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I remember when dealers couldn't give these things away!


jaxson50

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Listing it for that price doesn't me He's gonna get that for it though. Especially on Ebay and Craigslist lately Ive seen some really high prices on guitars and they just sit there forever. I remember a really weird looking engraved Les Paul that had a fish engraved on it that hung in a local guitar store with a price of something like 8 grand or something crazy like that, I saw that guitar hang there for something like six years and it finally sold for 1500.00. Same thing is happening now i a pawn shop I buy scrap silver from he has a really nice 335 on the wall and he thinks he's gonna sell it for big bucks but Ive been going in for 7 years now and it's still hanging in the same exact spot and I bet the strings have been on it for five years really kind of sad but he thinks it worth way more than it is obviously.

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a pawn shop I buy scrap silver from he has a really nice 335 on the wall and he thinks he's gonna sell it for big bucks but Ive been going in for 7 years now and it's still hanging in the same exact spot and I bet the strings have been on it for five years really kind of sad but he thinks it worth way more than it is obviously.

 

That's a case where it's worth what somebody will pay.....

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In 1984 I wanted a bass, any bass. Ended up with a 30" scale Kent P Bass copy in clown sunburst for $100 I think. Luckily about 2 months later I scored a blue '73 Musicmaster Bass for $70 out of someone's attic so I was placated.

 

I digress (surprise).

 

In the fall of '84 I walked into the local Fender dealer. The scales had tipped by that time, with Squiers outnumbering US models about 3:1. Hanging on the rack was a Fullerton-made bright fluorescent orange P Bass, obviously old stock with the older decal, may have even had the big chrome pickup cover and bridge cover... 1980, 1981 maybe. At the time I thought it was hideous. The dealer sheepishly told me he had special ordered it and once the 'buyer' saw the color he vanished. I probably could have gotten it cheap about that time, in the $350 range. I now know that was part of the 'International Colors' series, which didn't sell all that well. Now they command big money.

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My favorite story regarding this phenomena is the earliest imports of the Vox Beatle amps. They looked just like what the boys were using, on the chrome stands and everything, but they sounded like crap. Turns out they were the "updated" built for the American market "new and Improved" solid state version, and nobody wanted them.

 

I went in to a store in the mid-90's and right in the middle of the showroom floor facing the front door was a brand new Vox Beatle amp, chrome tilt stand and all. I went over and looked at it and saw the fine print "Solid State" written on the faceplate. I looked over at the owner of the store and said I couldn't believe that Vox would reissue an amp that nobody wanted in the first place.

 

He said "it's not a reissue".

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More evidence that my great uncle was right:

"An antique is something that either didn't work well enough, or no one liked well enough, to wear it out."

 

Sadly. We Our grand kids will probably be having a similar conversation in 2050 about the Hello Kitty Strat.

 

HelloKittyStrat.jpg

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I don't really get why you would collect guitars that you don't at least love aesthetically. A first edition "how the Grinch stole Christmas" is worth almost $12,000. I think I would be ashamed to tell people I had spent that much on a book you can get for $5 just because one had a fun fact attached to it.

 

In short I don't get why you would spend money on something that is only impressive to people after you tell them how much you spent on it.

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My MIL, rest her soul, was at a garage sale and handed a plate to my FIL. It was the ugliest plate either one of them had set eyes upon. My FIL was all,'What the heck do you want this for?' My MIL was(in a hushed voice), "Just pay the man." They went back and forth like this a couple times until my bewildered FIL agreed to buy it. After he paid for it and they were in the car, she told him. Ugly as it is, it is for my Avon Christmas plate collection. It is the ONLY ONE I don't have.

 

True, he didn't pay much for it, but they live in a part of the world that Garage Sale price tags don't mean much if they get an inkling they have a hard to obtain collectors item. (Using my Mr. Haney voice) "You don't have a 1974 Avon Christmas plate? :blink: I'm sorry that tag doesn't say $1.00, it says $100. That is why my MIL didn't want to get into a heated tet-a-tet with my FIL.

 

Point is, collections can be mighty strong things to fill and complete. Collectibles people know this. [sneaky]

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Gee, I just can't imagine why nobody would even take them???smiley-fart006.gif

The paisley finish turned off a lot of buyers and other Fender models were more popular.

At that time the two hot selling basses were the Fender Precision, and the Rick 4001.

I remember having a Gibson Thunderbird bass hanging on the wall for over two years while Fender Jazz and Precision's were flying out the door. I never figured that out, that T-bird was sweet.

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