Does anyone understand the current used market?

[Iron1]

One minute I see a Schecter that was $499 brand new listed for $600, then I see "custom made (re:cheap kit)" guitars listed for even more. Then, people offer like half of what stuff is worth in bids.

Had a guy yesterday offer me $150 less for my Soloist than I have it listed for on Reverb. Looked at his profile and he has an SLX listed for $100 more than my Soloist... Me thinks this dude is taking buy low sell high a bit too far... Better still, I countered his offer and he declined it immediately. If I had cash to burn I'd low ball his SLX just for fun.

Anyone else seeing crazier than normal stuff?

[JJ Rodriguez]

I've just resigned myself to the fact that shit is out of control right now. Unless I see a killer deal on something I'm not buying shit until COVID fucks off and seeing if that makes things calm down.

[Iron1]

I've just resigned myself to the fact that shit is out of control right now. Unless I see a killer deal on something I'm not buying shit until COVID fucks off and seeing if that makes things calm down.

That's not a bad outlook. I've been looking for guitars to fix up and flip, but people are asking 3-4X what I was paying for things last year. Maybe I just need to put that on hold til things calm down...

[scole]

EVH related gear and Rockman X100s are still riding the wave of speculative sales. Various YouTubers are scouring the scrap heap of older rack effects for video content so bumps in price for those units are sure to come as well.

the ballsiest thing I’ve seen so far was some guy here in the US selling an RG565 Genesis for $1500 before walking back the price to $1100 (but still way over retail price). The listing finally disappeared so I hope he just pulled the ad rather than him finding a sucker.

[Mike]

Anything Japanese in the US has gone insane. Especially Jacksons.

[Greg McCoy]

The "buy low/sell high" habitual flipper guys are fucking idiots. In almost all used industries.

You have to be a guy with a super efficient system who does that at large scale to actually even think about coming out ahead doing it, and even then it's hard. Either that or the items have to be super big ticket.

The super big ticket items aren't surefire either. I know a bunch of people who have done speculation homes who ended up making a lot less money than they thought. They look at it right off the bat and say "Damn, I can buy this land for $450,000, I bet I can build and sell a house there for $1 million, fuck yeah"

And then when all is said and done, they end up turning a net profit of like $15k for a two year ordeal.

Bottom line is, if you are buying guitars to flip, you are only playing yourself. And being a douche besides. You come out ahead fiscally just not buying guitars you aren't going to play.

Let's say you buy a $300 and discover you can later sell it for $500. You did pretty good, right?

Well, no. For starters the $50 you spent on having it shipped to you is unrecoupable. So we are down to $150 "profit". You also spent $20 on incidental shit like strings to "fix it up" to flip it like the flipping master you are. So we are down to $130. You spent 1-2 hours giving a guitar you bought and didn't intend to play a setup/deep cleaning and spent another 1-2 hours taking photos and listing it online. So even valuing your time at way less than minimum wage, say $10 an hour, we are down from $130 to $90. Unless it was a private individual->individual sale some organization is taking a cut for facilitating it as well.

But wait, as any good economist will tell you, having your shit tied up in physical assets like guitars is way riskier than just having them liquid. The market is also unpredictable, it's not as safe as having money in the bank, so in your illustrious flipping career you are also going to lose some (from the classic "win some, lose some") expression and at best, break even on some.

There are probably like two private individuals in the world who make a worthwhile amount of money flipping guitars. You have to be good at it, extremely efficient, and operate in large volumes.

Selling anything under $50 is a fucking joke. Unless you are a broke ass college student or a high school student. I did that shit in college, sure, but eventually you realize it's not worth it.

When it comes to shit like selling pickups, eventually at some point you crunch some numbers and come to the realization that you just spent 3-4 hours making a listing/taking pictures/communicating via PM/Packing shit/Driving to the post office/Standing in line at the post office/etc. That's if everything goes smoothly.

So don't be a miserly douche about flipping gear, not only is it douchey, you are only playing yourself. You make more money doing about anything else. You make more money looking for change in vending machines for fucks sake.

Unless you are under 21 or a broke ass student, just give your items under $30-50 you aren't using away. You are losing money obsessing about selling them.

For shit above say $200-250 unless you can routinely streamline your process to sinking a maximum of one to two hours into flipping a guitar, you routinely make a profit the majority of the time, and you do it at massive volumes, you are just deluding yourself and being a douche over something that isn't even worth it.

Don't be a flipper. If you are a flipper, go back and look at the last item you flipped and calculate how much money that comes out to hourly.....

[Greg McCoy]

Anything Japanese in the US has gone insane. Especially Jacksons.

That's partly because a huge amount of people in used guitar markets don't understand the difference between "price items actually go for" and "price people are listing their items for".

Part of the reason it's inflated so greatly is because of the compounding of years and years of people pricing their items off of other peoples listings without considering that that's not the price they actually sell for.

Every year it compounds more and more, so now you are seeing like $350 Japanese Jacksons being listed for over a grand.

When you are pricing your own items by looking at comparable items, you have to consider whether the comparable items are actually selling.

In smaller volume areas like more obscure Japanese superstrats the lunatic outliers who have their shit listed at outlandish prices fuck the entire market up.

You can only price items off comparable items if there is a suitable volume of sales history to look at.

The dudes who price their guitars based on the two other comparable guitars that have been listed on ebay for 4-5 years without selling are not only assholes, they are also idiots.

[Budda]

I see people listing lower end used gear at new prices here, but i dunno what stuff is selling for. The high end market seems to have slowed down a touch now that people can sit outdoors at bars and restaurants again.

[jacksonplayer]

Reverb doesn't list final sale prices, so it's hard to gauge what's actually going there.

Looking at sold listings on eBay is a little better, but accepted best offers don't get listed. Nevertheless, just scouring those sold listings shows that things aren't quite as crazy for most guitars as the Reverb wishing prices would indicate.

The asking prices for '90s Japanese Jacksons are quite ridiculous, but I don't know what things are really selling for.

[Hulk Krogan]

Before I bought my FM3, I checked the used prices out of curiosity and they were generally significantly higher than a new model. Like, at least $2-300 higher. I rembered bearing stuff about a wait-list and thought that might explain it, but no. At the time there was a giant BUY NOW, NO WAIT LIST button on fractal's site.

[Randy]

Before I bought my FM3, I checked the used prices out of curiosity and they were generally significantly higher than a new model. Like, at least $2-300 higher. I rembered bearing stuff about a wait-list and thought that might explain it, but no. At the time there was a giant BUY NOW, NO WAIT LIST button on fractal's site.

Waitlist was stop and go, some of those listings predate(d) the end of the waitlist, some of them stayed up figuring if it stopped again they'd be the first place people turn to, and some of the used listing will ship international where there were still waitlists and significant upcharges from G66. In my experience anyway.

[Chris]

Fractal stuff has always been weird like that on auction sites, even back in the Ultra/Std days.

[Hulk Krogan]

lol check this shit out: https://reverb.com/item/40858424-sch...ic-guitar-1999

I bought one of these on on ebay in 20-goddamn-11 for $250 bucks as a backup/alternate tuning guitar. This is listed for $600 (post-price drop!) and it's even more banged up than mine is.

[7 Dying Trees]

Used gear prices has gone a bit silly, and I would no buy a 90s UV anymore unless i got a really really good deal. There's jems that are now more than I'd consider paying for a guitar period... Has gone nuts over the last year, but I kind of expect that once people aren't trapped in all the time that it'll calm down as they go and spend their disposable income in other places

[Iron1]

lol check this shit out: https://reverb.com/item/40858424-sch...ic-guitar-1999

I bought one of these on on ebay in 20-goddamn-11 for $250 bucks as a backup/alternate tuning guitar. This is listed for $600 (post-price drop!) and it's even more banged up than mine is.

Yeah, that sort of thing is exactly what I'm talking about. And the cat who listed this is probably eyeballing a $1500 guitar he's going to offer $666 for...

[mpexus]

Now imagine Europe...

Reverb is most of times RIDICULOUS on pricing.... guitar new that cost 900 sellers are asking used 999 + shipping... Guitars that didnt sold two years ago for 500 euros now being 800-900.. like the Stripped EVH series. I got mine for less than 450 each.

Pickups are like priced new..

[Ryan]

I really need to get off my arse and sell the guitars I've got kicking about that I don't want or need while the values are apparently completely bonkers.

[Budda]

I really need to get off my arse and sell the guitars I've got kicking about that I don't want or need while the values are apparently completely bonkers.

Yep!

[Ryan]

Anyone want a Crabclaw/Static X hybrid? Thing looks fucking terrible, I can only assume I should be charging something north of £500.

[jim777]

The prices some things are pulling are definitely making me think about moving my MK IV and getting something I can actually turn up to 3 without rattling windows.

[Darren]

You can't go by listing prices… you have to look up the sold prices.

Global supply chains are still messed up. Production is down everywhere, even at USA factories like PRS. So the used market has become a source for musical instruments, and as with supply/demand economics, those with the supply get to dictate the price.

[RevDrucifer]

I remember at the start of the pandemic I was thinking, “If I buy any gear from someone down and out, I’ll hold it for a year and sell it back at what I paid for it.” I’ve been fortunate (stupid) enough to not have to sell my gear for food in the past (I really should have but like I said, stupid) and I couldn’t imagine the defeat that comes along with that and I wouldn’t want to profit off of someone’s misery.

Then I realized that no one was selling ANYTHING for cheap. It was an across the board “I’m not losing a fuckin’ cent on this.” I can’t count how many times I looked at an auction and assumed it was coming from Japan because of the price, only to find out it was 40 miles away from me.

Hell, the best deal I got was Cameron selling me his EMG DG20’s for $150 and the Classic 50’s Strat I snagged for $300 (which was only because the guy was loaded and didn’t play it).

I can’t fault people down on their luck for trying to hold onto their money or get every cent they can when they’re not wanting to sell, but the sellers jumped right into that and it’s fairly brutal out there.

[Iron1]

I remember at the start of the pandemic I was thinking, “If I buy any gear from someone down and out, I’ll hold it for a year and sell it back at what I paid for it.” I’ve been fortunate (stupid) enough to not have to sell my gear for food in the past (I really should have but like I said, stupid) and I couldn’t imagine the defeat that comes along with that and I wouldn’t want to profit off of someone’s misery.

Then I realized that no one was selling ANYTHING for cheap. It was an across the board “I’m not losing a fuckin’ cent on this.” I can’t count how many times I looked at an auction and assumed it was coming from Japan because of the price, only to find out it was 40 miles away from me.

Hell, the best deal I got was Cameron selling me his EMG DG20’s for $150 and the Classic 50’s Strat I snagged for $300 (which was only because the guy was loaded and didn’t play it).

I can’t fault people down on their luck for trying to hold onto their money or get every cent they can when they’re not wanting to sell, but the sellers jumped right into that and it’s fairly brutal out there.

Well, I don't want the NJ back, so no worries there.

[RevDrucifer]

Well, I don't want the NJ back, so no worries there.

Oh shit! I forgot about that one!!

Hahahahha the body is sanded down but I haven’t had the time or energy to touch it since. No worries, I spent too long looking for it to give it back!

[Iron1]

Oh shit! I forgot about that one!!

Hahahahha the body is sanded down but I haven’t had the time or energy to touch it since. No worries, I spent too long looking for it to give it back!

Ha. No sweat, just busting yer balls. Can't wait to see it done.

And, I don't want it back, I have enough going on with the Mesa Clone I'm finishing now. Just turned my hands black staining it.