Guitar wheeler dealer project - you tube channel

gazrichards

Hi all
little back story. I’ve worked with guitars most of my life. I started as Saturday boy in a local store, went on to managing the store, left to train as a luthier, worked as a guitar repair and teched on tour for some “big” acts. I now no longer work in the industry and enjoy guitars more than ever. 

I have a lovely guitar collection that I’m very happy with but I can’t help but keep acquiring bits and moving them on.  

I’ve had the idea to make this wheeler dealer obsession into a more solid hobby project. I want to start with a set fee of a couple of hundred quid or so and buy a guitar. Use that guitar to either trade or sell and buy again and basically see where I end up after a certain period of time. I could do minor jobs and set ups on them to increase resale (I no longer have a workshop to do major stuff).
i think it would be cool if I started with a squier and ended up custom shop or similar. Trogly has actually done something similar on his YouTube page. 

My brother has his own YouTube channel doing movie reviews. No one watches it but he loves doing it. I thought a good way to document my project would be a YouTube page. It would also help advertise the guitars as I would video and detail each one - documenting them for my own interest but also transparency for potential buyers. I would sell on reverb, here and FB groups. 

My questions are this.....
1 would anyone actually be interested in such a thing? 

2 what media would be best to document? Facebook page? Just a thread on here or just a scrap book for myself? I don’t want to turn into a bedroom dealer. I’ll deal in one or two instruments at a time. 

3 a worry for me is that the guitar buying/selling public actually resent dealing with me as I’m obviously making a “profit” in the sense that I’ve turned £200 into a premium guitar (if it works - let’s ignore the man hours setting up instruments and trawling classifieds for bargains/knackered guitars)

if I go the YouTube route my plan is to actually write and record a very short song on garage band or something, using the guitar for sale so potential buyers can hear the guitar. This also gets out some creative frustration and gives me reason to play and record - another thing I enjoy. 

I almost want to be the anti “bedroom guitar dealer” and enjoy the trading and dealing and see where it ends up rather than buy low, sell high to raise profit. The best possible scenario for me is that I end up with another wonderful guitar that I refuse to sell because I like it so much and the project ends - all for a couple hundred quid and loads of man hours. Then I maybe start it again!!!!!!!

input gratefully received. 

Grampa

I'd watch, but how about auctioning the final guitar and giving any profit (after expenses) to a reputable charity?

DrCornelius

I like the idea and would be interested in watching how you get on. However not many folks put value on upgrades and work you put in to make a guitar better imho. If you are being transparent and saying ‘ I paid £300 for this knackered MIM Strat but I’ve put 20 hours of work into it and spend £30 on new bits’ you’ll still alienate a fair chunk of buyers  who put no value on that time and would want to lay £325 for it.

Is there a way you could maybe publish the guitar buy price / cost of bits / hours spent after you’ve completed each sale ?

SlopeSoarer

Just give it a go using YouTube and you could link a PDF document with a brief text/photo explanation.

If no one watches it then hopefully like your brother you'll still enjoy the process. 

gazrichards

I wouldn’t upgrade the guitars as such. I’m not talking replacing pickups etc unless they are shot. Just setting up, cleaning. 

A lot of the man hours would be trawling ads looking for bargains. I definitely planned on publishing a rundown of every transaction in detail once I was finished. What I was having 2nd thoughts on was actually saying what a guitar cost me whilst trying to ask for more at point of sale. Once done I’d be super transparent about all that stuff - that’s kind of the whole point. 

As for the charity thing, nice idea, I’ll genuinely give that some thought but I can actually see this taking up a lot of time. I’m fortunate enough to be able to give up an hour a day to cruise ads and a day a week to do videos etc. It’s a lot of work. 

soma1975

Not sure how riveting it would be watching you crawling the classifieds for hours looking for a bargain but if you can mostly keep it to the fun bits I would be interested in the journey. 

horse

I think publicising it as you're doing it might be problematic. Some people might not like you exploiting "buy low / sell high" as a hobby project (not that there's anything wrong with doing so).

Might work better if you documented the project in private as you go, then publish the whole story / journey at the end?

neilg

Sounds a bit like Sam Deeks channel on youtube but his videos are completely unedited and about three hours long.

Sassafras

I thought most upgrades devalued guitars.
Apart from maybe a good clean and some nice photos.

Modellista

I would certainly follow something like this, just to see how a fellow traveller gets on. It’s going to be a slow burner though. Say a week to find a suitable guitar, a week to get it sorted, and goodness knows how long to sell it. I think you’d be doing well to get through a guitar a month. 

I agree the time soak is finding suitable guitars to buy with potential value. Usual poorly-advertised stuff on eBay. PRS SE for £150 and sold for £250, Mex Fender bought for £250 and sold for £350 etc. It’s possible. Success will depend on how watchable your video persona is. But unless you’re uploading 2-3 videos a week to YouTube - which basically means buying a guitar a week or making videos about the minutiae of setting intonation every time - it’s unlikely you’ll get many subscribers. But hey ho it’s a hobby!

gazrichards

Thanks for the responses so far. 

The YouTube thing was really a hope that I could just go to my brother for an hour, talk in front of a camera and a day later a vid appears on YouTube thanks to his nerdy expertise. I’m not really into doing all that myself and I’m slightly put off by it and looking for another way to do it. I see the benefit of YouTube or a video as a sales tool and it will set me apart from other sellers I think. 

There is of course the possibility that I won’t make on every guitar. I could by a fake? Or mid read the market or fall in love with one of the guitars and not want to sell it. 

Scratcher

Just go for it.It would be a great watch for me.

Sassafras

I think it's a terrible idea.
It will encourage ebayers to overvalue their tat even more than the delusional optimistic prices they currently demand.

gazrichards

Sassafras said:

I think it's a terrible idea.
It will encourage ebayers to overvalue their tat even more than the delusional optimistic prices they currently demand.

I doubt my little project will have such an impact on the guitar and eBay communities as that. Me buying and selling a guitar every couple of weeks or trading up is a drop in the water. There are a few guys doing similar on this very forum without really realising it anyway. Always chopping and changing gear etc. I’ll be doing it with the sole purpose of flipping and hoping not to want to keep any of them is all. 

Sassafras

gazrichards said:

Sassafras said:

I think it's a terrible idea.
It will encourage ebayers to overvalue their tat even more than the delusional optimistic prices they currently demand.

I doubt my little project will have such an impact on the guitar and eBay communities as that. Me buying and selling a guitar every couple of weeks or trading up is a drop in the water. There are a few guys doing similar on this very forum without really realising it anyway. Always chopping and changing gear etc. I’ll be doing it with the sole purpose of flipping and hoping not to want to keep any of them is all. 

I rarely post serious comments.

LastMantra

I like to see people giving a new life to something that would otherwise be landfill. Harry7 style.

You need to be careful, I think, that you don't come across as taking advantage of people. 
Not that I'm in any way suggesting that's what you're doing. 

imalrightjack

This is how I’ve acquired a small collection (four or five) of nice guitars. Some on here would paint me as the devil incarnate for doing so, having had a barrage of abuse by PM as recently as Friday. Happy days! But once I’ve sold one of McCartys (or traded and likely traded on), I intend to stop buying. Intend to...

If people are selling for a price they’re happy to sell for, good luck to you. I’d watch!

gazrichards

imalrightjack said:

This is how I’ve acquired a small collection (four or five) of nice guitars. Some on here would paint me as the devil incarnate for doing so, having had a barrage of abuse by PM as recently as Friday. Happy days! But once I’ve sold one of McCartys (or traded and likely traded on), I intend to stop buying. Intend to...

If people are selling for a price they’re happy to sell for, good luck to you. I’d watch!

Yeah I think the way I’m planning on doing it, with the YouTube page etc is as transparent as possible. If I make an offer and someone takes it then it’s all fair game. If I lie and say I’m broke or it’s for my illness riddled infant child or some other bollocks then obviously that’s not cool. 

I’m sure you all know of Steve Jordan on gumtree and FB. I feel he upsets folk as he has a huge quantity of instruments and all rather high on the price side. I’ll hold one or two at a time and it is a project and a hobby, not a business. If you like it’s an experimented to prove that it is or is t possible to turn £200 into a gibson les paul/avri strat/PRS with a little work and time. 

Anyway, reverb page and YouTube channel is set up. Video quality is likely to be shocking but hey ho!!!
ill post links up when there is stuff to see. 

imalrightjack

gazrichards said:

If I lie and say I’m broke or it’s for my illness riddled infant child or some other bollocks then obviously that’s not cool. 

I’m sure you all know of Steve Jordan on gumtree and FB. I feel he upsets folk as he has a huge quantity of instruments and all rather high on the price side. I’ll hold one or two at a time and it is a project and a hobby, not a business.

Absolutely. If you get something cheap and make a good wedge on it, good luck to you. But do prepare for some stick! Some people’s eyes go very green when you get a bargain they wish the had found before you. I’ve had some serious win some/lose some guitars, where I’ve ended up making a net loss, but they balance out with perseverance.

Henrytwang

neilg said:

Sounds a bit like Sam Deeks channel on youtube but his videos are completely unedited and about three hours long.

Sam Deeks is really boring. Half of the time he doesn’t seem to know what he’s taking about. I suppose it’s ok if you’ve got a sense of humour, I remember him “ improving “ an crap old 1970s Avon Les Paul copy and calling it a vintage classic guitar. His “precision” fret levelling is a joke and his Oakcaster travel guitars look. A bit like a GCSE woodwork project.

Nikc

I like the idea following some basic investigation on your part and then the value you add - I wouldn't bother telling people how much you've paid or spent its not really their business, all that matter is how much you want for the final guitar. No problem with that at all good luck