Year Ender: Special Edition
I usually do two year enders-one for 335’s and one for 345’s and 355’s but this year I will do something different because the vintage market is kind of confused at the moment. Most sellers-and this includes individuals and dealers think that the “Covid bump” is still going on. They see that prices rose dramatically from 2020 until, uh, forever, if you look at the prices of what is currently listed on Reverb. You can ask anything you want (and folks do) but if you want to sell guitars, you need to be realistic and a 10-20% rise in the market for three or four straight years is fantasy land. During Covid (2020-2022) we saw prices rise as much as 30% at the high end and 10% or more for lower end guitars. Fender and Gibson led the way but the rising tide raised all the boats and sales were brisk. Brisk? They were crazy. Stuff that I had for years that just sat and sat all of a sudden was moving out the door at astonishing prices. Those were the Gretsch’s and the Rickys and even a Guild or two-stuff that I bought on impulse and couldn’t move after I was done playing them. Well. listen…the party is over. Prices leveled off in late 2023 but nobody noticed unless they were selling a lot of guitars. In 2024, sale prices stayed relatively stable but asking prices continued to go through the roof and now we have the classic “standoff”. You are asking too much and the buyers know it. So, your guitar sits, unsold.
I’m guilty to an extent as well but I’ve begun to cut prices by around 10% on most of my inventory and things are moving pretty well. Here’s a good example-a 60/61 ES-345 was listed at $29,000 or so. It had a long guard so I felt it was a little more valuable than a 61 (it had a 60 FON and an early 61 serial). Comparable 345’s were mostly in the $35,000 range and I could see that they had been listed for some months. Well, that well priced 345 sat unsold as well and I decided to keep cutting the price until somebody got the memo and got a good deal. I dropped it by a few thousand and had one offer but it was on Reverb and I didn’t want to pay the fees which, by the way, are a big factor in the run up of prices. It’s not the 5%/$500 listing fee, it’s the ridiculous fee for using their pay service. A recent sale for $15500 had a fee of the usual $500 (maximum listing fee) but a payment fee of $634. Total fees? Nearly 8%. Add in the mandatory sales tax and its no wonder everybody is asking so much. The only one getting rich here is Reverb.com. Still, it’s time to wake up and acknowledge the market has leveled off or perhaps even dropped. Reverb is a very effective selling tool but they’ve made the same mistake that Ebay made years ago. They got greedy. That ES-345 eventually sold for a few thousand less than the Reverb price. But when you look at the net earnings, I didn’t do too badly and I felt pretty good not giving $1134 to Reverb.
So, what do you, the seller, do in a market that has lost its way? You lower your prices and you try to get ahead of the market. Once everybody realizes the market has dropped, prices will come down. If you’re the first seller to lower your prices, guess whose guitars are going to sell? My wife used to sell real estate and the conventional wisdom in the real estate market was that “the only reason a house doesn’t sell is because it’s priced too high.” I think that applies to the vintage guitar market as well. Waiting for some billionaire to come along who doesn’t care about the price isn’t going to happen. Billionaires tend to be very savvy buyers. I’ve sold guitars to a few of them and they generally ask all the right questions and they negotiate. You can assume that most buyers have done some homework. You can also assume that some buyers think that the various price guides are the bible. They aren’t. They are often way low especially when it comes to ES guitars. I’ve had potential buyers ask me if I have the audacity to think that I know more about the ES market than the buying guides. If you add up the number of vintage ES sales made by all of the contributors to the guides combined, they don’t add up to my sales figures. You want an idea of what a particular ES guitar is worth? Look at my listings. I sell between 65 and 80 ES-335/345/355’s a year. Most dealers sell perhaps 3 or 4.
What can you take away from this post? You can take my advice. Do your homework. Make offers. Is asking for a 15% discount an insulting lowball? Maybe but who cares. This isn’t a popularity contest. All the seller can say is no (and that they think you’re an asshole but again, who cares). I take plenty of offers. I often sell trades at their trade value just to move them out. If you don’t negotiate, you don’t get a lower price. If the seller says “I don’t have to sell” it usually means “I have to sell”. If he says it the greatest guitar he’s ever played, ask him why he’s selling it. If he’s asking a crazy high price, move on to the next one. There are plenty of great guitars out there for sale. It’s simply a matter of getting to a price that makes you (and only you) happy. Oh, one more thing…”what’s your best price?” isn’t negotiating. I usually respond to that very common question by saying “I don’t negotiate with myself.”
Hey, wasn’t that the same blue 4 pup Teisco being played by that famous British guitarist with the initials EC back at the Marquee Club in Soho in ‘66? ☺️
Thanks for the truthful and realistic insights, as always! I would add that there are also some players and collectors out there that technically are emotionally attached to a guitar to some degree, but would let it go at X price and therefore toss out a high asking price juuuust in case someone bites…but in order to have any chance at it selling, it would certainly need to be something unique and not simply another “pristine 2010 Strat.”
David, good points! RAB