Your Best Bargain / Worst Sale

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I bought an akai deep impact for £50 and let it go for £85 — I should have hung onto it a bit longer.

 

I listed my japanese boss HM2 on ebay with a start price of £40 expecting it to go higher and it went for that price.

 

I used to own an original 70s coloursound tone bender. I thought it sounded like crap and I either gave it away or possibly sold it for next to nothing not realising they're supposed to sound like crap.

 

I have had some good deals that have more than offset these though

 

[NancyJohnson]

I've got two:

 

Many moons ago, I landed a Hamer FBIV on eBay.  It was a Sunday morning, I'd just bought a while Gibson Thunderbird and I was just perusing, like you do.  No Case.  £375.00, BIN.  I did a little panic thing...found some photos of Nikki Sixx for verification purposes and clicked.  It arrived intact, wrapped in about six inches of bubblewrap:

 

 

Next up.  Friday night, Gumtree.  Spotted a chap locally selling off a job lot of guitars, a bass and a practice amp for £50.00.  My heart did a little jump.  The bass was a 1978 Aria Primary Bass.  I've played a few Precision basses in my time and this one is easily as good, if not better than the Fenders.  It's gnarly.

 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

2 hours ago, casapete said:

Slight derail - does anybody else keep a record of what they buy and sell?

Yes, I do, but only for basses, not pedals/amps/speakers. They're all contained in a single document which is quite scary to look at.

It has dates for all my current basses bar the first two as I'm a bit hazy on where from and how much as they were bought in the 80's.

Once they are gone they move to the sold section at the bottom of the list.

[Stub Mandrel]

Circa 1990, the band I was in practiced in a large room set up as rehearsal space by a band we knew. In one corner was what looked to be an odd-shaped, ancient and unloved bass coated in a thick layer of nicotine and with utterly dead strings.

 

I paid £80 for it in in instalments.

 

It was only about four or five years old! Now my precious Fender Performer which I gigged solidly for several years in the '90s and have since only gigged a handful of times. But definitely the easiest bass to play I have ever tried.

 

[Woodinblack]

I love that performer - was tempted to get the one in mansons in exeter, but they wanted too much, but there aren't many around, always easy to critise fender for not doing anything different but when they do, noone buys them! 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

About 15 years ago, I was deep in an obsessive mode regarding Music Man Stingray basses. I still love them, but since I've started having issues with my fretting hand, I've found life a lot easier with slightly narrower necks.

Also being a Status fan, I was on the lookout for one of the elusive NAMM Stingray Specials with the Status neck. Only 100 made and they came up for sale very infrequently.

Things happen when you least expect them and I found one for sale one day in a small music shop in the middle of nowhere.

Apparently, the guy who bought it from new didn't even know how to play bass and it had been in its case been under his bed for years.

I bought it for a very respectable price and walked out of the shop a very happy man indeed.

It as, as they are referred to around these parts, a keeper.

[Hellzero]

One year after my studies, in 1988, I bought a friend's Fender's bass and guitar for the equivalent of 620 Euros (around 530 GBP).

 

I only wanted the bass, but as he was getting married, he needed the money and was willing to sell both the bass and the guitar.

 

I bought both for the 25.000 Belgian Francs he wanted.

 

I then just checked the guitar which turned to be an L series early 1965 Fender Stratocaster (badly) painted in white ... with a brush as my friend was sick of its Fiesta Red.

 

I sold it quite instantly to my friend Christophe Leduc (yes the French luthier) for the same amount, 620 Euros, he totally restored it and still have it today and you know its value which is around 20 times the price he bought it.

 

The bass was a 1971 Precision Bass that I kept for a year or two, and sold for 30.000 Belgian Francs, so basically 30.000 times the price I paid as I eventually got it for free in the deal.

[Gwilym]

Wal Pro2E for £500, Wal Mach 3 fretless 5er for, i think, £1200.

Should've held on to those 😂. 

 

Edit, those are what i bought them for. Sold both for a little more than that, but same ballpark, and nowhere near the crazy prices they are going for today.

Edited May 5 by Gwilym

[Mikey D]

Bought a used Ibanez GWB1 for used GWB35 price as they didn't know what the model was.

 

That said I sold my 1994 Yamaha TRB6 for a stupid price as a student. I still want it back today knowing I'll likely have to pay 3 or more times what it went for.

[Mikey D]

18 hours ago, binky_bass said:

A USA Custom Shop Conklin 8 string bass with magnetic, piezo and midi pickups for £300 - bare in mind the build price of such a thing a few years ago (before Bill Conklin passed away) was $12,000. Still have it, will never sell it. 

Wow. I used to lust over these after watching bill the Buddha dickens video when I was younger. That's a crazy price.

[tubbybloke68]

 Alembic Stanley Clarke deluxe, brought on eBay about  15 years ago for £2800, sold in 2020 for £5250 inc postage ( still think I sold it too cheap) but hey ho. 
status empathy 4 brought from bass direct for £850 I think, sold it for £450 which was way too cheap but wanted to get shot of it. Swings and roundabouts I guess 🤣x 

[Roger2611]

A Hiwatt 4x12 cab with a none  descript 1x12 bass cab for £15.00, I only wanted the bass cab and had no idea about the Hiwatt, it turned out to be a mint all original 1960's cab still loaded with Celestion Greenbacks, my local guitar shop gave me £1200.00 in px on it against a Les Paul, so god only knows what it was actually worth! 

[AMV001]

I had a mint, still in the box with manual, Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal that I bought for 68 Euros. Then John Meyer started using one and the value went through the roof.

Sold it just before they announced the reissues for £650.

[casapete]

43 minutes ago, AMV001 said:

I had a mint, still in the box with manual, Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal that I bought for 68 Euros. Then John Meyer started using one and the value went through the roof.

Sold it just before they announced the reissues for £650.

I did a similar thing with a Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer, as used by Mark Knopfler and Steely Dan.

Bought it for around £25, and sold it for £200 just before the (inferior) reissues came out. 
Also sold my 80’s Tube Screamer to a dealer a couple of years ago. Think it cost me around £30

new back then, got £250 for it. 

[gjones]

Just recently bought a Musicman Sterling Sub Series Ray 4, from Gear4music. It had an insignificant dent on the back so was sold as B stock, reduced to £230 from £419.

 

I prefer the Jazz Bass style neck on the Sterling to the neck on my USA Stingray and it sounds just as a Stingray should with it's 2 band EQ.

[OliverBlackman]

12 hours ago, tubbybloke68 said:

 Alembic Stanley Clarke deluxe, brought on eBay about  15 years ago for £2800, sold in 2020 for £5250 inc postage ( still think I sold it too cheap) but hey ho. 
status empathy 4 brought from bass direct for £850 I think, sold it for £450 which was way too cheap but wanted to get shot of it. Swings and roundabouts I guess 🤣x 

£2800 15 years ago feels like a lot of money still. I remember 60s Fenders being priced around that at the time.

[bassbiscuits]

I bought a 1970 sunburst precision bass in 1994 for £575 - I was a student and that was a lot of money. I still gig with it though. 
 

I also paid £40 for a 2006 Yamaha FG512SJ dreadnought acoustic off FB marketplace - needed a strap pin and a set up but plays lovely and gets used for my solo gigs, using a Seymour Duncan woody soundhole pickup I got for free. 
 

My other main bass is a 2003 Yamaha BB604 which I paid £200 for on BC back in 2017 I think. 
 

I practice with a Blackstar ID Beam combo which I won at a local music shop competition some years ago too. Bargain indeed. 
 

[bassbiscuits]

In the flip side, I sold a Squier Silver series P for £80 and a Fender MIJ 1957 reissue strat for £120ish when I was skint some years ago (it turned out to be a rare colour too…)

[Burns-bass]

I used to import guitars from the States and sell vintage amps and parts the other way. 
 

Bought several Hiwatt amps for very little and made thousands in the end. The Partridge transformers alone could sell for hundreds. Used to buy old Fender basses and part those out too.

 

Best was probably a Hiwatt DR103 I bought for £200 and sold for £1800.

 

Worst was a slightly twisted 1965 jazz bass neck I sold for £150.

[KingBollock]

I’ve never exactly been mr money-bags, so it’s all relative…

 

My first proper speaker cab was a Marshall 1960b 4x12. Unfortunately, little thirteen year old me could only lift it six inches off the ground (which was fine for getting it onto the trolley I nicked from the local Co-op warehouse, to wheel up to the youth centre for rehearsals…). I ended up doing a straight swap for a no name 1x15 (and returned the trolley to the Co-op).
Quite a few years later, I sold that 1x15 for £50.

About ten years after that, the chap I sold it to needed to make space in his house and, since he never actually used it (I don’t know why he bought it), he gave it back to me, for free. I still have it.

 

Age sixteen, while doing work experience at a TV/video repair shop, I mentioned to the boss’s son that I played bass. He told me he owned one but had never actually taken the time to learn to play it. He said I could have it for a tenner.

I turned up the next day with my tenner and he with his bass. I had a bit of a play on it, at which point he said I could have it for free. He’d been sceptical about whether I did actually play or not.

It was just a Satellite P-bass, but it was free, and it actually played and sounded really nice. I later sold it for £35.

 

A couple of years ago I was helping a mate get started to learn to play bass. He heard one of the pedals that I had and fell in love with it. I am rather fond of that pedal, too, but he really, really wanted it and was prepared to swap a Zoom B3 (which he was finding overly complicated) for it. So I agreed to it.

He’s since decided to do the Van Life thing and sold all of his bass gear. He came to stay with us for a few days recently (staying in his van on our drive), and gave me the pedal back and wouldn’t take anything for it.

[Machines]

A few spring to mind, but I am a rampant bargain hunter/flipper.

 

USA Gretsch 6131 Firebird - SoundControl ~2005. Was mislabeled as an Electromatic at £299, they kept this price even when queried if correct. Sold on eBay for £1k.

Ibanez Musician MC900 - £250 PMT ~2006, soon traded for a 96 Stingray (they were around £750 at the time).

Tiesco 1480 (1969) - last year. Facebook market as 'broken' for £25. Needed 15 mins of electrical work to fix, later sold for £250

Dingwall Combustion 5/2 this year for £750 (Facebook), good condition too.

2011 Rickenbacker 4003 from CashConverters for £1100 a couple of months ago. Loved it visually, but no use to me - sold a few days later for just under the going rate.

[gjones]

Sold an original Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal for £80 to a guitarist I know. Checking ebay a few months later I saw them going for £500.......duh!

[binky_bass]

One for today - just won an Epifini UL610 1500w cab on eBay this morning for £250. T'will go nicely with my UL901 head. 👍 

[Grewster]

So I’ve been caught up in this infinity loop of bass playing/trading/buying/selling since 1970. Yes, I’m that old and still at it … and grateful to be!

 

Best buy … a 1964 Hofner Violin from some bloke in a basement flat in east London in 1979. £99 …. I even kept the handwritten receipt - found it the other day.

 

Worst buy … a pre-CBS Fender Jazz from a very cleverly written and photographed ad on Craigslist (I was living in the US at the time). I totally took a chance that the guy really didn’t know what he had ‘found in the garage of a house he had bought’ … of course it was a total lemon when it arrived. I broke it up, sold whatever bits I could off of it and threw the rest in a dumpster.

 

Best sale … saw a big ole Phil Jones 2 cab rig advertised on eBay for a seriously low starting price, sniped it a week later for not much more, rented a car to drive to the Lake District (from the south coast). Gigged it a couple of times then sold it to a guy in a Morrisons car park for 3 times what I paid.

 

Worst sale … I always regretted selling my 1967 Ricky 4005. It had a totally ugly neck/headstock repair but was solid as a rock and sounded lovely. Got a decent enough price for it but should never have let it go.

 

Still looking out for the next thing!!

[spacecowboy]

He’ll not be keen on me mentioning it but I recently got a 6 string Ken Smith that I flipped for +£2,000 more than what I paid.
 

Previously I’ve had most luck flipping Warwick’s, mainly… an ‘88 Stage 2 bought for £700 sold for £1500, and Streamer number 126 bought for £800 sold for almost £2000, and finally a rare as ‘92 5 string Stage 2, paid about £1k sold for £2k… 

 

don’t think I’ve made a loss, but probably have selective memories there…!