Information about selling my guitars

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do I assess the value of a guitar when I'm preparing to sell it?

So I have three guitars that I want to sell. After this, I want to buy a pretty nice acoustic to start getting back into playing. Recently I developed a strong passion for acoustic so I think this is the right move.

Here are the 3 guitars I have and the condition of each. I know NOTHING about the worth of guitars over time and I was hoping you guys could give me a little info about where/how much I could sell these guitars (for). Thanks!

• Epiphone Les Paul Standard (Ebony) w/ Hard Case & New D'addario Strings
• Dean Avalanche (Tan) w/ Soft Case & New D'addario Strings
• No Name Acoustic Guitar w/ Soft Case
• Ibanez Beginners Amp w/ A/C Cable and Guitar Wires

How much do you guys think I could get for everything (all together and separate). Thanks!

Answer 1

Check out the selling prices on The Gear Page Buy and Sell forums.

They are about the most fair pricewise I've seen outside of the local craigslist gouger and under-seller.

Answer 2

See this question for advice on how to sell a guitar and find out it's value.

When it comes to finding a guitar's value, I recommend first going to eBay.

• Search the model
• Look at what the 'buy it now' prices are (by individual sellers), or what people are bidding on auctions.

Magazines can also be a helpful resource. 'Guitarist' run a user-submitted back page ads service, and these can be very useful in determining an acceptable value for gear/guitars.

Presuming the guitars are in greta working order, and in good physical condition:

The Les Paul: £270 or thereabouts

The Dean: £60-80

The Amp (presumably a small 10-15 watt solid state amp): £30-40 including the wires.

I can offer no advice on the acoustic I'm afraid, but as it is unbranded, I would guess that you would probably not get much for it, sorry.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Typically a good rule of thumb is to go by the condition of the guitar plus or minus some delta for how good of a negotiator you are. Unfortunatley, since most of the equipment you listed is lower end, you aren't going to get much for it. Very few guitars resale for more than half of their original value--I know this because I have cruised the used market for a very long time. I picked up my 1959 Iced Tea Reissue Les Paul for around 55% of the price of a new one, and that was an absolute steal (it was still no small sum). This is about the best you're gonna do. So, without further adieu:

The Epiphone: Epiphones don't really resell that well. Most models are great beginner guitars, but seeing as a well known mega store wants $549 new I'd say you'll likely be able to pick up 45% to 50%, depending on condition, modifications, and lenient you are when selling. That puts you at around $250 to $275.

The Dean Avalanch: I can't find much information on this guitar with a quick google search other than a few very low prices. I'd follow the 45% - 65% rule here too.

The No Name Acoustic: It's really hard to say what you could get out of this without more information.

Ibanez Practice Amp: Also hard to tell without knowing more about the model of the amplifier. I see Ibanez amps going anywhere from $59.99 to a couple hundred bucks for a decent practice model. I'd search the going rate prices on the actual model and follow the 45% to 65% rule.

Without knowing the exact models of the last two pieces of gear I really can't give you an estimate--but I still think the 45% to 65% rule is pretty universal. I've done a lot of trading on The Gear Page, and unless I'm selling something hot (like a Gold Klon Centaur or something insane like that) the prices fall into that distribution +/- a standard deviation. Also, always make sure you ask for 65% to 70% at first, that way you have room to wiggle. Everyone knows you're going to come down from your initial asking price, so the game is basically figuring out how much such that you and the seller are both happy with what you're getting out of the deal.