Have you a guitar worth more than you paid for it?

Nogoodboyo · November 2019

When I was looking to buy my first British made guitar in 2007, from what I remember of prices when checking out the usual suspects :- a Lowden cost £1600 now about £3000 , a Brook £1275 now £2450, a Fylde Falstaff £1775 now £3800 an Ariel or Orsino £1075 now £2500.
I know it is all relative, but anyone who bought a new guitar at this period would be able to sell it now and make quite a profit.......providing they didn't intend buying another guitar!

jellyroll · November 2019

An immaculate guitar will only sell for around 60% of new. So, you’d just about break even after 12 years. Guitars are NOT investments, especially if bought new.

Strangefan · November 2019

jellyroll said:

An immaculate guitar will only sell for around 60% of new. So, you’d just about break even after 12 years. Guitars are NOT investments, especially if bought new.

Shouty shouty,

it's a valid question and they Can be investments, if bougnt 2nd hand and you get a bargain it's quite easy to make a bit in top, I have rarely lost money on guitars, (studio gear is another story).

Regarding new I bought a new strandberg and sold it 2 years later for more no its not as cut and dry as you say.

TheOtherDennis · November 2019

If it's been through my hands, I can guarantee it's worth less than I paid for it. :-S

Strat_a_tat_tat · November 2019

Nogoodboyo said:

When I was looking to buy my first British made guitar in 2007, from what I remember of prices when checking out the usual suspects :- a Lowden cost £1600 now about £3000 , a Brook £1275 now £2450, a Fylde Falstaff £1775 now £3800 an Ariel or Orsino £1075 now £2500.
I know it is all relative, but anyone who bought a new guitar at this period would be able to sell it now and make quite a profit.......providing they didn't intend buying another guitar!

You've also got to factor in inflation.
If you bought a Lowden for £1600 (new) in 2007... and sold it today for £1650, you'd be making a loss in real terms. One of the online inflation calculators suggests you'd have to sell it for £2,276 - just to break even.

That said, you'd have had the joy of owing the Lowden for 12 years... and there aren't many items that we buy that hold on to so much of their value when sold second hand.

octatonic · November 2019

"Man maths" is amazing.

Strat_a_tat_tat · November 2019

octatonic said:

"Man maths" is amazing.

Yeah.... very useful in convincing wives that guitars are one of the best investments known (to man).

Perdix · November 2019

I bought a crafter ga6 £125 brand new mid-late nineties from humbucker music in Leicester. Regularly see secondhand ones on eBay for 2-3 times that now. Whether they sell it not is a different matter I suppose.

Phil_C · November 2019

I have a limited edition union jack Epiphone Sheraton, complete with certificate, case etc. Bought for £400 used but immaculate.

Now they seem to go for £800+

Nogoodboyo · November 2019

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Nogoodboyo said:

When I was looking to buy my first British made guitar in 2007, from what I remember of prices when checking out the usual suspects :- a Lowden cost £1600 now about £3000 , a Brook £1275 now £2450, a Fylde Falstaff £1775 now £3800 an Ariel or Orsino £1075 now £2500.
I know it is all relative, but anyone who bought a new guitar at this period would be able to sell it now and make quite a profit.......providing they didn't intend buying another guitar!

You've also got to factor in inflation.
If you bought a Lowden for £1600 (new) in 2007... and sold it today for £1650, you'd be making a loss in real terms. One of the online inflation calculators suggests you'd have to sell it for £2,276 - just to break even.

That said, you'd have had the joy of owing the Lowden for 12 years... and there aren't many items that we buy that hold on to so much of their value when sold second hand.

You're right! I did buy a Lowden (second hand though)

Andy79 · November 2019

Where are the old rockers who bought Strats and LPs in the 50s?

GTC · November 2019

I sold a Guild F20 lefty I bought new for £175 for £800 in 2017. I bought it in 1975. Don't mention inflation - it spoils it.

To me, even if you lose a bit when you sell a guitar on you would generally have enjoyed the experience of owning it and have learnt a lot in the process. You would have to pay more than the loss for getting that sort of enjoyment elsewhere. That's what I try to tell Mrs. GTC anyway.

BTW, when I last looked that very same Guild F20 lefty was for sale again on Reverb for over £1,000

BeardyAndy · November 2019

I've got a Patrick Eggle Stratford Pro that I've had from new, paid £1099 for it ('92-'94 cant remember without looking at the paperwork) and it's immaculate. There's a shabby one optimistically on the market for £4500, if mines worth that i'll be happy!

Wazmeister · November 2019

My Masterbuilt '63 Jason Smith cost me (new) £2800

Strat_a_tat_tat · November 2019

Wazmeister said:

My Masterbuilt '63 Jason Smith cost me (new) £2800

Wow... when was that, Mr Waz?

Strangefan · November 2019

Andy79 said:

Where are the old rockers who bought Strats and LPs in the 50s?

Still crying about swapping their 59 lespauls or adding a floyde rose and emgs to their strats in the 70s

Philly_Q · November 2019

Andy79 said:

Where are the old rockers who bought Strats and LPs in the 50s?

Six feet under.

Andy79 · November 2019

Strangefan said:

Andy79 said:

Where are the old rockers who bought Strats and LPs in the 50s?

Still crying about swapping their 59 lespauls or adding a floyde rose and emgs to their strats in the 70s

Ain’t that the truth. I heard Craig Korth the other day talk of the guitars he had and sold in the early 80s, prices that would make you cry

Wazmeister · November 2019

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Wazmeister said:

My Masterbuilt '63 Jason Smith cost me (new) £2800

Wow... when was that, Mr Waz?

Late 2014 or early 2015

Strat_a_tat_tat · November 2019

Wazmeister said:

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Wazmeister said:

My Masterbuilt '63 Jason Smith cost me (new) £2800

Wow... when was that, Mr Waz?

Late 2014 or early 2015

You did well sir!
I know MBs weren't up at £6.7k then (as many of them are now)... but that was still a great price in 14/15.

RaymondLin · November 2019

My PRS Custom 24 10-top cost me £1299 new from Guitar Village

PRS 305 cost me £1k, Guitar Village offered me the same in trade in. I am sure it will go for more if i sell.

PRS SC58, cost me £2k but honestly I can't price it because i will never sell it.

My Palir Titan cost me £1100 - They sell for £2500 on World Guitars.

Taylor T5 at sale for £1399. I think a new one is £2500 so I won't lose much.

I think I paid about £2k for the Gibson Custom Shop Class 5. It will go for at least that much I expect.

All in all, I would say I am in profit.

maltingsaudio · November 2019

My 2006 Fylde Alchemist offers? ( only joking never going to be sold!)

https://imgur.com/gallery/HqnGwec

ToneControl · November 2019

yes, it's all about refusing to buy when the price is reasonable or expensive

It's a long game though

youngsc · November 2019

The trick is not buying new. I bought both my Fyldes secondhand and both are worth at least double now. Classic cars might beat that but you have the cost of maintenance to add in! In both cases you have the joy of ownership.

artiebear · November 2019

I guess I must be lucky own quite a few. As this is the acoustic section, firstly, there are the instruments that are typically custom builds, top end builders, top materials, at the right time and price, admittedly due to a good relationship with the builder, then there are the Martins I have owned for a long time now.In both of these cases I can recover a better rate of interest on my initial outlay than I can find in any form of FSA covered investment portfolio ( that being said, I make my living out of music, love these instruments and will play them until either my hands give up or the rest of me does ).

Then there are the nice guitars like Collings etc, for example my Collings OM2H Koa, which I bought in 2005, for a decent, but not outrageous price new ( they never have been cheap ) To continue with this particular guitar as an example, Collings don't make too many and acknowledge that the Koa available now is either of lesser grading or just becoming crazily expensive to use without charging a great deal more for in comparison to back in 2005, they tend to go for the high end wood and prices go boom. I was offered a significant amount more than I paid for that guitar around 18 month ago by Collings /Koa aficionado , not as much of a jump as some of the previous group of guitars, but a surprise to me as I have played the heck out of it without considering the jump in prices over recent years.

Then there are guitars like, for example, a custom built Gibson J185, with very figured koa back and sides, bearclaw top, pearl inlays and rare for a Gibson, especially an acoustic, a nice ebony board and bridge. An impulse buy at a good price for a new guitar in the mid noughties. Lovely guitar, play it a lot because it is archetypal Gibson fat thump on a rhythm track, but due to the Koa, and maybe the ebony, has enough snap for finger style stuff. The possible new price now on an item like this would, according to Gibsons modern era pricing suggest something up with the Collings, realistically, we all know that modern Gibson's aren't really rare and apart from being bloody hard to find in that kind of spec., is not going to make me a fortune anytime soon. I would get more than I paid for it, down to the levers of inflation etc. but an investment, not sure in the short term. Like I've said before, I don't care, but it's interesting to think about.

Then there are guitars I really love for various reasons, some with braz r/w / honduras r/w etc, one offs by either lesser known builders, or makers like Lowden, Larrivee, Lakewood etc. which I bought because I couldn't leave the retail shop or the builders workshop without them ( In the case of the latter, possibly relatively higher end prices while disregarding resale, never on my mind tbh, realising that a talented builder should be getting top money regardless of investment value or bragging rights, which screws up too much of the guitar related sales business ) .

The electric side follows a slightly different pattern due to our fickle trends at a particular time ( anyone around to remember the 80's when LP's were admittedly far less ubiquitous than they are today ( don't remember many walls full of LP's then, especially all supposedly from some magical, pixie staffed Custom Shop within the Gibson factory. ) There were Gibsons on the wall because you couldn't give them away. Late 80's/ early 90's things changed.

Without going into that side, one thing I did notice that during the financial crash around 11/12 years ago, there was, for a number of reasons a serious bump in new prices ( not just guitars, a lot of stuff, we were conned in so many ways, and still are being shafted ) which we felt the pain of but carried on buying afterwards. I bought a lot of guitars just prior ( Gibson CS . PRS, Fender CS, ). I got busy and didn't bother looking at gear again for a couple of years, lo and behold, there was a huge spike against pre crash prices, which feels like it has just kept going. In relation to that, if you bought. like I did, before the spike you might argue that, yes your guitars are probably ahead of inflation ( dependant on desirability/brand ) and are a non depreciating pleasure.

I can't think of many things that can be enjoyed, make money, and be something to love, while, unless your a serial short term flipper ( buy new and try to sell 6 months to a year later ! ), these things can still get a) your money back, or b) In my case, at worst "a" , or maybe a couple of quid to go to the pub with before I die. Plus they have, hopefully, served us well to make a few quid.

wrinkleygit · November 2019

‘72 SG std bought in 74 for £250
S/H Strat bought early 80’s taken as a swap for Tascam portastudio
2014 ish 000-28ec £2000
Hopefuly my grandchildren might make a few quid on those

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Have you a guitar worth more than you paid for it?

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