June 27, 2015 editorial: comments

The Half-Million Dollar Guitar

While researching a story this week on selling gear online, I was looking under “electric guitars” on eBay, and just for grins decided to sort the search results from the highest to lowest price. What I found at the top of the list was shocking, to say the least. No, it wasn’t a vintage Strat or Les Paul. It was a “Vintage Rare Steinberger GL7TA” guitar for $498,200. I kid you not. But the good news is that shipping is only $2,500.

Next below that was a ’61 Les Paul custom for $100,000, followed by the “First Kramer Guitar off the Assembly Line,” also for 100K. Then another Steinberger, this one a steal at just $99,995, and a ’58 Les Paul for $80,000 — getting into bargain territory, I guess.

Then I decided to do a bit of a reality check, and I filtered the results to show only listings that actually sold. Wow, very different story. At the top of the list was a Slash signature Les Paul that sold for $33,800, and a 1959 Gibson ES 335 for $21,611. Although those are still ridiculous prices that only rich collectors can afford, it’s interesting to note that prices of vintage guitars that actually sold were in a much lower range than were those unsold items.

I guess the moral of the story is that when you’re selling something, what you hope to get for an item for and what you can actually sell it for may be wildly different. So price realistically.

And while we’re on the subject of selling gear, Audiofanzine just unveiled a new classified section, where you can post ads to sell your gear and instruments — yes, even your rare Steinbergers.

If you ask a marketing expert about important factors for selling, one of the main things they’ll stress is reaching a targeted audience. With our classified section, your audience of potential buyers will be your fellow AF members, who are predominantly musicians and gear heads like you and I — in other words, about as targeted as you can get. What’s more, on each individual listing page, you’ll find convenient links to Audiofanzine reviews, user reviews, audio and video examples, and other information about the item you’re looking at. Try finding that anywhere else.

Finally, our classifieds also display selected listings from Craigslist, and soon eBay, so you can browse a lot more choices without leaving the comfy confines of Audiofanzine. So do check out our classifieds, whether you’re buying or selling.

I still can’t get over the idea of a guitar priced at close to $500,000. Not something you want to accidentally leave in a taxicab, that’s for sure. Your thoughts?