Anyone ever bought a prized instrument from Cash Converters?

[MichaelDean]

A couple of years ago there were a whole load coming through my local CC. An original 50s P bass, a Dan Armstrong see through bass and more, expensive, vintage basses that I can't remember. All looked real, seems mad that you'd sell them through there though!

[Mokl]

When I worked in musical retail we had a few instruments stolen. The first places we would always check were Cash Generator/Converters.

 

I can't speak for how they conduct their business now (my experience was over a decade ago), but back then they definitely didn't follow due diligence in establishing ownership of the items they were selling. This was borne out by the number of stolen instruments that used to turn up in there. 

 

I'm sure plenty of the stock in them is fine, but I would treat anything of half decent quality in there with a healthy dose of suspicion. 

Edited October 26 by Mokl

[Shockwave]

16 hours ago, MichaelDean said:

A couple of years ago there were a whole load coming through my local CC. An original 50s P bass, a Dan Armstrong see through bass and more, expensive, vintage basses that I can't remember. All looked real, seems mad that you'd sell them through there though!

I know the story behind this. They were a friends of mine whose wife stole them to pay for certain illicit substances... Cleaned out nearly his entire collection. He didn't notice until the vast majority were gone. 

[Bagman]

3 hours ago, Shockwave said:

I know the story behind this. They were a friends of mine whose wife stole them to pay for certain illicit substances... Cleaned out nearly his entire collection. He didn't notice until the vast majority were gone. 

That’s terrible 

 

hope she got clean and he got his instrument (s) back 

[NickA]

Few years back I noticed a weird Italian "jacoland" bass in Shepherds bush crack converters.  I managed to track down the original owner and message him to say I'd found his stolen fancy custom made bass.

 

...reply: he'd sold it to cash converters cause he needed the cash!

 

 

[NikNik]

irreelevant

Edited October 29 by NikNik

[Mediocre Polymath]

On 16/04/2010 at 14:14, Bloodaxe said:

[quote name='Grand Wazoo' post='808286' date='Apr 16 2010, 12:23 PM']What do you think, have any of you bought a quality bass from them and were satisfied with the quality and genuinity of it?[/quote]

That's my local branch (Lewisham)!

Dunno where they hide this stuff, all I ever see in there is tat. Having said that, IIRC a Chris Squire Rick that was around here originated from the same branch about 3-4 (?) years ago & checked out as perfectly legit... & I bought a very poorly SB-1000 from them for £250 about 10-12 years back - that's now been butchered into a fretless.

I've never sold anything to them, so I've no idea how stringent they are on that front in terms of I.D. & proof of address/ownership. Considering where that branch is, I'd kind of hope that they're quite cosy with the Law - the old nick was about 100 yards from the shop & the very shiny & enormous new one isn't much more distant.

Pete.

My local too. I remember back in the very early 2010s walking past there and seeing a mint Warwick custom shop Chrome-Tone five string thumb in the window.

 

Generally I quite like cash converters as a place to get old and weird stuff. I like it specifically because it's all a bit ropey and shit. You can get bargains because it's really hard to search for anything and most things are labelled wrong. I have a Sony TA-1055 stereo hi-fi amp that I got as "guitar amplifier, silver" and a 1970s fancy swiss made Goldring turntable that was labelled "record player, Goldman".

 

EDIT. Just noticed that I replied to a post that's older than my nephews. Still getting the hang of this site's ways

Edited October 31 by Mediocre Polymath