Buying Your Gear: Pricing & Offers

PRICING

Please consider that we are a business with overheads: sourcing, servicing, stocking, advertising, and (very importantly) guaranteeing vintage gear all carries costs. If we have an item priced at £1000 on the site, we won't buy yours for £1000, £800 or probably even £700... Operating costs and taxes can account for 30-40% of the asking price and, while we do this primarily because we love it, our families still need to be fed. 

You will almost certainly get a better price for your equipment if we sell on consignment for you (where we list your gear for sale and take a commission), but of course the payment will take longer to come through. Consignment & Commission details are here. We are now also selling some larger pieces on a brokerage basis; please contact us if you have something you want us to look at selling that way.

But let's be clear: you may possibly get a better price if you sell it yourself on ebay, especially if you are not in a hurry - it's how we started here and there's nothing wrong with it. Apart from the fees. And the clunkiness. And the tire kickers. And the questions about shipping to Vanuatu. And the packing. And the people who though the price was in euros/dollars/cowrie shells. And the people who just want to complain about something and claw a few pennies back from you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Apart from that... :)

"MAKE ME AN OFFER"

"Make me an offer" is a common request we hear. However, as a general rule we don't and in most cases we expect a seller to come to us with an asking price. This can save a lot of time and means we can usually give you a pretty quick answer. But we also think it is clearer, fairer and more straight-forward for everyone involved.

This hopefully explains why we mostly expect you to have an asking price when you contact us - there are exceptions, so don't be put off if you have no idea of pricing. All credit for the words below go to the Analogman site, and to the Clay's Guitars site that he in turn borrowed it from. We greatly appreciate and admire Analog Mike, not only for the wealth of straight talking information on guitar pedals and tone, but also for the last word on how customers should approach selling gear. This is the text below (we couldn't have put it better) - with just a few edits to better suit Soundgas. Please read it before emailing about the gear you want us to buy:

From Analogman.com:

Here is something from Clay's Guitars web site, he expressed how I feel better than I could, so here it is:

"When selling, I would appreciate it if you had a price in mind... it's always better if you've done your own research as to value. This way you don't have to "trust" just me as to what your item is worth. 

Just remember, if "Joe Vintage Guitar Dealer" is asking $1000 for the same item as you have, that doesn't necessarily mean it will actually sell for that amount. And if you want $1000 too, I probably won't be interested. 

It's a lot easier to buy things from knowledgeable dealers than from individuals. There's much less hassle and risk involved for the buyer. 

I generally pay from $100 to $10,000 for vintage gear I'm interested in. As would anyone, I'll pay more for stuff I'm looking for, and less for things I'm not really looking for. 

"Make me an Offer"... 

A lot of people email me with gear for sale and say, "make me an offer". I would really rather not make offers in this situation. It's not because I'm trying to get your gear "cheap". It just leaves me open, and allows my offer to get used against me. 

For example, say someone states they have guitar X for sale, and request an offer. Say I offer $100. Then this person goes to some other buyer (usually local to them) and says, "this internet guitar collector offer me $100 for my guitar". Naturally the other prospective buyer will have to offer more. This puts me in a position where my offer is actually getting used against me. 

But if the same person emails me and says they have guitar X for sale for $100, I can either accept or refuse. If I accept, they have made an offer and I have accepted the offer. The only piece missing is compensation (me giving them the money), to make a legally binding sale. To me this is much cleaner and legit. And besides, it puts some pressure on you to be educated as to the value of your instrument."