Gas Station Guitars........anybody here buy from them

Dominic

looks like they have a great selection from Japan market

Offset

They do indeed but I've always thought they were a smidgen over-priced - but perhaps that's a little unfair in the current market.  They photograph and present their guitars extremely well.

timmypix

Seconded on the lovely pictures but eye-watering prices. Even in the current market they're generally a good 20% higher than I'd expect and no option for offers, at least on Reverb.

stonevibe

I guess that some people will pay over the odds for something they want.

Offset

timmypix said:

Seconded on the lovely pictures but eye-watering prices. Even in the current market they're generally a good 20% higher than I'd expect and no option for offers, at least on Reverb.

Just had a brief trawl through their website which I haven't visited for a while.  I'll adjust 'smidgen over-priced' to be in line with your 'eye-watering prices' observation.

Some lovely guitars on there but blimey, they're bloody expensive.

abw1989

They do have a brilliant selection which is as others have pointed out towards the 'optimistic' side of the price spectrum. I've heard that they are willing to negotiate on price though.

The main kicker is that they are very much online only. If you look in their FAQ section, they don't allow you to visit and play anything before you buy. When purchasing something running into the many thousands which a lot of their stock is would be an issue for many I'd assume. If you take the risk and you don't like it, they'll even let you pay the return postage too which is nice...

usedtobe

Cringey name, too…

Hattigol

Nice guitars.
Ludicrous prices.
No movement on price when I asked about one.

idiotwindow

I guess the prices are what they are for the outfit to be sustainable as a business and we are all free to take it or leave it. What puts me off, however, are amateurish things like not accepting credit cards and having terms of sale that don't inspire confidence in being able to easily return something you don't like. I'm also not sure that their Paypal payment policy of deducting the Paypal seller fees from any distance selling refund is actually legal (and their whinge-like explanation of that policy just adds to my distrust of the company).

brojangles

Repeating the observation that they have nice stuff but it's really expensive and presumably has to be to keep them going. I'd wait around for a private seller to show up instead, especially with conventional wisdom now tilting to Mexican Fenders being better value than Japanese ones.

CharlieShaw

brojangles said:

Repeating the observation that they have nice stuff but it's really expensive and presumably has to be to keep them going. I'd wait around for a private seller to show up instead, especially with conventional wisdom now tilting to Mexican Fenders being better value than Japanese ones.

 I thought that conventional wisdom was that Japanese Fenders have way better QC than Mexican. And that previously Japanese fenders were underpriced. Depends on who you talk to obviously.

RobG3294

I always found their "If you see it on Gas Station's site it's a bona-fide belter of a Guitar - We turn down more Guitars than we accept" crap.

Pal... you'll take in any Guitar you think you can flip and make money on... No problem with that at all, we've all done/do it on occasion (and profit margins will be necessitated to run a business), but ffs don't think folk were dug up yesterday and come out with nonsense like that.

And their prices are astonishing. I think I saw a 335 up for like £3.5k + the other day. Production run model. The whole "Yamano export" crap they milk until the cows come home. They're simply some nice examples that were exported to Japan of standard production models. Plenty nice examples remained for the US/EU market at the time. They weren't made any differently. 

Don't fall for it!

Dominic

yup.....they would soon drop their prices if they didn't make any sales so it obviously works as a business .
I don't think it's amateur not to take credit cards ......they are a small business not a hotel chain and that is their choice .
Merchant services can be a real pain from the retailer point of view BUT a £3000 guitar is not easy to buy without credit card benefit for a lot of people so I would have thought they are shooting themselves in the foot

Brize

I always just scroll right past anything this guy has for sale on Reverb - the same with AC/DC Glory and Squeal-Like-A-Pig Guitars.

chris78

Must admit, I don't get their market.
There is nothing particularly special about Japanese guitars.

timmypix

Brize said:

I always just scroll right past anything this guy has for sale on Reverb - the same with AC/DC Glory and Squeal-Like-A-Pig Guitars.

AC/DC Glory genuinely astonishes me that he sells anything. And tbf, there aren't many sales compared to the number of listings. But his prices verge into the delusional.

thermionic

Offset said:

They do indeed but I've always thought they were a smidgen over-priced - but perhaps that's a little unfair in the current market. 

Gas Station Guitars and their ilk is part of the reason that the current market is in such a state. £1200 for a used Japanese Jazzmaster?

idiotwindow

Dominic said:

I don't think it's amateur not to take credit cards ......they are a small business not a hotel chain and that is their choice .
Merchant services can be a real pain from the retailer point of view

I agree with you but taking on board these kind of inconveniences, costs and potential liabilities are what IMO distinguishes a serious business from a more "amateur" business (bedroom dealer, etc.).

I was in a record shop on the Isle of Wight in the summer. The shop also sold low cost guitars yet there was no facility to pay for anything other than by cash. The proprietor was repeatedly having to explain why and kept whinging on about the costs involved in accepting card payments. I did actually buy a couple of LPs (cheap enough) but I couldn't help but think how pisspoor it all was in this day and age. I could only imagine what it might be like buying a guitar in that shop and then later trying to get a problem resolved.

jumping@shadows

For reasons I can’t go into here due to the forum’s sensitivity to potentially litigious statements, I would not personally do business with this company, as enthusiastically cautioned  by a former Japanese supplier of his stock.  

Neilybob

I would kick this out of bed lol

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3hLpCing_a/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

StuartMac290

I've a funny feeling the word "Yamano" isn't quite the value multiplier he thinks it is.