Disturbing Trends in Guitar Sales

[GNAPPI]

Hotpepper.

You have to realize that shipping domestically here in the U.S. can be a risky endeavour but volume and relative ease of putting in a claim for damages make it a reasonable risk.

Shipping internationally may involve multiple shippers with more risk assigned in making a claim.

I have a friend that will not ship out of the U.S. because one amp shipment not only arrived destroyed, the buyer replaced the internal parts with bad ones thinking the claim would pay the full value. The few shipping companies all claimed no responsibility and my friend not only lost the price of the amp, but shipping costs too.

[ThatRhythmMan]

One thing that US sellers (Ebay and stores) could change is to raise the ban on shipping outside USA if they have one. On several occasions when my eye fell on a nice archtop, the US seller states not to be willing to ship outside the USA. Most change their mind upon kind asking and guitar knowledge exchange, but too many hold on to their policy. They are of course entitled to do so, but I think they miss the opportunity to sell and I miss an opportunity to buy.

I couldn't agree with this more. Many of my sales have been international. Unfortunately, that's going to be more difficult, as many guitars have rosewood parts and the CITES changes are now in effect. I suppose if the only rosewood part is the bridge, I could ship those internationally with an alternate bridge, but that hasn't come up yet. I have had to remove the international option on many listings. Actually, I still need to remove the option on some.

[hotpepper01]

That is unfortunately very true. Frauds are everywhere around us, both in sellers and buyers. Finding the right source can be quite challenging.

[jim777]

I'm of the opinion that guitars aren't selling because prices are unrealistic. I'm considering selling an ES-335 and just checked eBay and Reverb for prices - there's 1 on each site of the same model and they are $1k - $2k above what I'm considering for my starting price.

I've made a couple purchases in the past year at very good prices but the few that I bought were about the only guitars I've seen that were reasonably priced. One guitar I bought and returned (undisclosed damage) was bought by someone else and is now listed for almost 2x what I paid for it. I've seen this a number of times over the past couple years - when a guitar is fairly priced someone buys it and re-lists at a ridiculous price and it sits and sits and sits.

There is definitely a lot of unrealistic pricing out there. When I had my CU24 up on Reverb recently it was the lowest priced of all of the ones in its color and shape (eriza verde/immaculate). I got a few "offers", if you could call them that, but in the end I just kept it. I had been looking all over for an Ibanez PM120, and there were 2 at $1200 (both sold), one at about $1500 (no idea if it sold) and a 4th at $2400 or something (still sitting/waiting for a buyer with more cash than sense). So, I guess you need to do your homework on pricing if you're buying or selling, and if someone somewhere is selling an identical guitar for less than you're asking.... yours is going to sit.

[PB+J]

1. Oversaturated marketplace--you can get truly great playing and sounding guitars for very little dough and you can get lots of "flavors" of every type of guitar or you can get parts and assemble your own.

2. Aging fan base. I teach a new crop of 18 year olds every years and the vast majority of them have only a vague idea of the rock/pop idols of the last forty years.

3. Technology--the range of musical expression available to anyone with a DAW is astounding

People will always play the guitar and serious musicians will always have an ear for the history of the instrument. But the baby boomer guitar bubble is soon to burst.

The owner of my local guitar shop, where I've been going for 20 years, says nearly all his customers are people in their late 40s-50s

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

There is definitely a lot of unrealistic pricing out there. When I had my CU24 up on Reverb recently it was the lowest priced of all of the ones in its color and shape (eriza verde/immaculate). I got a few "offers", if you could call them that, but in the end I just kept it. I had been looking all over for an Ibanez PM120, and there were 2 at $1200 (both sold), one at about $1500 (no idea if it sold) and a 4th at $2400 or something (still sitting/waiting for a buyer with more cash than sense). So, I guess you need to do your homework on pricing if you're buying or selling, and if someone somewhere is selling an identical guitar for less than you're asking.... yours is going to sit.

I was shopping for a Twin Reverb. Met with a guy who had listed his as "make me an offer". I did my homework but when I made my offer he just laughed at me and produced an unrealistic number he claimed he got from reverb.com. Oh, you can list things at whatever you want but that doesn't mean they'll move. Months later I still see his amp for sale.

[Jim Soloway]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but one thing that I think ought to be considered is just how good an instrument you can get without buying a high end guitar. Low end guitars used to be complete garbage, now you can get a guitar for $600 to $1000 that it is absolutely capable of making great music. I dabbled with high end archtops for a while and I was in the business of producing and selling expensive planks. These days I make most of my music on a pair of Godin archtops that cost me about $1300 US FOR BOTH. And of all the guitars that have come and gone in the last few years, the only one that I really regret selling was an Ibanez that I bought for about $500. It's tough to convince me to spend the price, even in a depressed market, for a guitar that's not going to dramatically improve my playing experience. In a way, expensive guitars have become like expensive watches. The added value is in the esoterica not in the ability to perform their intended function.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

^^^ +1. When it comes to solid body guitars, they can be utilitarian and sound great. I used to lust after Les Pauls, with binding and carved tops and gold plated hardware, etc... Now that seems all too gaudy. A Tele-style guitar with a bolt-on neck, basic woods [maple neck and alder/ash body, still working on the fretboard, though because I like rosewood and ebony! I have to check out roasted maple.], chromed hardware, plank body. None of the hardware needs fairy dust sprinkled on it to make it work.

[MaxTwang]

A lot of what we're seeing is an adjustment from a 'collectors' market back to a 'players (or users)' market. Guitars used to be for playing, but from the 90's until recently it became fashionable to be a "collector", not just of guitars, but of anything and everything - while dad was collecting guitars (or cars, motorcycles, guns, etc) mom was collecting her favorite stuff and kids achieved status by having the biggest collection of Beanie Babies, stickers, etc.

Those days seem to be ending and the number of collectors is shrinking. To sell a guitar it has to be priced where a 'player' can afford it, savvy collectors see this and are adjusting their price expectations accordingly.

[Greentone]

Speaking about the ES-225 that you saw with three pickups...

One of the coolest guitars I ever saw was in John Sprung's shop in Maryland in the early 90s. He owned and displayed what he claimed was a factory equipped three-PAF pickup '58 (I believe) Gibson ES-295. Imagine Scotty Moore's gold 295, but with a tune-o-matic bridge, a 50s (non-zig-zag) 175-style tailpiece, and three PAF pickups. This guitar was the ultimate mashup of the ES-5/ES-175/ES-295. The guitar was beautiful and it was in _mint_ condition.

Sprung was asking top dollar for the guitar, even then: $13,000. Still, the guitar was a one-of-a-kind, exceptionally beautiful archtop.

Trouble is, you'd never play it. It would go from Sprung's display right into your vault for safe keeping.

Still...

[MaxTwang]

One thing that US sellers (Ebay and stores) could change is to raise the ban on shipping outside USA if they have one. On several occasions when my eye fell on a nice archtop, the US seller states not to be willing to ship outside the USA. Most change their mind upon kind asking and guitar knowledge exchange, but too many hold on to their policy. They are of course entitled to do so, but I think they miss the opportunity to sell and I miss an opportunity to buy.

International sales is a tricky thing. Back when I was buying and selling I sold a number of items to Canada, Europe and Australia - but it was a LOT of work researching and filling out customs documents. Customs forms are now automated, but shipping restrictions have become an issue and shipping costs have skyrocketed.

What became an issue for me was all the work an international buyer expected from me in researching shipping costs and regulations to their country - if they didn't like the answers & options they expected me to do more & more work trying to find them a cheaper alternative. Then came the inevitable "I wan't you to put $100 on the Customs Declaration form" for an instrument selling for $1,500 - $3,000. Not only is this illegal, the declared value also establishes the insured value which puts a HUGE risk on the seller (good luck explaining to UPS/FedEx that you illegally declared the guitar at $100 but you expect the shipper to pay a loss/damage claim for $3,000).

Managing a loss/damage claim when this item is in another country is very difficult: I shipped a Bogner amp to Canada that arrived with a cracked cabinet, when FedEx finally shipped it back there was no padding in the box and it arrived with the transformer bolts broken and the transformers dangling. The entire process for sale/claim/repair/delivery took approx. 5 months.

When a guitar did arrive safely often I received an angry message re. the amount of customs duties levied by the buyers government and the customs brokerage fees levied by UPS/FedEx/etc. (Canadians are some of the most even tempered people I've met - until they get hit with a UPS Customs Brokerage fee, then watch out - hockey brawls are nothing compared to a Canadian tirade over UPS/FedEx Customs Brokerage Fees ).

Shipping USPS used to be the cheap & easy option but USPS's international rates have skyrocketed. USPS is also subject to the postal regulations in the recipient's country - size restrictions vary by country with many countries not allowing a guitar box through their postal system (IIRC length limits were often in the 35" - 42" range). Fender's can be disassembled and sent w/o the case, you'd have to cut a Gibson in half.

In the end it just became easier to sell U.S. only or international if the buyer uses a package forwarding service (where my liability ends when the guitar is delivered to the forwarding service in the U.S.).

[HeyNow]

So the only examples I see is an ES225 in unknown condition with unknown price, a Charvel, and a PRS.

Let's see some more 'disturbing' evidence before we relate all our futurist theories about societal shifts...

[Drumbler]

The market is definitely soft for all kinds of things, not just guitars.

Try to sell anything on Craiglist and unless you practically give it away you won't get any buyers.

I think the economy is still fragile and people also just have bought too much stuff up to the crash in 2008. Way too much consumption of all kinds of things. Just too much stuff.

The baby boomers are not buying more stuff. In fact they are unloading stuff. More stuff just ends up at the local Goodwill or other donation center. The young people of today have different interests and lots of them are staying single longer and not buying lots of stuff.

Go back ten years and people were buying guitars right and left. Now they have too many. Some people just bought them as collectors and don't even play. There's a guy over at another guitar forum who just buys guitars but has never learned to play at all. I guess he just sits around his house at looks at them.

Now it's "buy high, sell low" time. Good luck selling your 50 guitars for what you bought them for. It's like the baseball card craze or beanie babies. People actually thought they would retire on their beanie babies collection. Hello? Priced out all those baseball cards you stocked up on a couple decades ago?

Those folks who thought they'd cash in on their guitar collections are probably going to take a beating unless they are rare and highly sought after models. There's a million Fender strats out there folks and they are making them by the thousands every year. There must be an awful lot of them in your local dump unless they're in somebody's closet. As for your custom built guitar with the $400 Warmoth body, $300 neck and hand wound pickups, uh sorry, nobody cares.

Now, this could change if the economy gets rolling and people start to feel safe and secure about their money. We have been in a funk for quite awhile regardless of what the talking heads on the news tell you about the economy being back. All those new burger-flipping jobs and Home Depot cashier positions don't leave a lot on the table for spending.

[Alder Statesman]

The market is definitely soft for all kinds of things, not just guitars.

Try to sell anything on Craiglist and unless you practically give it away you won't get any buyers.

I think the economy is still fragile and people also just have bought too much stuff up to the crash in 2008. Way too much consumption of all kinds of things. Just too much stuff.

The baby boomers are not buying more stuff. In fact they are unloading stuff. More stuff just ends up at the local Goodwill or other donation center. The young people of today have different interests and lots of them are staying single longer and not buying lots of stuff.

Go back ten years and people were buying guitars right and left. Now they have too many. Some people just bought them as collectors and don't even play. There's a guy over at another guitar forum who just buys guitars but has never learned to play at all. I guess he just sits around his house at looks at them.

Now it's "buy high, sell low" time. Good luck selling your 50 guitars for what you bought them for. It's like the baseball card craze or beanie babies. People actually thought they would retire on their beanie babies collection. Hello?

Those folks who thought they'd cash in on their guitar collections are probably going to take a beating unless they are rare and highly sought after models. There's a million Fender strats out there folks and they are making them by the thousands every year. There must be an awful lot of them in your local dump unless they're in somebody's closet. As for your custom built guitar with the $400 Warmoth body, $300 neck and hand wound pickups, uh sorry, nobody cares.

Very good points and, like many other forum members, I have first hand experience. I liquidated my two dozen guitar collection 2002-2004 as I lived in a part of the country and worked in an industry that felt the effects of 2008 early. I remain on a one guitar budget after years of being able to buy whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. It was odd even then what I was able to sell at a profit and what I sold at a loss. In the end I broke even. Makes me cautious now. I look at my Tele as a hobby, not as a liquid asset.

[wharriso]

It seems to me that actually playing an instrument is becoming a dying art. Plus the difference between expensive and cheaper guitars are a lot smaller than they were in the past. When I was a kid, I bought 2 "bows" before I actually got a working guitar. I could have taken up archery with those guitars.

[Jim Soloway]

It seems to me that actually playing an instrument is becoming a dying art.

I'm curious what that opinion is based on? I see all sorts of great young players on almost every instrument.

[Alder Statesman]

I'm curious what that opinion is based on? I see all sorts of great young players on almost instrument.

Anecdotally, My local GC seems to be patronized by geezers like it me. If I see young people, they are checking out DJ gear, not guitars.

[Jim Soloway]

Anecdotally, My local GC seems to be patronized by geezers like it me. If I see young people, they are checking out DJ gear, not guitars.

Here's a great young player to brighten your day.

And here are two of them.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'm curious what that opinion is based on? I see all sorts of great young players on almost every instrument.

We've got more anecdotes than data. Some general data would be useful.

[deselby]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but one thing that I think ought to be considered is just how good an instrument you can get without buying a high end guitar. Low end guitars used to be complete garbage, now you can get a guitar for $600 to $1000 that it is absolutely capable of making great music. I dabbled with high end archtops for a while and I was in the business of producing and selling expensive planks. These days I make most of my music on a pair of Godin archtops that cost me about $1300 US FOR BOTH. And of all the guitars that have come and gone in the last few years, the only one that I really regret selling was an Ibanez that I bought for about $500. It's tough to convince me to spend the price, even in a depressed market, for a guitar that's not going to dramatically improve my playing experience. In a way, expensive guitars have become like expensive watches. The added value is in the esoterica not in the ability to perform their intended function.

This. True in spades. I own some high end guitars but the differences between them and more affordable models is negligible. A friend has two 175's and the later one in terms of vintage is in every way a superior instrument to the earlier. I mention this because I think a particular instrument can be true, no matter its pedigree. One of the best instruments I ever played was a Harmony Sovereign.

The resale value of instruments is subject to the vagaries of the market. Nothing new here. The fact that we participate in the forum indicates our obsession but I think our proclivities constitute a minority within a minority. I don't know where popular music is headed but with little exception it seems to be in the control of the image industry. Again, not new.

Digressions aside, you are right. The quality of instruments in a lower price bracket is unbelievable. I am consistently floored by the Ibanez Artcore models. I wish it were the case when I started out with a Beltone and strings that sat somewhere an inch off the fingerboard. Mind you, I was only trying to channel Jimmy Reed at the time so maybe it was apt.

[Jim Soloway]

We've got more anecdotes than data. Some general data would be useful.

I don't have data. I just know that I see a lot of great young players, many of them pushing the technical and creative boundaries way beyond where I ever thought it would go.

[Stringswinger]

While there will be some price point variations from year to year depending on supply vs. demand ratios, highly sought after rare guitars will likely hold value long after all of us here have left for that great big jam session in the sky.

I would opine that the following guitars will remain a safe place to put your money:

Pre CBS Strats and Teles

Les Pauls made before 1961

Martin Dreads, 000's and OM's made before 1965

L-5's. Super 400's and ES175's made before 1965

ES-335's made before 1965

Any authentic D'Angelico, D'Aquisto or Stromberg

Any authentic Selmer guitar

And a handful of rare classicals made by builders like Fleta, Hauser, Ramirez and a few others.

[goatrace]

Thank you for the "Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians" referent!

[wharriso]

I'm curious what that opinion is based on? I see all sorts of great young players on almost every instrument.

You ever talked to anyone calling themselves "a producer"? They cobble together music from beats and samples while not even knowing how to read music. A lot of these guys see people who can actually play an instrument as a unicorn. When I was a kid, there were bands every few blocks apart. Its just not like that anymore. Of course I have not done any kind of study, I just don't see many young people, not counting YouTube, actually playing instruments anymore.

Closing your eyes to it will not make the problem go away.

[ronjazz]

You ever talked to anyone calling themselves "a producer"? They cobble together music from beats and samples while not even knowing how to read music. A lot of these guys see people who can actually play an instrument as a unicorn. When I was a kid, there were bands every few blocks apart. Its just not like that anymore. Of course I have not done any kind of study, I just don't see many young people, not counting YouTube, actually playing instruments anymore.

Closing your eyes to it will not make the problem go away.

And yet there are new bands with hits every day, band-new groups of young players on the late-night shows all the time, and guitar-playing singer-songwriters everywhere you turn, not to mention the upcoming crop of classical, flamenco and jazz kids. Ignoring the reality will not buttress your negativity. And one button-pushing "producer" isn't the end of music as we know it.