"Has it got all the paperwork?"

TimmyO

If you are someone who asks this when thinking of buying a used guitar, what answer are you expecting? 

Context: I'm selling a few currently and have been asked this multiple times about a couple. Whatever answer I'm giving clearly isn't the expected one as it then goes silent.

One guitar is a Larry Carlton 335 which has a
Sort of passport book/certificate thing - I have provided pics of this

One is a McCarty Soapbar which I'm not aware comes with "paperwork" but is in its original case.

danny_777

I'll be honest, I hate those people. It's a guitar. You don't play the fricking paperwork. I'm a reputable seller, it's clearly not a bitsa or a fake (and a bit of paper wouldn't propve anything in any event) - it's a great guitar and that's all that matters. Why do you care about a bit of paper that's just going to sit in the case?

octatonic

Well the reason I ask for it is if it is something I might sell down the line I know other people will ask for it and they will try to chip you on price if it is missing paperwork, so my buy price will also need to adjust down.

Whitecat

It's a buyer's market... if they are looking at a few, why not grab the one that has the most case candy etc...?

TimmyO

octatonic said:

Well the reason I ask for it is if it is something I might sell down the line I know other people will ask for it and they will try to chip you on price if it is missing paperwork, so my buy price will also need to adjust down.

Aye but in  my case the one that comes with it has it and the one that doesn't doesn't 

Jalapeno

"Paperwork" or just the case candy/hang tags ?

brooom

I get that a lot and if for some reason you don't have "paperwork" it's usually followed by a request to get a different price. Most of them are time wasters and I can't really tell you what they're looking for when they ask that question. Especially when you provide a satisfactory reply and then never hear from them again.

I remember a particular story where a potential buyer was looking to buy a Gretsch custom shop from me. The guitar is from 2012 which is a transition period for the Gretsch custom shop. By 2012 they started to add a "custom shop certificate", but not all guitars from that year come with it.

He contacted the custom shop, told them he was going to buy a guitar that had no certificate and they actually issued a replacement and were getting ready to send it to him. Luckily I contacted them around the same time, and proved I was the owner of the guitar, so they ended up sending the new certificate my way.

The guy was also looking for a discount on the guitar based on this fact. I still have the guitar, as I massively regretted even thinking about selling it. And now I also have the newly issued certificate, which to me is nothing but a pointless peace of paper. But there you go.

octatonic

TimmyO said:

octatonic said:

Well the reason I ask for it is if it is something I might sell down the line I know other people will ask for it and they will try to chip you on price if it is missing paperwork, so my buy price will also need to adjust down.

Aye but in  my case the one that comes with it has it and the one that doesn't doesn't 

IIRC Soapbar should come with some case candy, not an 'authenticity' booklet.

FelineGuitars

With a PRS if you don't have the complete paperwork including the hangtag that hangs from one of the machineheads in store then the guitar is pretty much worthless to PRS buyers it seems.

I swear that there is possibly a blackmarket opportunity for selling blank ones just so PRS owners can actually get a sale

prlgmnr

Got to be sure all the vaccinations are up to date.

Roland

Has it got the original strings?

JerkMoans

Roland said:

Has it got the original strings?

...and sachet of silica gel...

Sassafras

Probably their next question will be "will you take half price for it?".
Surely it's only important to bedroom dealers and serial flippers?

SRich

In the old Birds and Moons days (and before that @ Vintage Rocker) I'd see threads that almost concluded in "Well, I'll just burn the f***er"

Never owned a PRS / would love to have a DGT (with all the case candy please).........

mattacjones

When did all this case candy stuff start? It's just worthless junk, price tags, plastic bags, cheap shitty pseudo passports, easily forged 'signed' certificates. Such a load of bollocks

octatonic

FelineGuitars said:

With a PRS if you don't have the complete paperwork including the hangtag that hangs from one of the machineheads in store then the guitar is pretty much worthless to PRS buyers it seems.

I swear that there is possibly a blackmarket opportunity for selling blank ones just so PRS owners can actually get a sale

I'm not sure if you are being serious or not but I've sold/traded about a dozen PRS and never had an issue selling one that was missing case candy.
Maybe I've been lucky?

More of an issue was the lack of bird inlays- I operated on the premise that a PRS without birds would be mine forever, until a few years ago where DGT's started coming with moons and people tended to be more relaxed about them.

I got decent money for my heavily gigged and modded '89 PRS 10 top with moons, despite the sweet switch being swapped for a tone pot and a 5 way for a 3 way, but in the early 00's no one would touch it.

TheMarlin

If you’re talking ‘master-built’, and big money - then fair enough. 

If they’re asking for paperwork for a budget guitar, then they’re just tyre kicking assholes. 

bassbora

What do you do with case candy? When I buy an instrument I buy it to play it not look at some crap that came with it and doesn’t affect playability. 

I guess we all buy guitars for different reasons. 

dazzajl

There are players, collectors and tire kickers. 

All deserve to be treated appropriately and sales across castes should probably be handled by escrow companies 

Philly_Q

Why get worked up about it?  If it comes with a certificate, hangtags or whatever it's not particularly onerous to hang on to them. 

They may be worthless to you but they could make it that little bit easier to sell the guitar at some point in the future.  Everybody wins.

barnstorm

With CS Fenders in particular I'd generally want to see the floor traveller if I was buying from a private seller, simply because there seem to be lots of people who can't tell you a great deal about their own guitar and the specs can vary so widely. But it's easy to request that from Fender.

It's usually easy to tell within a couple of messages if 'Have you got all the paperwork?' means…

a) I would like some (largely meaningless) reassurance that I'm not buying a fake.

or

b) I would like to establish that you look after your stuff as carefully as I do.

or

c) I would like to acquire your guitar for half its value and list it on eBay as 'Brand new – only played once to test', for twice its value.