Your thoughts on the used Guitar market.

ICBM

impmann said:

The survival rate on *all* guitars and valve amps is very high. Therefore you can realistically count on around 60% (my guesstimate) of all guitars made still exist.

I would say it's far higher than that - perhaps as much as 90%. Maybe slightly less for amps, but not much. Just going on the rough proportion I've written off as unrepairable over the years, and at least doubling it to account for the ones that don't even make it to a repair shop before being chucked out.

impmann said:

I think the s/h market is barely ticking over - and it's because the whole guitar market is flooded. Totally swamped.

And probably shrinking, in terms of the number of players - even though the average number of guitars and amps each player now owns is reaching ludicrous proportions.

Electric guitars just aren't as dominant in music as they were.

Neil

Too many guitars, too few buyers.

Fender alone are spewing out 1000 guitars a day and guitar music/playing is waning in the younger generation.

ROOG

I have come in from the world of electronic keys where the second hand expectation for an instrument is very low, Ok so 30 years on some quirky stuff is worth money, and I take on board the earlier comment about guitars lack built in obsolescence so a quality old instrument is still valid, but I recon the expectation of value for old guitars is in another world.

     

mellowsun

Basically if an item is only a couple of hundred quid cheaper second hand than buying new, I will buy new.

There are some bargains on here but they get snapped up quickly. So I think well-priced gear continues to sell well

crunchman

The market in recent years has been driven by people building up large collections of guitars.  25 years ago most people might have had a main guitar, a spare and an acoustic.  Now they have a Strat, Tele, Les Paul, Gretsch, something with P90s, Dreadnougth/Jumbo acoustic, a parlour acoustic for noodling on the sofa, a bass etc.

The problem is that the expansion of the market by people accumulating more guitars has ground to a halt.  I'm thinking more about whether I could shift one or two guitars than if I can add extra ones.  The last one I bought was a CS Tele but I shifted my CIJ Tele so the numbers haven't grown.

There are more guitars out there now as well.  As mentioned above Fender, PRS and Gibson are probably producing over 100k USA guitars in a year.  You do that for 20 years and you have 2 million more high end guitars out there.  It's got to saturate the market.

chrisj1602

Seems easier to trade than sell.  When I decided I wanted an R7, it took me a while and few reductions to sell my gear to get the funds.  Then I wanted to try a CS Fender, I quickly managed to trade my R7 for an Esquire.  Then I realised I missed having a Les Paul and traded the Esquire for my Custom.

monquixote

When was this golden period when trading was good?

I joined Music Radar in 2010 to sell a Yammy SG and since then people have been starting threads about how terrible the used guitar market is. I presume they were probably doing it before hand.

Prior to then I didn't buy and sell much stuff and as far as I can tell in those 4 years it hasn't really changed all that much.  If you want to sell stuff and it isn't in high demand then you have to offer it at a big chunk less than the new price. A lot of people don't want to do that so they don't move kit.

I've bought and sold an absolute ton of gear over that time and it all goes as long as you aren't too precious about wringing the last penny out of it

Dave_Mc

richardhomer said:

Reminiscent of the housing market....

In 2008, economists were predicting 30% price drops. Buyers stayed away, waiting for the fall - sellers were generally not so desperate to sell that were prepared to drop their prices significantly, ergo the predicted falls didn't materialise.

A market can only ever truly be described as "buyers' market" when a greater number of people HAVE to sell, than are prepared to buy.

I would suggest that most things advertised on here are being sold by serial flippers - not by people who have an urgent need for cash.

In good, bad or indifferent markets, there is always the opportunity for the aggressive buyer to exploit a distressed seller but such people generally represent a fraction of those advertising.

I see this panning out in on of two ways; buyers eventually learn that we are out of recession and it is not their inalienable right to bag a bargain, or transaction levels stay low.

Possibly.

However, I'd say that the housing market in NI totally tanked, so it can happen, too (and NI wasn't the only place where it tanked, either). Admittedly ours was sort of tied in with ROI's as well which probably didn't help (and also had larger gains during the boom than most places).

jeztone2

I think what scares me more is the confiscation of guitars for "environmental" reasons, it looks like selective asset stripping to me.

Fretwired

I think prices went west when eBay became mainstream - I don't think it has much to do with the recession as if you look on eBay stuff sells at the right price.

Richardj

^ this. There seems to be a harsh reality where somethings value is only what it last sold for on the 'bay. I was offered £275 for my Ibby 970 based on dealer margins and last selling price. Curious then how when I sold it I actually got back nearly what I paid for it (more than twice that).

Gagaryn

Prices of new guitars are lower now in real terms than they have ever been but sellers of used stuff don't take this into account. A Strat in 54 cost about two months wages for the average US Joe, and way more here due to the difficulties with importing stuff and their rarity at the time. Now there are millions of Strats in the world, including lots and lots of old ones. People still think they are <quote>rare as rocking horse poo</quote>, though - and they are not. And due to the inter web, people are starting to realise that they are easier to find than they thought. And realising that old ones aren't always the best ones. And this has a knock on effect on all the other guitars, yada yada... 

Simples! 

[Not specific to Strats - just an example.]

Bogwhoppit

Fretwired said:

I think prices went west when eBay became mainstream - I don't think it has much to do with the recession as if you look on eBay stuff sells at the right price.

The counter argument to that is my experience in 2009 -10 (assuming you accept eBay was mainstream back then, which I certainly do). I sold off my entire guitar collection, and every guitar fetched more than I originally paid - some of which were only a few months old. Moreover, many sold within days and all via Gumtree with the exception of three oddballs that I sold over on MR.

I couldn't dream of attaining the prices for my current USA strats that I received back then, in fact I doubt I would get 70% of the price . That experience is a stark reminder of how things have changed, and my motivation to post this thread.

 

Dave_Mc

Gagaryn said:

Prices of new guitars are lower now in real terms than they have ever been but sellers of used stuff don't take this into account.

I'm not sure I agree with that, at least in more recent times. I know at the height of the boom, just before the recession hit, prices were way better- now, granted, there's been inflation since then, but wage growth has been pretty poor and has barely kept up with inflation (in fact arguably wages are lower than then, at least in real terms).

I mean at the height of the boom a USA standard strat or tele was around £600 (IIRC). Now it's over £1000. An Ibanez RG1570 was £400 then, now almost double that. Etc. Factor inflation into that and it still doesn't account for that entire change. Factor in dodgy wage growth instead of inflation and it's even worse.

(You might be technically right with the "real terms" thing, since that accounts for inflation rather than wages )

NPP

of course with most guitars produced abroad you'll have to figure in exchange rates. The pound stood at over 2 dollars and over 1.50 Euros in 2007 and then went down to below 1.50 dollars and 1.00 Euro in 2008 before recovering to 1.70 dollars and 1.25 Euros now - so everything produced in the USA or Europe or bought in dollars will still be quite expensive here

Fretwired

Bogwhoppit said:

Fretwired said:

I think prices went west when eBay became mainstream - I don't think it has much to do with the recession as if you look on eBay stuff sells at the right price.

The counter argument to that is my experience in 2009 -10 (assuming you accept eBay was mainstream back then, which I certainly do). I sold off my entire guitar collection, and every guitar fetched more than I originally paid - some of which were only a few months old. Moreover, many sold within days and all via Gumtree with the exception of three oddballs that I sold over on MR.

I couldn't dream of attaining the prices for my current USA strats that I received back then, in fact I doubt I would get 70% of the price . That experience is a stark reminder of how things have changed, and my motivation to post this thread.

 

I don't think it was for many people back in 2009 - the link with PayPal and the low cost couriers have made selling guitars relatively easy these days but I recall various threads on forums about people not trusting eBay.

Dave_Mc

Yeah they always say the prices here are a bit dearer because they have to allow for currency fluctuations. I haven't seen much movement on prices in the right direction, though. )

IIRC the pound never actually hit parity with the Euro, but it got darn close at one point.

strtdv

Stuff will sell if you're realistic about the price. The truth is that in 2007 you could buy a new American Standard strat or tele for under £700, £750 for a burst. It would seem reasonable that you could sell a good condition used one for about £475-500.

Fender have jacked the price of a new one up to £1000, but your used 2012 one is still only worth £475-500 because there are lots of people who bought in 2007 who are happy to sell for that.

Same goes for any guitar company which has inflated their prices in the past 6 years (which is basically all of them)

There are plenty of dreamers on ebay listing guitars for more than they're worth, but they don't sell anything. They just list their stuff for unrealistic prices and then probably complain on guitar forums when they can't sell.

I've got some pretty good used deals in the past 3 years though if people are willing to take sensible offers. I got a 52 hot rod tele for £800, and both the seller and I were very happy with that (bought it on MR), and a few months ago I bought a mint (really mint, not what most people sell as mint, it still had the protective plastic on the cavity cover etc) Derek Trucks SG for £1000 on ebay. Did I pay a little more than typical used price? Yes, but got an as new guitar for a lot less than the new price.

On the other hand there was a guy selling an Orange Rockerverb combo on ebay. It was a bit tatty, but he lived only about 25 miles away from me (in Northern Ireland), so I figured I'd send him an email to see if he'd do a deal.

His starting price was £650 and he had shipping listed as £15.

I know from experience that shipping a large amp from Northern Ireland to the mainland UK is more like £50, and calculated he'd incur about £90 in ebay and paypal fees, so I offered him £550 for the amp in cash as a starting point, and I'd collect it (leaving him about £25 better off than using ebay).

He said no, he figured he'd get more on ebay. It ended up selling for the starting price of £650, and he would have ended up with about £525 in his pocket. 

ThePrettyDamned

It is what it is. People are more educated about what they're buying, too.

The oddest bit is relic guitars (as in, stock relic) are worth more than played in, genuine wear guitars of equivalent spec (example - fender custom shop). It still doesn't quite fit for me.

littlethoughts

It goes both ways, for every bargain I'm sure I've sold something for less than I'd like. That's why I like trades - you both get to internally value your item at more than you could sell it for.