General advice about selling your "used" guitars.

[mawmow]

Well 60% of brand new seems a good target to me but I would modulate according to the quality and playability (need for tech. work) as well as reputation/rarity or not of the model.

[guitarwebguy]

And what if the guitar you are selling has no modern equivalent (I have at least 2 that fit this “category”)?

[Hoyt]

I’ve been selling on Reverb lately. Like it better than EBay. But back in the day, EBay was really good, at least for me, because I always got more than I would have listed it at a fixed price.

With today’s market, that may have changed.

I have one more guitar and maybe another odd instrument to sell as I get ready to retire. So this thread is interesting.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

I have long understood that the price for an instrument used should be IRO 60% of the new purchase price.

I put a guitar on consignment a little while ago, not really expecting it to sell so quickly (if at all).

This is (was - sniff) a 20 year old well used guitar and it sold for a little more than I bought it for less the dealer's 15%.

I recently saw a (rare) new model which is now 170% of what I paid (20 years ago).

So, should that 60% be what it was when I bought it, or what it would cost new, now?

Just wondering.

Seems to me that the 60% of new price only holds true for repetitively recently purchased instruments. But at some point the current value detaches from what not only the purchase price was then but what the current purchase price (for new) is now, if the model is still being built. It also seems to me that a 20 year old guitar is probably in the latter category.

[colder]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

Seems to me that the 60% of new price only holds true for repetitively recently purchased instruments. But at some point the current value detaches from what not only the purchase price was then but what the current purchase price (for new) is now, if the model is still being built. It also seems to me that a 20 year old guitar is probably in the latter category.

I think everything, whether it's still in production or not, is priced against whatever good substitutes are available in the market. If there are no new versions of that guitar being made, what is the used price of something comparable that is still in production? Same body shape/size, same country of manufacture, same woods, etc.

Other things come into play, such as whether it's a well-known brand or not, but you're always going to need to price according to what potential buyers see as the alternatives.