No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Discussion of vintage Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Bass VIs, Electric XIIs and any other offset-waist instruments.
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adamrobertt
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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by adamrobertt » Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:59 pm

Tiny C wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:40 pm
adamrobertt wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:58 pm


If you had a guitar that you could sell for $5000, even if it was recently only worth about $2500... how much would you ask? Would you only ask $2500 out of the goodness of your heart? No, you'd fucking ask for top dollar and you'd get it. That's... just the way it works.
If I had a guitar that was worth that much and I wanted to sell it, I would try to sell it for that much. My sense is that what rubs people the wrong way is that it isn’t just a couple of guys unloading their guitars. I don’t know them but from what I can tell these guys have built a business on snatching up guitars that others would have bought for reasonable prices and marking them up to levels beyond the means of most people, without adding any real value other than dressing them up and preparing a fancy write-up. It’s a legitimate business model, but it is annoying for folks trying to find good deals.
Yes, I agree with you 100%. And I totally get being frustrated with it. But I think some of the melodramatic vitriol around here is a bit much, I guess. Just shop elsewhere.

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by s_mcsleazy » Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:52 pm

ok. so me and my friend were having a conversation today about a certain chain of UK game/tech shops which reminded me of this thread.

so in glasgow, there used to be a great indie game shop. this place was great because they'd always price their stuff fairly realistically. i got a boxed N64 there with 6 games and 2 controllers for £70 in 2014. if you wanted something that was rare, they'd put your name on a list and try to get you it for a reasonable price. as someone who was into more obscure gaming, these guys were a godsend. not only did they get me both tombi (tomba) games, but they even once phoned me and asked "hey, you're the dude who really likes the tomba games right? well we got a big shipment of used games from japan and we know you've got a modded ps1. do you want to buy the japanese versions of the games? Ore! Tomba" my friend also collects rare japanese RPG games so this shop was a godsend to us. meant we didn't have to deal with brokers ordering stuff from yahoo auctions.

basically, when CEX started getting bigger in the uk, that's when this indie game shop was starting to get problems. they noticed that a lot of their reasonably priced used consoles were getting bought up super quickly and within a month, would end up for sale in CEX with a 30-40% markup. turns out CEX had been sending their staff over, buying them up and selling them on. they started raising the prices but as long as it was below what CEX could price them for, they'd get flipped. but if they priced them higher than CEX, they'd hear customers say "why would i buy here when i could buy at CEX?" they still made ok money on games but eventually closed down. now if you want older video games in glasgow, it's CEX or keep an eye on facebook marketplace. which is a pain since i've been boycotting CEX after how they treated me (bought 5 copies of the same game, all were fake or wasn't as advertised)

i think even though this indie game store had better prices, better customer service and better selection..... most people liked CEX more because it had a better image and a better prestige. i think mike and mike's guitar bar is kinda the same tbh. they've cultivated this image of a more exclusive shop and because they claim "professionally setup" and post some high quality pictures on their instagram, it makes people want it all the more.

btw, if anyone from mike and mike's guitar bar is reading, i'd be curious to see how you'd price my vista jagmaster. it's beat to hell but i'm sure if you say "player grade" and "professionally setup" you'd get more for it.
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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by 46346 » Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:56 am

speaking of M&M's and Seattle shops, i had a nice ten-day gig run in Seattle recently , and had a nice per diem, so i was excited to go guitar shopping on my days off. it mostly sucked, though. the three vintage shops i visited had a great quantity of cool gear, that much was fun. but the prices were beyond nuts. and nobody felt motivated to make any sort of deals, and one decided to close early while i was still looking after ten minutes. i thought prices here in L.A. were often over the top, but these days Seattle takes the cake by far.

i was curious about a 50's Fender steel, because it was just like one that i have, except it was in perfect condition, for literally seven times what i paid for mine.

the staff guy said, "oh yeah - that actually belonged to Paul Allen".
i was like, "Paul Allen?? what band was he in?" ...oops.


so the steel was $3K because it was once owned by a deceased celebrity computer programmer/businessman.
it seems like that's along the type of clientele that is investing in old gear in Seattle these days.
and those dealers are happy to just sit on the stuff until the next spendy tech wanker comes through. and close up early if they don't come 'round that day.
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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by Tiny C » Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:25 am

46346 wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:56 am

so the steel was $3K because it was once owned by a deceased celebrity computer programmer/businessman.
it seems like that's along the type of clientele that is investing in old gear in Seattle these days.
and those dealers are happy to just sit on the stuff until the next spendy tech wanker comes through. and close up early if they don't come 'round that day.
“Spendy Tech Wanker” paints quite a picture in three short words. :D

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by Wucan » Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:02 pm

I knew this thread would be about M&M's lol.

It's too bad, they have a lot of nice vintage and MIJ Fenders but seems like their business model is cornering their niche then marking up the shit out of it, to sell to the rich who just want to have whatever they want right and then. Much to my consternation, "cool MIJ Jaguars" appears to be one of their territories.

The funniest one to me - they had an USED Hybrid 60's Jaguar for $1,900 - they were $1,100 BRAND NEW in Japan and $1,300 in Australia. At time time you could've literally paid for a round trip to Tokyo to buy the guitar off the shelf, and it still would've been cheaper than buying at M&M's.

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by cestlamort » Sat Nov 27, 2021 3:32 pm

Paul Allen for all his quirks and misguided attempts did really a lot for city (at least more than other tech billionaires): he founded the music museum (now MoPop), his computer museum is great, tried to launch some music festivals etc, and he genuinely loved music and was well intentioned. (A friend was one of his direct reports).

He did have a lot of gear and set up multiple, identical top of the line studios at his various houses, yacht, etc. A lot of that gear has slowly trickled back into circulation in the last few years, sometimes marked up, sometimes cheap. We have one of his old Kurzweil keyboards that was very much in the latter category.

But, in any case, everything is really expensive here, whether guitars, food, housing or other necessities. MSFT millionaires may have been superseded by AMZN millionaires but (parts of) the economy are still booming.

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by fuzzjunkie » Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:11 am

When I first moved to Seattle 20! years ago, I went around to check out all the vintage shops, eventually making trips to Tacoma and Everett as well.

The Tacoma shop was a little hole in the wall, but had a lot of cool gear, and it was still reasonably priced back then.

I talked to the shop owner a bit and I guess he decided I knew my vintage gear and wasn’t a wanker, so he took me to a back room full of guitar cases and shoe boxes.

He opened one and pulled out a minty ‘59 gold guard JM because I was looking for a player grade custom color pre-CBS JM. I had never seen one in such pristine condition, even at a vintage guitar show. Case candy and everything. I played it unplugged for a minute, but it felt like a brand new guitar too. He was pulling an amp out when I told him the guitar was much too nice for me and I did not want to scratch up a perfect museum piece.

I then asked what was in all the shoe boxes and he opened one up to reveal a Polychorus in perfect condition.

Turns out Paul Allen had commissioned him to round up as many pristine vintage effect pedals as he could, and he had come in the week before and picked out the ones he wanted.

I looked through Paul Allen’s rejects and went home with a Space Echo that still had the plastic protection on the knobs.
Last edited by fuzzjunkie on Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by Mechanical Birds » Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:44 am

cestlamort wrote:
Sat Nov 27, 2021 3:32 pm
Paul Allen for all his quirks and misguided attempts did really a lot for city (at least more than other tech billionaires): he founded the music museum (now MoPop), his computer museum is great, tried to launch some music festivals etc, and he genuinely loved music and was well intentioned. (A friend was one of his direct reports).
That’s cool but the story about the lap steel is like a real life version of buying Jerry Garcia’s ashes from Andy Garcia’s brother. It’d be like buying a basketball that didn’t belong to Michael Jordan or something, but Kris Kattan. Like, ok cool that guy was on TV I guess?

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by dc » Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:06 pm

Wucan wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:02 pm
I knew this thread would be about M&M's lol.
yeah, i didn't realize they'd carved out such a profile as to set the terms for the whole market ::) ;)

i remember five years ago, before their Fremont storefront, their physical space was literally one of the Mikes' tiny basement in an old bungalow in Ballard. he'd basically swing up his garage door to open for business on saturdays. the room was crammed full of guitars, amps, used FX and collectible lunchboxes, a beat-up old couch and his home furnace.... this shot was from when my cousin and i visited in 2016 -- a fun morning, got to play '61 Bass VI :)

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by Wucan » Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:33 pm

dc wrote:
Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:06 pm
Wucan wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:02 pm
I knew this thread would be about M&M's lol.
yeah, i didn't realize they'd carved out such a profile as to set the terms for the whole market ::) ;)
Not the first or last time people complain about vintage prices, with M&M as reference. They have high visibility on Reverb, where nearly everyone starts off their search nowadays.

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by mgeek » Mon Nov 29, 2021 2:16 am

First encountered these guys when they listed this guitar:

With a completely fictional write up. It's like a word salad of UK guitar references, complete garbage written with authority.


https://reverb.com/uk/item/319577-1960s ... -uk-w-ohsc

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by Mechanical Birds » Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:48 am

Holy shit do people get off on reading that stuff it’s terrible

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by Mechanical Birds » Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:53 am

Hey though, maybe this thread is the place to ask if this sounds like a bad idea.

I found a 1965 Mustang that has great frets still and is in really good structural shape but has been painted at some point. I held it, it felt like an actual orange peel. I couldn’t tell, and the owner didn’t know, if it’d just been painted over or if it was stripped and redone or whatever, but it’d a pretty good deal of $1,000 and I really wanna buy it. I just don’t wanna get stuck with it if I end up hating it.

I feel like that’s a good deal but looking on reverb there are original finish Mustangs for not much more money that have been sitting a while.

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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by JSett » Tue Nov 30, 2021 12:14 pm

Mechanical Birds wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:53 am
Hey though, maybe this thread is the place to ask if this sounds like a bad idea.

I found a 1965 Mustang that has great frets still and is in really good structural shape but has been painted at some point. I held it, it felt like an actual orange peel. I couldn’t tell, and the owner didn’t know, if it’d just been painted over or if it was stripped and redone or whatever, but it’d a pretty good deal of $1,000 and I really wanna buy it. I just don’t wanna get stuck with it if I end up hating it.

I feel like that’s a good deal but looking on reverb there are original finish Mustangs for not much more money that have been sitting a while.
I don't think I'd be alone in saying I'd prefer a guitar in original finish with a refret than a refin with OG frets. Frets are technically consumables and knock of WAY less value than a refin.

I'd raise the extra cash and get one with an OG finish and, if the frets are too low, get a new set put in.
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Re: No re-fin should ever be priced higher than a reasonable condition original sunburst of the same year

Post by mgeek » Tue Nov 30, 2021 2:29 pm

Mechanical Birds wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:53 am


I found a 1965 Mustang that has great frets still and is in really good structural shape but has been painted at some point. I held it, it felt like an actual orange peel. I couldn’t tell, and the owner didn’t know, if it’d just been painted over or if it was stripped and redone or whatever, but it’d a pretty good deal of $1,000 and I really wanna buy it. I just don’t wanna get stuck with it if I end up hating it.

I feel like that’s a good deal but looking on reverb there are original finish Mustangs for not much more money that have been sitting a while.
a thousand dollars? Buy it!

Maybe it's because I'm in the UK (don't think so though...) but I'm not seeing any original sixties mustangs for anywhere near that price. In that range it's all Japanese reissues on Ebay etc. Hell that completely reshaped (body and neck) 69 mustang that was on the 'why did you do this thing to me' thread went for $900, lone necks selling for 400

If there are no other issues, a refin '65 mustang at that price is a great deal.

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