Chaps- heads up- do read.

Teetonetal

Visited chandlers a few times when I lived in Ealing.  Not a great shop. Over priced in the main and seriously failed to embrace the Internet.

richardhomer

Wow - never been - but its reputation precedes it - a true 'institution' in British music retail....

tone1

Just a word of caution..what if you pay online for an item and then they close up shop with your money? I know this can happen with any shop but if we know they are about to close.

maybe worth a trip to collect if it's something you really want and it's lots of pennies

Moe_Zambeek

Buy with a CC and you'll be protected if it's over £100.

looking at the prices they still don't look great...

xSkarloey

Handsome_Chris said:

bingefeller said:

Handsome_Chris said:

@Gassage , you didn't mention the good news. It's becoming the second branch of Anderton's.

You serious bro?

Word on the street is they're looking to have a more London-centric outlet. @Gassage probably knows this already. 

is this true or a leg pull?


I think someone like  Andertons would be a breath of fresh air in that part of London actually. 

They'd have the existing old geezers with gold cards market covered, while being able to appeal to pro musos and- crucially- tapping the extremely large under 21 market which exists and could be fostered in the London suburbs. 

Antique_Guitars

Skarloey said:

It is sad to see shops close. In the last year or so, that neck of the woods has lost the music shop at the top of Twickenham High St, Hands in Kingston and now seemingly this. 

Yeah but alberts in Twickenham was always shit, stereotypical music shop, the type who looked down on you if you weren't some kind of royal college student. And it was actually crap inside just budget rubbish.

mellowsun

That's a real shame. I got my first Lowden in there for 700 quid in 1993 which was about 100 quid more than my monthly take home pay at the time, they even let me trade in a crappy Washburn acoustic towards it!

Neil

Teetonetal said:

Visited chandlers a few times when I lived in Ealing.  Not a great shop. Over priced in the main and seriously failed to embrace the Internet.

Yep.

If they are having a going out of business sale the prices will probably only be around internet money anyway.

Also of course if you have any problems with a current seller you'll have somebody to take/send it back to as opposed to one that has gone. 

Fortheloveofguitar

Not surprised these shops struggle. Some of their pricing especially on pre-owned guitars is laughable 

ChrisRG

I got both my old Ibanez RG and a "custom" guitar a mate's brother made for me setup there.  The "custom" wasn't of the greatest quality but they had the neck off, put a new nut on and did as much as they could to get it playable.  Did a great job on both guitars.  The guy doing the servicing was great but the older guys running the shop seemed a bit unwelcoming.

It's a real shame though as I work in Richmond and was planning to take another guitar down there for a setup.

xSkarloey

Antique_Guitars said:

Skarloey said:

It is sad to see shops close. In the last year or so, that neck of the woods has lost the music shop at the top of Twickenham High St, Hands in Kingston and now seemingly this. 

Yeah but alberts in Twickenham was always shit, stereotypical music shop, the type who looked down on you if you weren't some kind of royal college student. And it was actually crap inside just budget rubbish.

@Antique_Guitars ;;I was talking more from the general principle that to see a bricks and mortar shop go is a shame, on the understanding that if we lose all our shops and go over to the net, we lose a potentially valuable service. I never actually went in Alberts Hands though, I bought a few bits from them. Always courteous and helpful, but the lack of any web presence and not realising until too late that "RRP and then some" for many items is not a good pricing policy may not have helped. Last time I was there they'd actually opened a cafe on the ground floor, which did make me think they were in a spot of bother relying on sheet music and instrument sales alone.


The old Richmond Music Shop in Red Lion Street went years ago. I had the old 'been here for ages and no-one's served me' treatment, so once was enough.

@ChrisRG If you want to stay local Ritz Music opposite the Red Cow do guitar repairs and setups. There's always Charlie Chandler's down in Hampton Wick of course as well.

Kebabkid

Thanks James and I had no idea and that's really upset me.

That's really sad and I was a visitor and customer from the time of the first real shop on Sandycombe Road but the main one was my shop from the 80s until about quite recently. Doug, Paula and Charlie always looked after me really well and the latter was and still is my go-to repairer and I'm a regular at his shop (CCGX).

I remember being in there one day on a busy Saturday and Doug plugging in a kid who can't have been more than 12 and could barely play into a Carvin stack with an Ibanez Jem (Steve Vai fan) and out of earshot, I commented to Doug, ""Wow. You've some patience" but he then explained the shop's ethos that "every customer should be treated equally and fairly whether it was that boy, who's dad could end up buying that rig or he might turn out to be future Chandler customer, to Gary Moore and the like. Needless to say, I felt silly and judgmental.

The deals were always good and Paula was great after Doug departed.

When I dicked around wanting to upgrade and throw serious cash at a JV Strat, Doug just pointed me in the direction of a Tom Anderson Drop Top and said "That's what you're trying to achieve" and gave me a phenomenal deal on it which I can't see how he made money on but it was more about me truly getting what I wanted. Many's the time I came in on a Saturday afternoon to try something and Doug would say "Take it home, try it over the weekend and bring it back by the close of business on Monday". No deposit or anything, just pure trust and I'd do that and normally end up buying the thing!!!

I bought high end guitars, pedals, rack systems and gear and had my guitars set up there since the 80s. I think even our Jonathan@Feline had a stint there in his early days.

I may try and visit this week and say goodbye to Paula and Brinsley but this is sad news. 37 years of business I believe

ChrisRG

Thanks for the heads up @Skarloey, that's literally 5 mins walk for the office.  How did I not know!!!!!  I really hope they don't have a nice stock of guitars!

ZenOvertone

I bought my first decent amp there, Sandycombe Road again, Rivera era Fender Concert.  Sat chatting and playing a bit with a very clean looking Scott Gorham (playing through a GK250ML), must have been late 1986. 

xSkarloey

That's a really nice write up @kebabkid, especially this:

Kebabkid said:

I remember being in there one day on a busy Saturday and Doug plugging in a kid who can't have been more than 12 and could barely play into a Carvin stack with an Ibanez Jem (Steve Vai fan) and out of earshot, I commented to Doug, ""Wow. You've some patience" but he then explained the shop's ethos that "every customer should be treated equally and fairly whether it was that boy, who's dad could end up buying that rig or he might turn out to be future Chandler customer, to Gary Moore and the like.

Sounds like a really good ethos to me.

One regular sales assistant there I found okay, but one of them always struck me as rather surly and talked himself out of a few sales from me.

Jimbro66

It was a great shop: The early days of selling vintage guitars and Schecters from the tiny shop, the move to the corner shop and not long after across the road to the bigger shop where they remained. It was the first place I saw PRS, Tom Anderson, Mesa amps and other high-end gear. Arguably the best workshop in the UK with first Charlie, then Brinsley. It became the haunt of many famous guitar names through the eighties and nineties. Never quite the same after the departure of Doug and then Charlie but still remained one of the better shops, albeit with higher prices than most.

I stopped going there after moving away in 2001 but called by a couple of years ago and it showed all the signs of a shop in decline, a similar path to the once great Kingfisher Music, so It's not a complete surprise that it is coming to an end. A shame nevertheless.

Kebabkid

In fact, I've just had a nice chat with Paula and I'll pop in before they close.

The staff I got on with there was the mad German or Flemish guy who loved Lukather. He had an uncanny knack of being able to provide me with the gear for the sound in my head!! Pete (he bought my superb, early ADA MP1) and Nigel, who went on to open his own shop near Milton Keynes, then worked as manager at Guitar Guitar, Epsom and now heads up sales at Suhr UK.

The staff from the above era were superb, helpful and kind. After that, things were ok but different.

Antique_Guitars

Skarloey said:

Antique_Guitars said:

Skarloey said:

It is sad to see shops close. In the last year or so, that neck of the woods has lost the music shop at the top of Twickenham High St, Hands in Kingston and now seemingly this. 

Yeah but alberts in Twickenham was always shit, stereotypical music shop, the type who looked down on you if you weren't some kind of royal college student. And it was actually crap inside just budget rubbish.

@Antique_Guitars ;;I was talking more from the general principle that to see a bricks and mortar shop go is a shame, on the understanding that if we lose all our shops and go over to the net, we lose a potentially valuable service. I never actually went in Alberts Hands though, I bought a few bits from them. Always courteous and helpful, but the lack of any web presence and not realising until too late that "RRP and then some" for many items is not a good pricing policy may not have helped. Last time I was there they'd actually opened a cafe on the ground floor, which did make me think they were in a spot of bother relying on sheet music and instrument sales alone.


The old Richmond Music Shop in Red Lion Street went years ago. I had the old 'been here for ages and no-one's served me' treatment, so once was enough.

@ChrisRG If you want to stay local Ritz Music opposite the Red Cow do guitar repairs and setups. There's always Charlie Chandler's down in Hampton Wick of course as well.

I agree but at the same time I have no sympathy for shit music shops with shitty service. Never a fan of Hands either but I bought from there and had services done by them. I'm a Teddington lad so I have been in all the local ones over the years. ccgx has been the best for me although I live in North London now so haven't visited in a while. Hillsound in Hampton hill is good, the people are friendly enough.

bloodandtears

They seem a bit pricey?? Is it just me??

http://www.chandlerguitars.co.uk/product_Detail.php?ItemID=5141

https://www.thomann.de/gb/vintage_icon_v100mrpgm.htm

TimmyO

bloodandtears said:

They seem a bit pricey?? Is it just me??

http://www.chandlerguitars.co.uk/product_Detail.php?ItemID=5141

https://www.thomann.de/gb/vintage_icon_v100mrpgm.htm

That post is a handy illustration of the topic of this thread :-)