What was the gear that you thought was poo, at the time...

[Moos3h]

Inspired by an ebay trawl, I am staggered to see the price that Laney AOR / PRO TUBE guitar heads are fetching these days (or at least the prices that people are asking!)

When I was first gigging, these were common as muck and could be picked up for nothing at all because no-one wanted them - no brand cache, and they didn't really sound that great!

So, what was the gear that YOU passed up, or turned your nose up at that has subsequently gone on to sell for daft cash?

Cheers,
James

[KK Jale]

My old Selmer Treble & Bass. I always thought it was one grim amp, but now they're supposedly cla££ic...

Funnily enough I hated WEMs too, but I've come back to them. A tiny bit. For guitar, anyway.

Edited November 28, 2010 by KK Jale

[Moos3h]

[quote name='KK Jale' post='1039455' date='Nov 28 2010, 12:20 AM']My old Selmer Treble & Bass. I always thought it was one grim amp, but now they're supposedly cla££ic...[/quote]

Yeah, you're right - saw one in Vintage £ (sorry, '&') Rare for a fair wedge. They were cack though, right?

[Prime_BASS]

Not bass related:

Gameboy micro famicom edition, just painted to look like the old console. I paid £40 for the "rare and limited" edition version a few years ago, sold it for £60. One is one eBay for £130!!!!!

It's just small Gameboy advance.

[pantherairsoft]

I had a Deep Impact. Bought it for £50. Used it for a year. Thought it was poo next to my mates Boss Syb-3... Sold it for £80 and recall feeling chuffed for making profit from something I thought was a bit Cack.

Oh how foolish was I....

[Bassassin]

[quote name='KK Jale' post='1039455' date='Nov 28 2010, 12:20 AM']My old Selmer Treble & Bass. I always thought it was one grim amp, but now they're supposedly cla££ic...[/quote]
Same. My first amp in 1981, £30 out a charity shop for 50w head & matching 2x12 cab - way too quiet for the band I'd just joined, I thought it was complete crap.

It's still in the drummer's mum's basement, for all I know.

Jon.

[KK Jale]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='1039540' date='Nov 28 2010, 01:44 AM']Same. My first amp in 1981, £30 out a charity shop for 50w head & matching 2x12 cab - way too quiet for the band I'd just joined, I thought it was complete crap.[/quote]


Absolutely.

I don't care how much they ask for crapola Selmers these days.

It's easily worth that money for me not to have to look at the feckin' thing for 25 years...

[Spike Vincent]

Selmer again.Zodiac this time,when I started in the late '70s old valve amps were dirt cheap,some for good reason - they were crap.It's worth big bucks now.Do I regret px ing it for an HH VS Musician? Hell yes...

[pete.young]

[quote name='KK Jale' post='1039455' date='Nov 28 2010, 12:20 AM']My old Selmer Treble & Bass. I always thought it was one grim amp, but now they're supposedly cla££ic...[/quote]

+1

Also, the Vox Wyman. Not a single redeeming feature. Bought and sold for £15 in the early '70s and I was glad to break even. Now changing hands for sums in the region of a grand. Still just as rubbish as they were in the early '70s.

[FlatEric]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='1039540' date='Nov 28 2010, 01:44 AM']Same. My first amp in 1981, £30 out a charity shop for 50w head & matching 2x12 cab - way too quiet for the band I'd just joined, I thought it was complete crap.

It's still in the drummer's mum's basement, for all I know.

Jon.[/quote]

Yep, I had one of those for a while - all I remember of it is what a dead clinical clunky sound it had.
Couldn't get anything out of it I liked.
Went on to get a Simms Watt combo with . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
reverb. WOW


Teisco guitar, that my mate had in the band - wouldn't have given you 6/- (30p) for it - thought is was pants.

Now. . . . . $£$£$£$££
Nostalgia, it ain't what it used to be!!!!!!!!!!

[RhysP]

Both my Rickenbacker 4001's - if I'd known how much people would pay for these terrible planks in years to come.....

[fatback]

[quote name='Moos3h' post='1039460' date='Nov 28 2010, 12:23 AM']Yeah, you're right - saw one in Vintage £ (sorry, '&') Rare for a fair wedge. They were cack though, right?[/quote]

My first bass amp. Awful, awful, awful

Nearly as bad as the grabber mk1 I was playing through it <puts tin hat on>

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='pantherairsoft' post='1039500' date='Nov 28 2010, 01:17 AM']I had a Deep Impact. Bought it for £50. Used it for a year. Thought it was poo next to my mates Boss Syb-3... Sold it for £80 and recall feeling chuffed for making profit from something I thought was a bit Cack.

Oh how foolish was I....[/quote]
Ha!

Mine cost £50 secondhand from Andertons & I'm sure I got £80 when I flogged it via gumtree. I don't think I even kept it for a year - I could never get a sound from it I'd actually use & my bandmates always rolled their eyes when I plugged it in. I don't miss it, but I do kick myself every time I see one sell in eBay.

I also had an original coloursound tonebender. No idea what happened to it - I think I gave it away.

[steverickwood]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='1039540' date='Nov 28 2010, 01:44 AM']Same. My first amp in 1981, £30 out a charity shop for 50w head & matching 2x12 cab - way too quiet for the band I'd just joined, I thought it was complete crap.

It's still in the drummer's mum's basement, for all I know.

Jon.[/quote]

It isn't. I'd have hoisted it as a teenager;)
I think the bass I built was still there but we left in 1991.

Unless this is another band you're talking about?!
Hows the GK?

[Mr. Foxen]

[quote name='Moos3h' post='1039449' date='Nov 28 2010, 12:11 AM']Inspired by an ebay trawl, I am staggered to see the price that Laney AOR / PRO TUBE guitar heads are fetching these days (or at least the prices that people are asking!)[/quote]

This is some of the reason for that:



I think I've done alright in not passing on the wrong stuff, some pedals I've had have gone a bit nuts.

[bluesparky]

[quote name='pantherairsoft' post='1039500' date='Nov 28 2010, 01:17 AM']I had a Deep Impact. Bought it for £50. Used it for a year. Thought it was poo next to my mates Boss Syb-3... Sold it for £80 and recall feeling chuffed for making profit from something I thought was a bit Cack.

Oh how foolish was I....[/quote]
I was going to say Deep Impact too.
I found one on e-bay. It was in great nick and i got it for a pretty good price.
I didn't really have a need for it but after reading and hearing so much about it i thought i should get it and give it a go as that price doesn't come around everyday.
After having it for about a week i realised that i was right, and i had no need for it (it did sound good though) so i sold it (on here, for the same price i bought it for), and of course the price of one now will always continue to rise.

[ShergoldSnickers]

I bought a Boss CE-1 from a guitarist friend for £35 in the early 90s. That's the big, built like a tank chorus pedal. Sold it a few years ago for around £240 if memory serves. One of the few instances where I've come out better off. Now if only I still had that Octave Cat synth....

[markstuk]

+1 :-)

[quote name='RhysP' post='1040024' date='Nov 28 2010, 03:47 PM']Both my Rickenbacker 4001's - if I'd known how much people would pay for these terrible planks in years to come.....[/quote]

[Low End Bee]

The mid 60s Epiphone Rivoli I had for a few weeks in 1979. I paid £105 and thought it looked cool but sounded horribly muddy.
Part exchanged it against a Gibson Marauder which was actually a very nice guitar.
I'm guessing there worth more than £105 now?

[tauzero]

Hofner violin bass. I turned one down because it played like sh*t and the controls were all gummed up. If I'd known then what I know now...

[bassatnight]

Almost embarressed to say but I had a Fender P 1978 model back in 1986 I got it in a swap for some cheap Wilson golf clubs I thought it looked clunky and ugly (This was the age of streamlined Aria SB's and Warwicks) had no idea about tone at the time. I swapped it for a Rayleigh Racing bike which was probably worth £40 tops. I Reckon that P would be worth a few bob these days!

[Bassassin]

[quote name='steverickwood' post='1040132' date='Nov 28 2010, 05:18 PM']It isn't. I'd have hoisted it as a teenager;)
I think the bass I built was still there but we left in 1991.

Unless this is another band you're talking about?!
Hows the GK?[/quote]
That was a couple of years earlier Steve, if I remember rightly. Didn't know your mum's house even had a basement, otherwise I probably would've left stuff there... With Abstract I had a 70s HH VS combo, which lit up green but only worked properly lying on its back (the amp, not me!), which I PX'd for a Session 410 Bass Compact (poor man's Trace-Elliot back then!) at Frenchy's in Duncan Road - which was run by a Mark Knopfler wannabe & amateur pornographer called Geoff - remember him?

The GK's great - I really want a decent 2x10 to use with it now. Oh, and a band with some bloody gigs would be good too!

J.

[Norris]

Part-exchanged a Rickenbacker 4001 for an Aria SB-1000 & had to make up quite a bit of cash, 'cos you couldn't sell a Ricki back then. Never did like the Aria and after several years threw it in the loft to fester...

... it's now being restored, partly out of guilt, partly because they are fetching reasonable money now.

I still probably spent more on AA batteries over the years than the bass cost me!

[steverickwood]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='1041230' date='Nov 29 2010, 02:49 PM']That was a couple of years earlier Steve, if I remember rightly. Didn't know your mum's house even had a basement, otherwise I probably would've left stuff there... With Abstract I had a 70s HH VS combo, which lit up green but only worked properly lying on its back (the amp, not me!), which I PX'd for a Session 410 Bass Compact (poor man's Trace-Elliot back then!) at Frenchy's in Duncan Road - which was run by a Mark Knopfler wannabe & amateur pornographer called Geoff - remember him?

The GK's great - I really want a decent 2x10 to use with it now. Oh, and a band with some bloody gigs would be good too!

J.[/quote]

Wow - I had a carlsboro valve and 4x12 for my first amp - got it from some guy tony knew and got in my first band at 18. Yeah I remember geoff - I used to drool over the hohner headless basses in his window (and a zemicki which was uncool but I wishede I'd bought!) as a paperboy; he would get me to nick fags for him from the shop in return for cables etc...a right old fagin! And yeah I heara few stories about him chatting up schoolgirls. He also had some dodgy assitant who I realise in retrospect was a bit of a druggie as he was always offering me spares and stuff for like 10 or 15 quid. Geoff sold some trash but I last sold him a guitar I put together minus any internal electronics (as I knew he didn't check them) and that part funded my first bass!!
But he woulde rip any one off - i mean I was 15!!! Talk about how to learn about the music business:)

Yeah I've been using a markbass 2x10 lately. Nice and light. I have a 4x10 but don;t always need that much power when theres a pa to do it for me.
Gona flog quite a few of my basses as got a CT this year and may buy a roscoe off a mate which is one of the best basses I've ever tried. And as I;'m doing less touring work etc I don't need so many damn instruments.

[razze06]

When I was starting off on bass, back in the late 80's, I passed up:

1) a second hand fender P, thought it felt too difficult to play - got something called a manson or mason or something instead
2) a second hand Gibson Tbird, bought a brand new, shiny and "just-out" Ibanez soundgear 800LE instead. Still have it.

Also, me and my mates started out using the drummer's dad's old band gear from the early 70's, including an italian made valve "Davoli" bass amp, which I clearly remember had a steel chassis and sheet metal bits on the side of the amp bit. Ended its life chucked down a hillside, to see how far it would roll...