Guitar selling market

Hydra19

I still don't understand how low to put the price....less than it would cost to replace the pickups for the whole guitar?

It's also the general attitude, I just asked a seller who mentions he is in London for pickups, whereabouts in London he was, and I got back 4 replies telling how he feels his postage fees are fair, all I asked was whereabouts in London are you....

Stevepage

hassleham said:

Definitely dead everywhere at the moment. 

The last guitar I bought was for sale for weeks for a great price and nobody bought it which I found really surprising. 

The last 2 guitars I sold barely got a sniff for months so I ended up selling to Richtone just to get rid of them!

I also was watching 2 PRS customs on ebay this week on bids with no reserve. One ended at £1000 and the other at £1200. Needless to say both have now been relisted as buy it now for much more.

This is what puts me off buying anything at the moment. Far too many chancers with money, flooding the market with their over inflated prices.

daisie_guitar

PAL said:

Lets be honest  if someone listed a
 Gibson R9 Les Paul for £1000 I bet anyone of us would try to knock a bit off the price ! 

I'd assume 98% of fretboarders could instantly tell that the price in unrealistically low and think it's a chibson or some kind of replica and steer clear...

PAL said:
My best advice from a sellers point of view is If you believe what you have is worth the asking price just take your time a it will sell eventually and because of the price of guitars & amp becoming more expensive your guitar becomes a more acceptable price. 

 So hang on to it because inflation will eventually make any price realistic. Even if 90% of your asking price today is the same as 100% in the future...  (Not to mention the endless ways of spending/investing that 90% today that would give you more utility.)

Hydra19

Good point @Stevepage ;
I see some guitars even listed here that I remember from the original listing, at least £1000 mark up. Even the chibson are selling for more than you can buy them from china. I guess just like in politics and war, deception is the key ingredient. Ok, maybe that's going a bit far.
I also remember buying a Fender CS on here for £1800, now they're a minimum of £3800 with most of them being around the masterbuilt marks.....but then again, if you want an American Vintage, you'll be paying close to those numbers anyway.

I'm gonna list my stuff on ebay auction and be done with it!

barnstorm

Stevepage said:

hassleham said:

Definitely dead everywhere at the moment. 

The last guitar I bought was for sale for weeks for a great price and nobody bought it which I found really surprising. 

The last 2 guitars I sold barely got a sniff for months so I ended up selling to Richtone just to get rid of them!

I also was watching 2 PRS customs on ebay this week on bids with no reserve. One ended at £1000 and the other at £1200. Needless to say both have now been relisted as buy it now for much more.

This is what puts me off buying anything at the moment. Far too many chancers with money, flooding the market with their over inflated prices.

My favourite recent one: Fender was blowing out MIJ Offset Teles on its website for about £500. Based on the number that immediately appeared in all the usual places for between £800 and £1000, you’d think that every person who took advantage of the offer was a dealer.

pluckbuddy

I haven't ever tried to sell anything more expensive than a USA strat or decent acoustic but it seems to me from my addiction to scanning the secondhand sections of my favourite retailers that their stock is moving - obviously some things sell almost instantly while others hang around a while. Same as always and it was definitely crap before the pandemic too.

It's an odd market at the moment though as inflation is pushing up the costs of new guitars but we're also in cost of living crisis. Hard to know what to make of it and what consumers are doing what. Buying and selling guitars is pretty niche anyway - selling through the classifieds on this forum is double, extra niche.

NCo

Hydra19 said:

@topdog, how do you decide market value? 

1. Reverb is really useful at providing a good price range. 
2. Go to Ebay and gauge buy it now prices, as well as track auction prices. 
3. Finally, use the search function to look for the item you want under classifieds.

Hydra19

@NCo, thanks for the clear answer
That is exactly how I've done it, and price mine £200 less than the rest, should be a good deal. Or maybe I've still priced it wrong? Who knows....
Just have to be patient

Lawriejones1

People have huge collections of not particularly desirable guitars and are trying to sell these same guitars to other people with huge collections of not very desirable guitars. 

That’s how one dealer expressed the situation to me.

I’ve also seen a lot of really fantastic vintage pieces coming up for sale too. Prices are massively inflated (as is their want), but people are getting rid of stuff for a reason.

Outside of guitar noodling, I run two businesses (one a service the other e-commerce) and I can tell you the market is dead for us and pretty much every other buisness out there. 

It’s not necessarily access to cash that’s the problem, but confidence to spend. 

Greatape

I think there are distinct markets with different drivers. Über-expensive, middle ground and cheap/beginner. That middle ground - sort of around American Standard/Pro, PRS S2 etc - is where I sit, and I'm told by people in the know that that is the area that a lot of shops struggle with. No suprise. Who thinks production lines be American Fender guitars are worth almost two grand? Custom shop stuff appears to be doing well still. I guess people buying at that level generally aren't feeling the pinch. 

At the same time, though, I'm seeing insane boutique (ish) bargains in the uses market. Like, non-Fender custom stuff for the new price of an American Pro 2 (or less). This illustrates an interesting divergence between new and used prices. Surely at some point that will start to hurt stores. 

NCo

Hydra19 said:

@NCo, thanks for the clear answer
That is exactly how I've done it, and price mine £200 less than the rest, should be a good deal. Or maybe I've still priced it wrong? Who knows....
Just have to be patient

No worries, I realise that philosophical answers about price equilibrium in a supply and demand model are not very helpful.

There's no right or wrong, the market isn't great. Be patient, listen to offers, keep an eye on prices and adjust when needed.

imalrightjack

The market is absolutely dreadful.  I've been lucky enough to move on a couple through dealers but have ended up trading a few, just to try and get something happening.

pluckbuddy

NCo said:

Hydra19 said:

@topdog, how do you decide market value? 

1. Reverb is really useful at providing a good price range. 
2. Go to Ebay and gauge buy it now prices, as well as track auction prices. 
3. Finally, use the search function to look for the item you want under classifieds.

Re checking eBay, check completed listings too. That's a better guide than BIN prices to my mind. 

Blueingreen

The market is definitely dead.  I've been seriously considering a second Tele. A bit of Googling brings up discounted offers from dealers that are better than I can find for the same model used on Ebay.  Even these discounted guitars are not selling quickly and dealers may be willing to haggle a bit.

rhinofeet

The market is saturated. Often now seeing 2nd hand stuff cheaper in gg or andertons than here or eBay. It's less risk to buy from the big store.

Strat54

Hydra19 said:

Good point @Stevepage ;
I see some guitars even listed here that I remember from the original listing, at least £1000 mark up. Even the chibson are selling for more than you can buy them from china. I guess just like in politics and war, deception is the key ingredient. Ok, maybe that's going a bit far.
I also remember buying a Fender CS on here for £1800, now they're a minimum of £3800 with most of them being around the masterbuilt marks.....but then again, if you want an American Vintage, you'll be paying close to those numbers anyway.

I'm gonna list my stuff on ebay auction and be done with it!

At least one of our TFB members is selling a guitar on here they bought from a well known auction house last year at just over £3k more than they paid for it including the buyer fees....some folks just make up hopeful prices to sit and wait months for a mug. 
Having said that rare and desirable guitars priced sensibly sell really quickly, even player grade vintage shift quickly.....Jordan guitars sold that ' 66 Tele in a couple of days.

Hydra19

I agree about the custom shops being easy to sell, but at that price point that Custom shops are at, you can get a vintage fender.....
It's also about niche guitars. I do love ESP navigators, buying them, they're expensive, selling them you need to go cheap otherwise it won't move as not many know about them and they're not cheap enough to take a chance on. 

And yes, a lot of people are listing guitars for crazy prices hoping they'd sell.
Anyone familiar with Antonio Guitars? He is an amateur luthier based in Romania that started making ESP explorer copies, at £6k a pop! He even sent one to metallica, it was rejected apparantely. Anyway, he has 3 gibson explorer that I assumed he used to make the templates of his copies. Apparantely, Gibson used Honduran mahogany and brazilian rosewood for some of the 80's explorers that makes them 10 steps above ESP
 Check those prices
Passionforguitars indeed - https://reverb.com/shop/passionforguitars

floeighty2

Just completed the sale of my SG for more than I was listing for on here (still cheaper than the new Epiphones…).  The trade prices I was offered by shops were higher than I was selling for as well.  I always try and offer the lowest figure on here as I like the community aspect, but nearly always sell on other platforms often for a good chunk more. Sometimes takes a while sometimes doesn’t.  The thing that I’ve encountered a lot recently is people want the price dropped to account for a) petrol and b) time coming to collect. Not sure how you price time

nero1701

I find the model that people use here often a bit strange.

£1200 sale or £1400 for trade.

That works if you're a car dealer. We're here as kinda like minded people and I think to offer the above detracts from the forum values and just shows people as out to make a bob or 2.

bgmartinsbridge

The problem I've had is the opposite - I give someone a low price for a quick cash sale and then they offer a trade and inflate their own price and say that's what it's worth.
You then say but I've given you a low price for a quick cash sale and get a so what, that's what you offered it to me for so I expect the same in trade against my inflated price.