The best deal/steals you got on a guitar?

Dominic

I found a very nice vintage Japanese guitar about 8 years ago in the basement of an abandoned house scheduled for demolition.
It was in a case which had some mildew but guitar was perfect -needed a set-up and strings .
Doesn't get better than that.

57Deluxe

£15 new + 7.50 carriage from  China via Germany via eBay in 2007 - the best sounding Tele I have ever heard! Heavy Heavy solid beast of a beauty! Beautiful profile neck and PUPs so musical and raw you never hunt for a tone... Originally badged ALBA. Is so resonant sonically that you can even use it acoustically and be heard! Even Joe White was impressed!

http://i62.tinypic.com/ny5npl.jpg

colourofsound

I think my 1985 Fujigen MIJ Squire Strat was £125 when i bought it. Got the E Serial on it and everything. they easily see £500 in some places now. Not that I'd ever get rid

Dominic

colourofsound said:

I think my 1985 Fujigen MIJ Squire Strat was £125 when i bought it. Got the E Serial on it and everything. they easily see £500 in some places now. Not that I'd ever get rid

And the rest

cpcompany

A purple Kramer super strat for nowt when I lived in Osaka. It was on a guitar stand in the rubbish collection area of my apartment block. I picked it up and took it to my flat. Result

Teyeplayer

'97 Gibson Les Paul Special (if i recall correctly from the guitarist mag article at the time it might have been listed as the junior special). Anyway, beautiful cherry red, bound neck, p90'd thing that needed a set up, had a few big-ish dings on the tail end and no neck breaks.

Since have added a bigsby, mojo filtertron size p90s and oil in paper caps, it's a beast!

Oh and it cost £400 to start, which I reckon was a bargain. Now probably only worth 300 thanks to my changes  -but man, this it ain't for sale.

WezV

Flanging_Fred said:

I've had my fair share of bargains over the years. I really like the Westone Thunder Jet I picked up for £39.  It was not a massive bargain as they usually sell for about £100 anyway, but there is something very satisfying about buying a guitar that more than pays for itself with one gig.

The Vintage telecaster I got for £40 easily falls into that category too.
 

I liked getting a Westone thunder 1a with a Washburn wonder bar trem fitted. Paid the standard rate for the guitar, it turned up in an original hardcase with the original hardware inside.   The wonderbar came off after I had a good play with it.  It was sold for more than I paid for the whole lot.

the westone obviously had a few extra screw holes, but went back together nicely

Lestratcaster

Wasn't a guitar but an amp. Saw a 6505+ going for about £700 on ebay just before I went on tour. These things retail around £1100. I messaged the seller saying if I whack down a deposit could he take it off the listings and hold it for me as I was really interested. He didn't take any deposit but did say he was desperate to get rid as he'd just bought an Axe FX. So after I got back from tour I knew I had to upgrade from my JCM2000 as it wasn't really giving the grunt and beef I needed for drop c tunings. 

As he had no cab and lived in Basingstoke (I live in West London) it was hard to try it out before committing to buy but I knew most of my favourite metalcore bands used it and an old coursemate who plays in a lot of heavier bands told me its the amp for me so I took the plunge and said I'd take it. By the time I wanted to buy it was around £650 so nearly half the RRP. The amp had never been gigged and only used twice (still in its original box) so practically brand new that I got for nearly 50% of what it was worth! I still have it now and I honestly won't want to play through anything else.
 

Whitecat

Just bought a Knaggs Kipawa acoustic on eBay for £255 delivered - it's new old stock. Pro tip: there are more of them. 

They were made to Joe Knaggs' design by Godin in Canada a few years ago and they retailed for £1199 when they first came out. The former distributor apparently has a bunch in the warehouse they are trying to shed. 

EDIT: because I'm getting a tonne of PMs - the original ones are sold out, but I was told by the vendor that there are likely more going up for sale soon, in a sunburst finish. Look for the seller 'knaggsdirect' on eBay.

noisepolluter

As each year goes by I'm happier with the Gibson 335 for £1500, J45 for £1000 and US standard tele I got for £650 (all new) in 2007-2008. 

mark123

Whitecat said:

Just bought a Knaggs Kipawa acoustic on eBay for £255 delivered - it's new old stock. Pro tip: there are more of them. 

They were made to Joe Knaggs' design by Godin in Canada a few years ago and they retailed for £1199 when they first came out. The former distributor apparently has a bunch in the warehouse they are trying to shed. 

P'med

lasermonkey

There were several things that I bought off eBay to repair that were dirt cheap:

 Roland DEP-5 £21 (nothing wrong with it!)

 Pair of Deltalab DL-4 digital delays £23. (One was an easy fix, the other wasn't, though I did get it working in the end).

 Drawmer DS-201 £12 (it needed a switch re-soldering).

 Boss SE-70 £6. Yes, six pounds. Ex- Mixmaster Morris and covered in silver, holographic plastic, all it needed was the backup battery fitting, and a new one was rattling around inside!

 MXR Commande Series Phaser. £2. Took some buggering around to fix, but I got there in the end. Nice and swooshy.

 A pair of Chord pedals (a chorus and a phaser) for £12. Took an evening to get the both working and both were surprisingly nice, even though the circuit boards looked like they had been built by a four year old. Which is probably true.

Carlsbro Minifex Chorus £16. A cheap and nasty plastic enclosure doesn't prepare you for the thick and gooey lushness from the SAD512 BBD chip. Needed the switch resoldering.

Lexicon Alex £10. Needed the DRAM chips replacing, and I have a shed-load of those.


There's plenty of other stuff that I've bought cheap over the years, when I think of it:

Yamaha CS60 £149. A huge, old analogue polysynth from 1976. Worth a fortune now.

ARP Omni Mk II analogue string synth £79.

Roland SH-09 analogue monosynth £99. Wish I still had it.

Indie ID400SM acoustic £149. This was their top of the line, all solid wood, hand-made limited run of 20, and I can only assume that the shop selling it had picked up a bunch of old stock when Indie Guitars closed down in the UK, and they had no idea what it was. Fucking amazing guitar.

Squier Precision Special £29 from Crack Converters. Had a sign on it saying "electrics may not work", and you know what, they don't if you try to re-solder using superglue and Blu Tac. A little work and some tarting up and it was a nice bass. It's currently in bits, being re-sprayed.

Boss PH-2 £27. Not stupidly cheap, but still a bargain.

Ibanez PH-7 £12.50.

Boss RBF-10 half rack flanger £16. Maybe my favourite flanger.

Legionreturns

I'm still waiting for my uber deal of the century... The one where one of you lot sells me a Princeton Reverb, '65 ish, for a couple of hundred quid. If that's you, get in touch please! I'm still waiting! 

jeztone2

My Kotzen Tele was a return by a Japanese customer, because it had a tiny mark in the paint by the neck pocket ( barely visible to the human eye).

it was 2005, before Fender Japan stopped shipping out new guitars. So if tried to order a new one for about £700 ( I think it was going to be about £870 landed), but they only had this returned instrument in stock. I was sent loads of hi resolution photos of the mark blown up to make sure I was happy. Then a deal was made. 

At the time the Yen was the lowest it had ever been to the £ for decades. Then there's the small matter of Parcelforce cocking up the duty paperwork & just handing me the guitar without charging me, saying it was their fault.

Total price landed £530.00

Current new retail price of a Kotzen Tele £1815

underdog

Slash crybaby wah couple of months back for £30, bought as not working, arrived brand new in box, turns out one of the 2 battery clips was damaged, worked fine off power supply straight out of the box and £2 to put in new battery clip.

BRISTOL86

Got nearly 30% off my blue cube hot because it had been on display and had a bit of a scuff on the side, was pretty happy with that. 

adamm82

underdog said:

Slash crybaby wah couple of months back for £30, bought as not working, arrived brand new in box, turns out one of the 2 battery clips was damaged, worked fine off power supply straight out of the box and £2 to put in new battery clip.

I got a good deal on a Wampler Pinnacle deluxe last month. got it for 60 quid as one of the lights isn't working. But that doesn't bother me as I play at home. 

lustycourtier

I forgot about my 2016 Brand new Figured 335 from amazon for £1407. 3 months later I pretty much traded it for my Historic 335. Oh and my £216 Les Paul Junior, again from Amazon.

 Oh and a retailer once sent me 2 Bajas instead of one and REFUSED to accept they had.

lustycourtier

adamm82 said:

underdog said:

Slash crybaby wah couple of months back for £30, bought as not working, arrived brand new in box, turns out one of the 2 battery clips was damaged, worked fine off power supply straight out of the box and £2 to put in new battery clip.

I got a good deal on a Wampler Pinnacle deluxe last month. got it for 60 quid as one of the lights isn't working. But that doesn't bother me as I play at home. 

I got a pinnacle last week boxed mint for £50. Had sat for weeks at that price. Decent pedal!

underdog

Yes must also throw in my 2015 Amazon LP junior, paid a little more than some because I wanted it in yellow, but £260 for a US made junior with hardcase is a steal. It's also my most played guitar.