You ever buy a guitar from an USA store?

Hootsmon

Any good stores worth an on line visit?

Teetonetal

Prymaxe. Chicago Music Exchange, wildwoodguitars and electric mojo in canada . all have had my money.

Hootsmon

no problems with any of them then?

guitarfishbay

I tried to buy a second hand bass from guitar center’s website. They later emailed me to say they were cancelling my order because they couldn’t find it!

musteatbrain

Thunder Road Guitars. 64 SJ Junior. Very worn, but a good deal and worth it after customs charges and a bit of work from Feline. My wife will make a profit on it if I die first and she sells it

bazxkr

Plenty of stores worth a visit...depends on buying used or new.  I've picked up about a dozen guitars out of the USA when the $-£ was about 1.60 & got great deals...not so hot now and is RW is involved then CITES has killer it...so only maple necks now

You sniffing for something specific

Whitecat

Bought from TGS in Seattle and Wild West in CA, both great to deal with. 

thebreeze

Willcutt Guitars, Lexington, Kentucky.  They were very helpful and have an amazing choice. I too bought when the £$ was much more favourable.  

Strat54

Yep, dozens of times. 

guitars4you

Dave's Guitar - Wisconsin - but a few years ago when the £ v $ was good - not today at all

BGG

Dave's Guitars a couple of times and The Music Zoo, both great to deal with.

Hootsmon

bazxkr said:

Plenty of stores worth a visit...depends on buying used or new.  I've picked up about a dozen guitars out of the USA when the $-£ was about 1.60 & got great deals...not so hot now and is RW is involved then CITES has killer it...so only maple necks now

You sniffing for something specific

good deal on a clean NOS CS tele.....think blackguard 9.5 radius type thing

Wazmeister

Wildwood.

Great service, and guitar porn website !

Hootsmon

Wazmeister said:

Wildwood.

Great service, and guitar porn website !

went for a look see and saw a nice usa vintage thin skin tele 52 2000 bucks but the same box in guitar guitar is about 1500 and I don't have to pay shipping and any tax on that....what gives?

do you think the thin skins will come to the UK?

https://wildwoodguitars.com/product/V1741359/american-vintage-thin-skin-52-telecaster-46/?cat_id=230

cbellanga

Bought my es175 from Chicago music exchange 3 weeks ago. Cheaper than buying second hand in the UK (there was a 15% Xmas sale at the time). Paid with PayPal and arrived in 1week. Great service

Hootsmon

cbellanga said:

Bought my es175 from Chicago music exchange 3 weeks ago. Cheaper than buying second hand in the UK (there was a 15% Xmas sale at the time). Paid with PayPal and arrived in 1week. Great service

what would I pay extra in UK taxes Bro for this fella?

https://www.chicagomusicexchange.com/listing/fender-custom-shop-1952-telecaster-ash-relic-aged-butterscotch-blonde-used-s461/9490168

Whitecat

hootsmon said:

cbellanga said:

Bought my es175 from Chicago music exchange 3 weeks ago. Cheaper than buying second hand in the UK (there was a 15% Xmas sale at the time). Paid with PayPal and arrived in 1week. Great service

what would I pay extra in UK taxes Bro for this fella?

https://www.chicagomusicexchange.com/listing/fender-custom-shop-1952-telecaster-ash-relic-aged-butterscotch-blonde-used-s461/9490168

Usually works out to around 25% total on your entire bill (as in, you pay VAT on the shipping cost too which is not insignificant.

The calculation will be VAT (on total) + duty (on item value) + brokerage fees (varies by courier). 

RaymondLin

I bought 2 guitars from Brian's Guitars, did all my communication via email, easy to deal with.

Teetonetal

hootsmon said:

no problems with any of them then?

All good. Actually I've had better experience buying from USA and Japan than England! 

DrBob

My wife bought me a Heritage H535 from Jay Wolfe and they were great, from what I saw of the correspondence they totally avoided the whole condescending thing she has previously encountered when trying to buy guitar related gifts for me 

SunDevil

No reason not to buy from the US - actually for me this is more about which guitar brands you can buy blind (due to consistent build quality) and which vary enough that you need to get hands on before you know what’s what.

For example, I’ve found that Heritages (bought from Jay a couple of times) tend to have uneven frets and need a light dressing, whereas Suhrs always seem to be perfect out of the box.

CS products from Gibson and Fender seem to be variable (worst guitar I ever bought was a CS336 from Thomann - elegant curves in the neck in all the wrong places!)

All that said, I bought a CS Fender blind over Xmas and it’s better than the ones I tried out in person, so your mileage may vary! :-)