocuous location
3.Return to said guitar shop the following day, express interest in the guitar but make a big deal of inspecting it as you say that you want it.........."aha....is this new ? ......there seems to be some play wear ........here look ? "
........Offer to proceed once 20 % has been price adjusted.Thats £400 on a 2k guitar.
 I'll bet it has been done..........there's some real rotters out there !

Philly_Q

Now that I think about it, almost everything I've bought in the last few years has been used so the whole new vs. ex-demo thing has been a non-issue.

And the only genuinely new guitar I've bought recently is a relic.  So although it probably was pretty much untouched by human hands once it left Fender, it's very hard to tell....

digitalscream

sinbaadi said:

You are paying a "brand new" price.  Of course you make a decision on whether it's worth the money every time you buy anything, but don't pretend that there is no line after which that guitar is not worth "brand new" money.

The majority of the difference between second-hand price and brand-new price on pretty much anything is actually the warranty (which, in most cases these days, is non-transferable), and nothing to do with the condition of the item in question. Then you factor in the "Am I buying somebody else's problem?" question (ie the reason they're selling it, which usually isn't the one they've given you), which soaks up a lot of the rest of the difference.

When you get right down to it, the condition of the item - whatever it is - is a pretty tiny part of the difference between new and used. It may be more or less important than that to you, but that's not how the market works.

sinbaadi

People buy guitars from music shops for the warranty?