Washburn SBF24 Value?

redwedge · June 2021

Hi,

I'm looking to possibly sell my Washburn SBF24. Lovely guitar but stupidly heavy due to being solid and designed for live use not noodling at home.

It's in good condition and no cosmetic damage.

Anyone got a clue of a rough value? They seem to go for silly prices when I looked on Reverb.

Thanks

ICBM · June 2021

Do you mean silly as in surprisingly high, or surprisingly low?

I would doubt they're worth a lot, to be honest - a well made guitar, but a very dated concept and sound now unfortunately... completely superseded by the Godin A6, Taylor T5 and copies of them etc - the price of the one currently on Reverb at around £200 sounds about right to me.

There is a minor Pete Townshend connection if it's the blonde version, but probably not enough to make it worth much more. (Jokes aside...)

I had one about thirty years ago which I strung as a nylon-string as a budget substitute for the Gibson Chet Atkins that Mark Knopfler used on Alchemy.

redwedge · June 2021

Cheers. Surprisingly high. I've seen 4 between £600 and £1k.

They are well made. Just ridiculously heavy.

How did you find yours as a nylon string guitar?

ICBM · June 2021

redwedge said:

How did you find yours as a nylon string guitar?

A bit of a pain to tune! The small machinehead posts mean that you have to pull the strings as tight as humanly possible before tying on otherwise you end up with far too much string wrap on the posts, and then turn the keys ridiculously far to alter the tuning.

Other than that, and the need to buy ball-end nylon strings (not too difficult) it was very good and sounded fine. I actually sold it on to someone like that, he used it the same way.

Interestingly mine was actually branded 'Hurricane' rather than Washburn, but the guitar itself was identical.

£600-£1K is indeed just silly, or for Pete Townshend completists.

Tannin · June 2021

ICBM said:

Interestingly mine was actually branded 'Hurricane' rather than Washburn, but the guitar itself was identical.

You will already know this stuff, ICBM, but for those who don't and as a matter of general interest, "Washburn" isn't a guitar maker in the normal sense of the term, and hasn't been since the company folded in 1940.

The current "Washburn" started in 1974 and has no connection to the original company at all, other than lush PR material full of deliberately misleading lies about their "heritage". Washburn-badged guitars were made under contract in Japan until about 1990 when they switched suppliers to Samick, in Korea at first, shifting over time to China and Indonesia. During the mid-to late 1990s, Washburn briefly tried re-entering the top end of the market with models made for them by two high-quality US makers, Tacoma and Bourgeois. Current Washburns are the usual rebadged Samicks. (For PR reasons, there is also a very small US operation which makes a tiny handful of expensive guitars by hand. The one I looked a while back at was $4250.)

The same company which owns the Washburn brand also owns a stack of other companies, including both Randall and Marshal.

Every time someone talks to me about buying a new Washburn, I ask them if it wouldn't be easier and cheaper to just buy a Samick in the first place. Yes, "Washburns" are actually Samicks, much the same as a hundred other brands. (Epiphone is one that comes to mind. ) Samicks aren't dreadful, nor are they great, they are competent, middle-of-the-road instruments made to a price in China and Indonesia. Safest not to ask what wages they pay or what their policies are on ethical sourcing of endangered rainforest timbers.

Disclaimer: the drummer in my band once owned a Japanese-made 1980s Washburn, probably out of the Tokai factory or somewhere like that, and it was a nice guitar. It would probably rate as a collectable now since people started regarding anything made in Japan in the 1980s as a poor man's D-18.

EDIT: a quick search out of curiosity suggests that "Hurricane" was a brand owned by Morris, a Japanese manufacturer of the era, and quite possibly the company which was actually building "Washburn" guitars at that time. Morris are still going, by the way, but mostly for the Japanese domestic market. No-one seems to sell them either here (Oz) or in the UK.

ICBM · June 2021

Tannin said:

Disclaimer: the drummer in my band once owned a Japanese-made 1980s Washburn, probably out of the Tokai factory or somewhere like that, and it was a nice guitar.

80s Washburns were made by Yamaki, who also did Daion.

Gassage · June 2021

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Washburn SBF24 Value?

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