I'm 54 years old so I've seen many periods of inflation. Once it happens and then levels off: the inflated price becomes the new norm. The price never goes back down to the pre-inflation level. So I guess $500 guitars are the new version of what was $199 and $1500 are the new $800, etc. Gibson's......fogetaboudit.
Well I feel bad for the older people that saved up a retirement of 100 thousand dollars and now they are all but broke. Those poor people have been robbed. This country should be shamed for allowing this to happen. We all could have stopped it. No excuses. Inflation is just another major tax that nobody thinks about. You might as well be paying 50% tax right now.
Baxter has the same sickness as me. I love having guitars around, they give me comfort, even if I don’t play certain ones often I just love them. It becomes difficult for me to sell sometimes. I need help man
Guys, sad day for me. Had worked for a long time to get myself a nice Strat Original 60's and a Deluxe Reverb and Ioved it. Unfortunately, we had some rough water when my mother on law passes and I had to sell it today. It went to a nice young guy, and he seemed excited, I'm happy for him but I'm heart broken. I feel sad. Anyways, I appreciated watching your videos guys. i learned a lot, won't be around as much making fun of Baxter's sayings in the comments. Weird, at first it felt like I was selling a guitar,. Now I feel like I sold a part of something that had grown in me. Okay, thanks for everything guys.
I said it a year ago, at 58 I've lived through all the guitar ups & downs. I'm patiently waiting for the glut of guitars purchased over the last 2 years to start hitting the market at reduced prices over the next few years.....
I think that day is coming soon. I stopped by my “local” (45 minutes from home) guitar shop today, and they are finally stocked up better than they were pre-pandemic with new gear. The better availability of new gear is definitely going help push the prices of used gear down. A large inventory of new will drive discounts on new gear once more people stop buying.
Well I will tell you this... recently sold my house so bought a couple of new guitar's Spent over 6K on a LP and CS Strat Anyways after playing them for a year I've come to realize they just aren't as good as the stuff I already have My lawsuit LP from 40 years ago slays the new Gibson Standard and at least 2 or 3 of the Fender Strats are comparable or better than the CS way over priced Strat new purchase I guess I'm just not a new guitar guy Never buy another new guitar and will probably sell the new purchases That's just me though Oh well
Note on the Reverb Distortion Field... The Sold cost is not the money you will get. First off, Reverb is going to take 7.5% right off the bat. So you will immediately lose $75 of a $1000 sale. Then there's tax. Rule 1 of tax law: Gross income means all income from whatever source derived, unless excluded by law. Gross income includes income realized in any form, whether in money, property, or services. Income may be realized, therefore, in the form of services, meals, accommodations, stock, or other property, as well as in cash. Or from gear sales. Because, no, guitar sales are not excluded under the law. So you will also pay tax on monies received. Conservatively expect to lose whatever your effective tax rate is to taxes. If it's 10%, lose that amount from what you net from Reverb. So that $1000 sale now gets you $832.50 because Reverb took $75 and then there was $92.50 in income tax liability. It's easy to look at Reverb and think that flipping guitars and gear is a great way to make money. But the numbers say otherwise. When you look at your guitar, you should see notes, not dollar signs.
@@pmoney3688 exactly. 1) No sellers' fees 2) No worries about returns 3) No 1099-K as long as you do cash only. Venmo will report payments. Avoid the 1099-K unless you want to try to prove your basis in order to offset the income reported by the third-party.
@@bob733333 I suggest you read the current Title 26 of the US Code and not rely on hopeful interpretations of 100 year old case law. Specifically, Sections 61 through 68. If you sell something, the net proceeds are income. If you sell a guitar for $1000, that's $1000 of income. Now if you are employed as a musician or performer, you could deduct the cost of the guitar, assuming you can prove what you paid for it. And the burden of proof is on you. What's the Golden Rule? The guy who has the gold makes the rules. The IRS has the gold. They make the rules. A 1099-K is just a form by a third-party saying that they forwarded funds to you. So PayPal, Square, Reverb, Venmo, CashApp will all report to the IRS that they forwarded monies to you. There were plenty of folk out there making money under the radar through what is known as retail arbitrage. Flipping merchandise. Things like buying bulk diapers at a wholesale club and flipping it on Amazon marketplace. The reporting change was to address this. Think about it like when the county puts in speed cameras. It sucks that they can now catch you speeding but then again, you really weren't supposed to be speeding in the first place. All income, unless otherwise stated, is income. Now you can fight the IRS if you want, but fiddling around in this somewhat gray-area is probably a good way to get flagged for an audit. Signed, Your friendly neighborhood Blues Lawyer
I live in Arkansas ship gear to Missouri to avoid 10% in taxes, plus I get an extra 1% form Apple pay which for some reason, Reverb can’t figure out how to make the tax tables work correctly.
Now is not the time to buy anything that can classed as a luxury. The prices will stay high for a while, but when the buyers with more money than sense start to feel the financial pinch, then supply will exceed demand, and prices will drop. The "Baby Boomer" generation of which i am one won't be here for ever, and who will buy their vast collections ? I might not see it, but i think that demand for expensive guitars will go down in time, today's generations will not have the buying power that we were lucky to have.
@@t3hgir That's funny, I bought a Tele a few months back and just didn't like it. Rather than take a bath on resale, I forced myself to play it every day, and within a couple weeks it became one of my favorite guitars :)
It's called the "Bull Market" .... what comes after that, will really suck. You won't be able to GIVE gear away. And that's the times I love as a gear head. I can get by fine on one meal a day. But this NO gear to find, needs to end! For me anyway.
I worked in San Jose in 2000 thru 2004. In the fallout from the “Dot Bomb” bust in Silicon Valley, the San Jose Guitar Center had an entire wall full of vintage / custom LesPaul’s for sale. These were bought just a year earlier, during the Dot Com boom by 20 somethings who had leveraged their stock options. The dot-comers had to sell them to GC to pay rent… today seems eerily similar… to quote Yogi Berra, “it’s seems like deja vu all over again”…
Lived through that place and time myself, and worked in a bookstore for several months between programming jobs. Some thought I was silly for that, but keeping the cash flow going makes a huge difference down the line.
@@DeirdreSM you are smart! I was the manager of Don Sherwood Golf and Tennis… even after the crash, there were unemployed dot-comers in the store, buying golf clubs, and laughing and joking. They thought it would all come back!
@@jed1166 I had the advantage that this wasn't my first recession, so I had some clue about it. Some of my friends left tech for good, which is a shame as they were talented at it.
they're only locked away so I could save them. Seriously though, Norm was buying these a decade ago and more for pennies on the current inflated dollar. He sells stuff when he thinks his investment has matured, I'm sure he doesn't need to sell anything and wouldn't if he did not think it matured or worthwhile.
Guitars are the ultimate discretionary item. They are never urgent nor necessary. And given that the vast majority of people who buy guitars already own a guitar there is a ceiling for prices. And I suggest they have already been topped. What we saw in the past year is because the market was juiced with a trillion dollars of borrowed money. Prices can only come down for ultra discretionary items.
This like the housing market in Nashville. In a year or 2 if things stagnate. New home buyers will lose 100’s of thousands. It’s crazy for young families
The market switched from seller's market to a buyer's market near instantaneously in January. If you're not willing to take a bath on a piece of gear, it may not be the right time to sell. Inflation and gas prices are hurting many people financially; there's not a lot of extra money to throw around at gear, let alone exorbitant prices on used gear. Hell, even Lidl and Aldi are getting expensive!
There's a threshold, where I do believe you expect a guitar you buy new to appreciate. The problem with this, is the average person can't afford to buy $5000+ guitars. If your in the $1500 and under reality that most of us live in, breaking even is all you can hope for.
Easy solution: stop buying guitars. Every single person watching this channel has more guitars than they actually play, regardless of what they tell themselves. Play what you've got.
time to upgrade my home amp ? I keep looking at the tweed deluxe reissue (clones/kits/ boutique). I am guilty of buying a (4th) guitar during the lockdown. A epiphone les paul 1959. It is very nice.
The best position to be in right now is to not NEED to buy or sell anything. With necessities going crazy and looking like no end in sight. Luxuries (which in most cases instruments truly are unless you simply don't have one, or you only have one and it get stolen/lost/destroyed) simply take the back burner. Prices will likely never return to what they were, but it'll mostly come down to whether who needs the deal to happen more. The buyer or the seller. Leverage is always king.
The elephant in the room is that most people holding really expensive vintage instruments probably will never need to sell them, so if they ever sell them at all, they can wait for the right buyer.
@@rstuartcpa Some no doubt will (others will simply be passed down) but I'm still not convinced that most people who can afford to be in that position will be particularly motivated sellers in terms of having to accept a lowball offer.
@@Tim85-y2q The only way those high end vintage instruments/amps will be let go for lowball offers are situations where the person who inherits them are completely ignorant to what it is they have and allow themselves to be ripped by a more knowledgeable buyer.
@@charlesbolton8471 Exactly. A guy I used to know who dealt in vintage instruments (among other antiques) said the best way to ensure any old collectible was real is if you found it at a garage sale being sold for way under it's value because they didn't know what they had. I think the internet has largely killed that though.
Gonna be visiting some family in Asheville NC very soon, I wanna take a road trip out to Casino Guitars and see what y'all are all about!!! Love the content, you guys are great! 🔥🔥🤘🏾
There are more guitars than buyers, and as boomers continue to stop playing this will continue. This year (2022) I sold 4 guitars and acquired 3. I have 2 more guitars to sell, and maybe 1 more I may purchase. Selling guitars, lots of low offers and I don't respond. All the guitars I sold, I got my original asking price or 10% less which is usually my lowest if I'm open to offers. They took awhile to sell, so patience is required or take less.
"Stagflation", wow - don't think I've heard that word since I was an economics major! The pandemic has been good to me guitar-wise. I got my first Gibson Les Paul, my first Fender Strat, and a lovely Epiphone LP Jr. They're the three best guitars I own, they sound and play incredibly, and I can't imagine ever selling any of them. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sometimes just likes to look at their guitars!
I sell things when i get knew things so i tried to sell my bassbreaker 30r for like 150 less than they were going for no sale. A guy did trade me a lp jr for it. I am also trying to sell my bikes for a great price but everyone wants stolen prices n id rather find a deserving person and gift to them than sell a bassbreaker for 90 bucks (real offers) nobody is buying squat
Reverb has also been caught manipulating their price value histories…particularly if it’s something they have invested in or own many of….or a brand they hate….
Gold is an investment, an instrument is more inspiration, satisfaction and Fulfillment of Artistic and Creative Magic. I know what I have is worth to me and never have been desperate to let someone steal them for a song and a dance, but I build for kids, seniors vets and charities and Give away more Guitars than I sell and use money from any sales to fund those Donations or builds done at cost.
I've had a couple of guitars for sale at very fair prices (I've done this lots) and they've just sat. I think the rapid increase in inflation rate is making people hold on to their money a bit more.
an Increase of government spending raises the amount of money in circulation and thus increases inflation. Increased Government regulation (which increases business costs) = Inflation, increased labor wages (increases business costs) = inflation, increasing unemployment duration causing a scarcity in available labor (creating wage increases (increases business costs)) = inflation. Allowing fuel prices to soar (by avoiding domestic production) and begging foreign governments to increase production (which they didn't) = inflation. if you watched the Democrat Primary debates in 2020, you saw all the candidates desire one or all the above things listed to happen (minimum wage increases, tax increases, more regulation etc etc) AND you still voted blue...well you got what you wanted....Inflation. please enjoy
After recovering from hard GAS, please only keep the gear you LOVE and know you cannot part with. If there’s a guitar/amp you don’t love but “like” then sell it for the one you know you won’t part with. I’m a massive fender/gibson fan but I personally prefer gibsons. I’m don’t love teles/strats as much as I love my es 355, Les Paul, and L5. I still a bought custom shop strat/tele last year to have. It was sitting in its case most of the time as amazing as those Instruments work. Realized it afterwards, and sold them and all my spare amps and stuck with a handwired 57 twin and a 64 handwired Princeton. I got rid of my blues jr and other amps I simply wasn’t playing
I’ve been wanting a Princeton amp but so has everyone else! Between the price increases and the great tube scare of 2022 I’m wondering how long I should wait before bothering to shop around Or considering buying a diy kit to build my own clone, but even those have gone up in price quite a bit!
@@honkytonkinson9787 patience dude. Just wait, it’ll be worth it. That amp is probably the best hand wired amp fender is making. Take a look at the Chris Stapleton as well if reverb isn’t a priority you need. Both are amazing. Also yes the back orders are insane along with the tubes
I managed to buy used gear at good prices from my local Long & McQuade during the pandemic, sometimes by search, sometimes by being in the store at the right time. I got some used amps, a couple of cheap Gibsons and a used Marshall 1x12 that I would have ignored at this year's retail price (Marshall gear has skyrocketed.) At another online store, I did pay the full (2019) retail for an ES-235 in January 2022 because those are scarce and it was NOS. I bought a couple of new, small amps on blow out here and there.
I have never purchased any guitar or pedal with the thought of resell value. I buy them because i want to play them and have fun. The only thing that might have any type of resell value is my limited release amp (92/200) but still that is for me not to sell. When i die, it will be someone elses problem what they are worth.
I’ve heard that you should expect to get 70-80% of what you paid for a used guitar. Condition is of course considered but generally speaking that’s a good place to start
Very simple away around it Let's say the avg price of what you want to sell is 2000 online reverb eBay etc I'll go out at 1600 on Craigslist local delivery cash green money no taxes no fees no shipping
Perfectly timed video and so very true. I never thought guitars would be one of the initial markets of where this would take place but every market that was thumped by pandemic is right with or just behind. Worldwide this stagflation is going to get worse,
Dude, I will literally watch yalls content and turn my Magnatone Super 15 mini stack on and just bask in the beauty. Looking at our guitars and amps is just part of it
The automotive industry still hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic related supply chain issues. Normally, in a time like now with extremely high gas prices a person would be able to get great deals on trucks, SUVs, and other lower gas mileage vehicles. Right now there is so little inventory of anything new vehicles that dealers are still selling at list price or higher.
What percentage of guitars sold do you think should/would increase in value? Yeah, we'd all like to think we're smart buyers and will only buy guitars that appreciate in value but... is it reasonable to think of guitars in general as appreciating assets? As for shops selling used guitars... if the used market drops out, I think we'll see shops backing out of it asa well.
@@zbqb84a it depends. I think that most guitars, at the end of the day, can only, at best, expect to hold their value. I have a 1998 Les Paul Standard in Excellent condition. I bought it secondhand in 2005 for about $1200. Per Bureau of Labor Statistics, that's about $1800 today. Per Reverb price history, presently, I theoretically could expect to sell for about $2100. Sounds great. Except... Reverb will take about $150 in fees. And the taxes are another $90 assuming I can prove a $1200 basis in the guitar. So, on my best day, the Les Paul Standard held its value. Investment assumes a desire to turn a profit. Guitars are a terrible investment. Basically, I would have gotten the same result if I had put the $1200 in a savings account with 2% interest. If you want your guitar to increase in value, first establish yourself as a famous guitarist. Otherwise, don't expect any gains.
yep ... I'm 61 and I can vouch for what Wade is saying ... he is 100% correct. Its all because nobody wants to rock the boat. We could probably do something about it if everyone was on board but we are just too lazy to stand up and fight. Well I am anyway ... I shouldn't speak for everyone I guess : )
ESTEBAN for liiiiiiiife. Good vid guys. I don’t buy guitars to sell them either (because sickness lol). But it is nice knowing they carry more than sentimental alone. Agree, let’s hope this thing levels off because there’s so many more guitars to buy 😆
Who would have ever thought that when musicians could not play for $$, the prices of guitars would go up. When musicians could go back to making money, guitar values stagnate. 😄
The shutdown, brought in a lot of new players that drove record sales . My question is , how many of those players will give up playing guitar and sell their gear? Add that to the folks who are suffering to a horrible economy and the supply glut will start moving prices back to earth. Just a guess…
I bought an Esteban a while back just to see what all the fuss and humor was about. They’re not as bad as people say. They’re pretty beautiful guitars with nice woods, details, and finish, but somewhat of a fingerbleeder neck, especially when you go up. They spent their money in production on the looks, lol. The commercials are pretty funny though, right up there with Ginsu Knives and the Sham-Wow
I bought an FA-15 in red last year before prices went up for $169 for someone who 'wanted to learn'. Person took it out of the original box like twice. Gave it back to me a month ago. Can I find a buyer? NOPE. None of the stores want a 3/4 scale acoustic that's not worth at least $500. LOL. I said screw it. Treated the fretboard & waxed the body. Figure I'm going to donate it to a school eventually because FB Marketplace is trash.... just saying. I'd take a Ben, but nope... not even an offer.
Stagflation requires, along with high inflation and slow growth, high unemployment. In America right now there is something closer to a labor shortage, not high unemployment. So no, we do not have stagflation in our economy. What you describe in the guitar market right now is merely an impending price correction, to be expected after a period of buyer over exuberance, caused by extraordinary external circumstances on multiple fronts. If the higher prices hold it will be a reflection of the popularity of the guitar as an instrument, especially with young musicians, who we are told are finding the tactile and harmonic qualities of a guitar more interesting again than a digital interface surface. In which case Amen to that.
So other than reverb where are a couple of other places to look online to just compare prices I usually look at eBay I used to go to Craigslist but I don't anymore any other places I could go to just gauge on roughly how much something would cost or how much I should be paying for a piece of gear that I may be interested in
Glad I got in right before things started going haywire on my Les Paul Custom. Looking for a cs strat and struggling with those prices. They are all over the place right now
So I was a bit impulsive and bought a few guitars over the last 2 years at the higher prices, I like them a lot and was gonna play them for a while before moving some on and replacing with something else. But if used prices will only continue to drop, and drop a lot, should I rush to sell some of my guitars now to minimize the loss I’ll take in price?
@@HK-21 Thanks so much for etching that out. I’m quite a novice in the world of guitar dealing. Will put them up for sale locally just in case anyone buys, but continue to play them for as long as I enjoy them. Thankfully I don’t need the cash or money from selling them unless I need to fund other gear so I can wait as long as I don’t look to buy anything else for a while which I’m fine doing. A bonus to all these crazy prices and tough market it’s made me appreciate playing and using what I already have and thinking twice before buying or selling any more gear.
My dad gave me his Esteban guitar and amp. But unfortunately the amp does not work :/ I think it might be the soldering on the speaker tho so probably pretty fixable. Much better than the Fender acoustics
I enjoyed buying something different to try it out and, if not what I wanted sell it off. That's stopped now for about a year or so. Now I'm just enjoying what I have (still too many - lol) and just keeping up by watching channels like these and following the trade. Pricing now makes no sense, it's understandable, but since they most likely won't go down by much if at all, I'm priced out of the market and am just very happy with the collection that I have.
Play what you have and enjoy it. I would venture to say most viewers on the web site already have multiple guitars.if I decide I want another guitar, I’ll wait till the 8million new players that bought one last year, realize the don’t really want to put time in learning and start to sell.
Love the video , I was thinking a guitar rents for about $5 a week .you sell it after say three years at same money you gave. How much money did you make ?
Plot summary: Guitars. Inflation. Stagnation. Esteban. Steven Segal. Black Panther. Civil War.
We didn't start the fire...it was always burning since the world's been turning...
Sweet! I just got a call for that France trip! Thanks guys! No problem sharing my social for that!
I'm 54 years old so I've seen many periods of inflation. Once it happens and then levels off: the inflated price becomes the new norm. The price never goes back down to the pre-inflation level. So I guess $500 guitars are the new version of what was $199 and $1500 are the new $800, etc. Gibson's......fogetaboudit.
One of these times it won't level off... Can't go on forever.
@@mcd5778 when I was in high school gas was 81 cents. I’m 40. It doesn’t go back!
Well I feel bad for the older people that saved up a retirement of 100 thousand dollars and now they are all but broke. Those poor people have been robbed. This country should be shamed for allowing this to happen. We all could have stopped it. No excuses. Inflation is just another major tax that nobody thinks about. You might as well be paying 50% tax right now.
@@realtruenorth It's happening everywhere. It's getting very hard to live in the U.K, unless you have a trust fund.
@@alfsmith4936 well, this is a major red flag. We are being bled out.
Baxter has the same sickness as me. I love having guitars around, they give me comfort, even if I don’t play certain ones often I just love them. It becomes difficult for me to sell sometimes. I need help man
The struggle is real.
You're not alone.
I don't look to make a profit on something I've enjoyed for years. Too much hustle mentality now ain't good for mankind.
Guys, sad day for me. Had worked for a long time to get myself a nice Strat Original 60's and a Deluxe Reverb and Ioved it. Unfortunately, we had some rough water when my mother on law passes and I had to sell it today.
It went to a nice young guy, and he seemed excited, I'm happy for him but I'm heart broken. I feel sad.
Anyways, I appreciated watching your videos guys. i learned a lot, won't be around as much making fun of Baxter's sayings in the comments.
Weird, at first it felt like I was selling a guitar,. Now I feel like I sold a part of something that had grown in me.
Okay, thanks for everything guys.
I said it a year ago, at 58 I've lived through all the guitar ups & downs. I'm patiently waiting for the glut of guitars purchased over the last 2 years to start hitting the market at reduced prices over the next few years.....
Yup. Like a drug dealer at tax time...
I think that day is coming soon. I stopped by my “local” (45 minutes from home) guitar shop today, and they are finally stocked up better than they were pre-pandemic with new gear. The better availability of new gear is definitely going help push the prices of used gear down. A large inventory of new will drive discounts on new gear once more people stop buying.
Well I will tell you this... recently sold my house so bought a couple of new guitar's Spent over 6K on a LP and CS Strat Anyways after playing them for a year I've come to realize they just aren't as good as the stuff I already have My lawsuit LP from 40 years ago slays the new Gibson Standard and at least 2 or 3 of the Fender Strats are comparable or better than the CS way over priced Strat new purchase I guess I'm just not a new guitar guy Never buy another new guitar and will probably sell the new purchases That's just me though Oh well
My fix to this issue is buying Eastman acoustics and building partscasters.
Note on the Reverb Distortion Field...
The Sold cost is not the money you will get. First off, Reverb is going to take 7.5% right off the bat. So you will immediately lose $75 of a $1000 sale.
Then there's tax.
Rule 1 of tax law: Gross income means all income from whatever source derived, unless excluded by law. Gross income includes income realized in any form, whether in money, property, or services. Income may be realized, therefore, in the form of services, meals, accommodations, stock, or other property, as well as in cash.
Or from gear sales. Because, no, guitar sales are not excluded under the law.
So you will also pay tax on monies received. Conservatively expect to lose whatever your effective tax rate is to taxes. If it's 10%, lose that amount from what you net from Reverb.
So that $1000 sale now gets you $832.50 because Reverb took $75 and then there was $92.50 in income tax liability.
It's easy to look at Reverb and think that flipping guitars and gear is a great way to make money. But the numbers say otherwise.
When you look at your guitar, you should see notes, not dollar signs.
Would be much more profitable to flip guitars on craigslist.Harder to sell them, but you get to keep a lot more of the money
@@pmoney3688 exactly.
1) No sellers' fees
2) No worries about returns
3) No 1099-K as long as you do cash only. Venmo will report payments.
Avoid the 1099-K unless you want to try to prove your basis in order to offset the income reported by the third-party.
The Supreme Court defines income as 'corporate gains'.
@@bob733333 I suggest you read the current Title 26 of the US Code and not rely on hopeful interpretations of 100 year old case law. Specifically, Sections 61 through 68.
If you sell something, the net proceeds are income.
If you sell a guitar for $1000, that's $1000 of income. Now if you are employed as a musician or performer, you could deduct the cost of the guitar, assuming you can prove what you paid for it. And the burden of proof is on you.
What's the Golden Rule? The guy who has the gold makes the rules.
The IRS has the gold. They make the rules.
A 1099-K is just a form by a third-party saying that they forwarded funds to you. So PayPal, Square, Reverb, Venmo, CashApp will all report to the IRS that they forwarded monies to you.
There were plenty of folk out there making money under the radar through what is known as retail arbitrage. Flipping merchandise. Things like buying bulk diapers at a wholesale club and flipping it on Amazon marketplace. The reporting change was to address this. Think about it like when the county puts in speed cameras. It sucks that they can now catch you speeding but then again, you really weren't supposed to be speeding in the first place.
All income, unless otherwise stated, is income. Now you can fight the IRS if you want, but fiddling around in this somewhat gray-area is probably a good way to get flagged for an audit.
Signed,
Your friendly neighborhood Blues Lawyer
I live in Arkansas ship gear to Missouri to avoid 10% in taxes, plus I get an extra 1% form Apple pay which for some reason, Reverb can’t figure out how to make the tax tables work correctly.
Now is not the time to buy anything that can classed as a luxury.
The prices will stay high for a while, but when the buyers with more money than sense start to feel
the financial pinch, then supply will exceed demand, and prices will drop.
The "Baby Boomer" generation of which i am one won't be here for ever, and who will buy their vast collections ?
I might not see it, but i think that demand for expensive guitars will go down in time, today's generations
will not have the buying power that we were lucky to have.
Time to fall in love with the gear you've already got :) The markets will adjust accordingly.
My 2 year old $1k Charvel pro-mod Tele is looking mighty fine right meow.
@@t3hgir That's funny, I bought a Tele a few months back and just didn't like it. Rather than take a bath on resale, I forced myself to play it every day, and within a couple weeks it became one of my favorite guitars :)
It's called the "Bull Market" .... what comes after that, will really suck. You won't be able to GIVE gear away. And that's the times I love as a gear head. I can get by fine on one meal a day. But this NO gear to find, needs to end! For me anyway.
I worked in San Jose in 2000 thru 2004. In the fallout from the “Dot Bomb” bust in Silicon Valley, the San Jose Guitar Center had an entire wall full of vintage / custom LesPaul’s for sale. These were bought just a year earlier, during the Dot Com boom by 20 somethings who had leveraged their stock options. The dot-comers had to sell them to GC to pay rent… today seems eerily similar… to quote Yogi Berra, “it’s seems like deja vu all over again”…
Lived through that place and time myself, and worked in a bookstore for several months between programming jobs. Some thought I was silly for that, but keeping the cash flow going makes a huge difference down the line.
@@DeirdreSM you are smart! I was the manager of Don Sherwood Golf and Tennis… even after the crash, there were unemployed dot-comers in the store, buying golf clubs, and laughing and joking. They thought it would all come back!
@@jed1166 I had the advantage that this wasn't my first recession, so I had some clue about it. Some of my friends left tech for good, which is a shame as they were talented at it.
I like the idea of people playing a vintage instrument. I can't stand it when they sit in a storage locker for years(Norm's).
I agree a toy never played with is not a toy at all
Yeah he's just there to make money!
@@michaelblaney4461 and control the market.
they're only locked away so I could save them. Seriously though, Norm was buying these a decade ago and more for pennies on the current inflated dollar. He sells stuff when he thinks his investment has matured, I'm sure he doesn't need to sell anything and wouldn't if he did not think it matured or worthwhile.
Guitars are the ultimate discretionary item. They are never urgent nor necessary. And given that the vast majority of people who buy guitars already own a guitar there is a ceiling for prices. And I suggest they have already been topped. What we saw in the past year is because the market was juiced with a trillion dollars of borrowed money. Prices can only come down for ultra discretionary items.
This like the housing market in Nashville. In a year or 2 if things stagnate. New home buyers will lose 100’s of thousands. It’s crazy for young families
As a kid, I had an adult film burned for me and I wrote Esteban on it and kept it out in the open. No one ever tried watching it.
I hid my KISS Alive in my Carpenters Greatest Hits album sleeve and I forgot where I put it.
In my youth once you bought an instrument it was 50 perecent.
The market switched from seller's market to a buyer's market near instantaneously in January. If you're not willing to take a bath on a piece of gear, it may not be the right time to sell. Inflation and gas prices are hurting many people financially; there's not a lot of extra money to throw around at gear, let alone exorbitant prices on used gear. Hell, even Lidl and Aldi are getting expensive!
There's a threshold, where I do believe you expect a guitar you buy new to appreciate. The problem with this, is the average person can't afford to buy $5000+ guitars. If your in the $1500 and under reality that most of us live in, breaking even is all you can hope for.
The economy is grinding down. A lot of toys will be on sale in another 6 months. And then another 6 months after that.
This is where you find out your Gibson is not rare, or only as rare as a diamond is rare, ie not very.
Easy solution: stop buying guitars. Every single person watching this channel has more guitars than they actually play, regardless of what they tell themselves.
Play what you've got.
How did you know?!?!
If I stop buying guitars I'll start buying more cymbals bro
time to upgrade my home amp ? I keep looking at the tweed deluxe reissue (clones/kits/ boutique). I am guilty of buying a (4th) guitar during the lockdown. A epiphone les paul 1959. It is very nice.
Don’t be so negative wow! Lol
@@Tony_Leonardi. It's not negative. Playing your instrument is far more rewarding than buying more of them
Guitar players who attend an “Academy” go to rehearsal while the rest of us go to practice.
The best position to be in right now is to not NEED to buy or sell anything. With necessities going crazy and looking like no end in sight. Luxuries (which in most cases instruments truly are unless you simply don't have one, or you only have one and it get stolen/lost/destroyed) simply take the back burner. Prices will likely never return to what they were, but it'll mostly come down to whether who needs the deal to happen more. The buyer or the seller. Leverage is always king.
Thanks for making me feel like a “collector” instead of a flipping nut! Lol😂
Erm…… you always NEED to buy a guitar.
Definitely! That’s where I’m finally at, and it’s a nice change.
@@paullee3660 yeah but 30?
@@josephperrigo7008 always just one more.😁
The Esteban Wikipedia entry is wild. Also he was kind of scammy. Would not recommend investing in Esteban.
Solid financial advice.
The elephant in the room is that most people holding really expensive vintage instruments probably will never need to sell them, so if they ever sell them at all, they can wait for the right buyer.
Those vintage guitars will eventually go to the market as the human condition of mortality takes its course.
@@rstuartcpa Some no doubt will (others will simply be passed down) but I'm still not convinced that most people who can afford to be in that position will be particularly motivated sellers in terms of having to accept a lowball offer.
@@Tim85-y2q
The only way those high end vintage instruments/amps will be let go for lowball offers are situations where the person who inherits them are completely ignorant to what it is they have and allow themselves to be ripped by a more knowledgeable buyer.
@@charlesbolton8471 Exactly. A guy I used to know who dealt in vintage instruments (among other antiques) said the best way to ensure any old collectible was real is if you found it at a garage sale being sold for way under it's value because they didn't know what they had. I think the internet has largely killed that though.
Gonna be visiting some family in Asheville NC very soon, I wanna take a road trip out to Casino Guitars and see what y'all are all about!!! Love the content, you guys are great! 🔥🔥🤘🏾
Hi guys, love the shows. Just one query, do barbers in Southern Pines do apprenticeships? Only joking - keep up the good work.
Yep, they learn to comb hair with balloons!
@@fabulousfreddyisready hashahahahaha
Robert Smith school of cosmetology?
There are more guitars than buyers, and as boomers continue to stop playing this will continue.
This year (2022) I sold 4 guitars and acquired 3. I have 2 more guitars to sell, and maybe 1 more I may purchase.
Selling guitars, lots of low offers and I don't respond. All the guitars I sold, I got my original asking price or 10% less which is usually my lowest if I'm open to offers. They took awhile to sell, so patience is required or take less.
Jonathan looks different without his beard
"Stagflation", wow - don't think I've heard that word since I was an economics major! The pandemic has been good to me guitar-wise. I got my first Gibson Les Paul, my first Fender Strat, and a lovely Epiphone LP Jr. They're the three best guitars I own, they sound and play incredibly, and I can't imagine ever selling any of them. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sometimes just likes to look at their guitars!
not only the guitars.... i looked at a rockerverb100.... 2899 last week - 3249 this week CAD!! hope it looks nice in your store !!!
The 1970's are back! Time to work on those funky disco riffs and rhythms!
NO! I need a break from four on the floor beats!
@@honkytonkinson9787 four on the floor but in quintuplets, that's what all the cool kids are doing
I sell things when i get knew things so i tried to sell my bassbreaker 30r for like 150 less than they were going for no sale. A guy did trade me a lp jr for it. I am also trying to sell my bikes for a great price but everyone wants stolen prices n id rather find a deserving person and gift to them than sell a bassbreaker for 90 bucks (real offers) nobody is buying squat
Reverb has also been caught manipulating their price value histories…particularly if it’s something they have invested in or own many of….or a brand they hate….
Gold is an investment, an instrument is more inspiration, satisfaction and Fulfillment of Artistic and Creative Magic. I know what I have is worth to me and never have been desperate to let someone steal them for a song and a dance, but I build for kids, seniors vets and charities and Give away more Guitars than I sell and use money from any sales to fund those Donations or builds done at cost.
I've had a couple of guitars for sale at very fair prices (I've done this lots) and they've just sat. I think the rapid increase in inflation rate is making people hold on to their money a bit more.
Or they don’t have it anymore bc it’s already spent on gas, food, clothes, everything else
hold on to what?... We all have to spend it to live. At least we stayed "safe" the past couple years though. lol
Fender and Gibson also practice the martial art of Take Yo Do
an Increase of government spending raises the amount of money in circulation and thus increases inflation. Increased Government regulation (which increases business costs) = Inflation, increased labor wages (increases business costs) = inflation, increasing unemployment duration causing a scarcity in available labor (creating wage increases (increases business costs)) = inflation. Allowing fuel prices to soar (by avoiding domestic production) and begging foreign governments to increase production (which they didn't) = inflation. if you watched the Democrat Primary debates in 2020, you saw all the candidates desire one or all the above things listed to happen (minimum wage increases, tax increases, more regulation etc etc) AND you still voted blue...well you got what you wanted....Inflation. please enjoy
After recovering from hard GAS, please only keep the gear you LOVE and know you cannot part with. If there’s a guitar/amp you don’t love but “like” then sell it for the one you know you won’t part with. I’m a massive fender/gibson fan but I personally prefer gibsons. I’m don’t love teles/strats as much as I love my es 355, Les Paul, and L5. I still a bought custom shop strat/tele last year to have. It was sitting in its case most of the time as amazing as those Instruments work. Realized it afterwards, and sold them and all my spare amps and stuck with a handwired 57 twin and a 64 handwired Princeton. I got rid of my blues jr and other amps I simply wasn’t playing
I’ve been wanting a Princeton amp but so has everyone else! Between the price increases and the great tube scare of 2022 I’m wondering how long I should wait before bothering to shop around
Or considering buying a diy kit to build my own clone, but even those have gone up in price quite a bit!
@@honkytonkinson9787 patience dude. Just wait, it’ll be worth it. That amp is probably the best hand wired amp fender is making. Take a look at the Chris Stapleton as well if reverb isn’t a priority you need. Both are amazing. Also yes the back orders are insane along with the tubes
I managed to buy used gear at good prices from my local Long & McQuade during the pandemic, sometimes by search, sometimes by being in the store at the right time. I got some used amps, a couple of cheap Gibsons and a used Marshall 1x12 that I would have ignored at this year's retail price (Marshall gear has skyrocketed.) At another online store, I did pay the full (2019) retail for an ES-235 in January 2022 because those are scarce and it was NOS. I bought a couple of new, small amps on blow out here and there.
I have never purchased any guitar or pedal with the thought of resell value. I buy them because i want to play them and have fun. The only thing that might have any type of resell value is my limited release amp (92/200) but still that is for me not to sell. When i die, it will be someone elses problem what they are worth.
I’ve heard that you should expect to get 70-80% of what you paid for a used guitar. Condition is of course considered but generally speaking that’s a good place to start
Very simple away around it
Let's say the avg price of what you want to sell is 2000 online reverb eBay etc
I'll go out at 1600 on Craigslist local delivery cash green money no taxes no fees no shipping
Perfectly timed video and so very true. I never thought guitars would be one of the initial markets of where this would take place but every market that was thumped by pandemic is right with or just behind. Worldwide this stagflation is going to get worse,
thumped by the government enforced lockdowns*
Dude, I will literally watch yalls content and turn my Magnatone Super 15 mini stack on and just bask in the beauty. Looking at our guitars and amps is just part of it
The same thing is happening in the watch market and with graphics cards too. Maybe inflation is chilling out. I hope cars are next!
The automotive industry still hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic related supply chain issues.
Normally, in a time like now with extremely high gas prices a person would be able to get great deals on trucks, SUVs, and other lower gas mileage vehicles. Right now there is so little inventory of anything new vehicles that dealers are still selling at list price or higher.
I need to move out of CA. my car is premium only and I thought I was getting a deal last week when I got gas. $5.68
Stagflation sounds like a new Fender Parallel Universe guitar LOL
What's with the audio I thought I was crazy. Some 60 cycle hum or something
I hear what you're saying, but does Casino guitars sell many used guitars for less than they paid for them?
True.
Thanks like saying you should be able to sell your toilet paper for what Walmart does. They are in the business is selling product.
Given that the store exists, no.
Losing money on every sale is only viable if your business is a front.
What percentage of guitars sold do you think should/would increase in value? Yeah, we'd all like to think we're smart buyers and will only buy guitars that appreciate in value but... is it reasonable to think of guitars in general as appreciating assets?
As for shops selling used guitars... if the used market drops out, I think we'll see shops backing out of it asa well.
@@zbqb84a it depends.
I think that most guitars, at the end of the day, can only, at best, expect to hold their value.
I have a 1998 Les Paul Standard in Excellent condition. I bought it secondhand in 2005 for about $1200.
Per Bureau of Labor Statistics, that's about $1800 today.
Per Reverb price history, presently, I theoretically could expect to sell for about $2100. Sounds great. Except...
Reverb will take about $150 in fees. And the taxes are another $90 assuming I can prove a $1200 basis in the guitar.
So, on my best day, the Les Paul Standard held its value.
Investment assumes a desire to turn a profit. Guitars are a terrible investment. Basically, I would have gotten the same result if I had put the $1200 in a savings account with 2% interest.
If you want your guitar to increase in value, first establish yourself as a famous guitarist. Otherwise, don't expect any gains.
Are the guitars in the background picked out for the background? I would take of them lol
yep ... I'm 61 and I can vouch for what Wade is saying ... he is 100% correct. Its all because nobody wants to rock the boat. We could probably do something about it if everyone was on board but we are just too lazy to stand up and fight. Well I am anyway ... I shouldn't speak for everyone I guess : )
@nd Great Depression... Here we come.
ESTEBAN for liiiiiiiife. Good vid guys. I don’t buy guitars to sell them either (because sickness lol). But it is nice knowing they carry more than sentimental alone. Agree, let’s hope this thing levels off because there’s so many more guitars to buy 😆
Someone should gift Baxter a hairbrush. Or a good shampoo.
Who would have ever thought that when musicians could not play for $$, the prices of guitars would go up. When musicians could go back to making money, guitar values stagnate. 😄
The shutdown, brought in a lot of new players that drove record sales . My question is , how many of those players will give up playing guitar and sell their gear? Add that to the folks who are suffering to a horrible economy and the supply glut will start moving prices back to earth. Just a guess…
Turns out elections have consequences. Well, at least no more mean tweets, right?
I've worked on quite few Marvel productions, and you'd be surprised how beautiful and massive the real sets are. Its not just all Greenscreen.
Great...so we can blame you for that shit...
I bought an Esteban a while back just to see what all the fuss and humor was about. They’re not as bad as people say. They’re pretty beautiful guitars with nice woods, details, and finish, but somewhat of a fingerbleeder neck, especially when you go up. They spent their money in production on the looks, lol. The commercials are pretty funny though, right up there with Ginsu Knives and the Sham-Wow
No beard Friday sucks.
Yeah, and he's lost weight too...
Sunday to me people are starting to sell their COVID purchases.. and the prices aren't bad.. ✌️.
Second-hand-Lockdown dogs are also on sale right now!
Johnny Depp's beating his guitar in the corner
Liberals, Biden, thank you
I've been in a hurry to sell or trade in the past. I miss so much.
Now, better off dead.
I'll be gone before anything goes.
Deflation is coming. There will be massive discounts from this recession we are currently in.
Is that real hair on that dude? Lol.
Baxter lol, Stephen Segal...
Ebbs and flows and so it goes
On a low income credit for much anymore. Some of us older folks are getting kind of worried.
I bought an FA-15 in red last year before prices went up for $169 for someone who 'wanted to learn'. Person took it out of the original box like twice. Gave it back to me a month ago. Can I find a buyer? NOPE. None of the stores want a 3/4 scale acoustic that's not worth at least $500. LOL. I said screw it. Treated the fretboard & waxed the body. Figure I'm going to donate it to a school eventually because FB Marketplace is trash.... just saying. I'd take a Ben, but nope... not even an offer.
If you ask Steven Segal he would probably tell you that he is Esteban..... And it's a CIA undercover thing. :D
Stagflation requires, along with high inflation and slow growth, high unemployment. In America right now there is something closer to a labor shortage, not high unemployment. So no, we do not have stagflation in our economy. What you describe in the guitar market right now is merely an impending price correction, to be expected after a period of buyer over exuberance, caused by extraordinary external circumstances on multiple fronts. If the higher prices hold it will be a reflection of the popularity of the guitar as an instrument, especially with young musicians, who we are told are finding the tactile and harmonic qualities of a guitar more interesting again than a digital interface surface. In which case Amen to that.
Toupee guy or wig guy?
Can u guys do an episode where Sean takes Baxter to his barber?
That movie would be Desperado
I got an Esteban Acoustic with a case and and amp for $10 at a garage sale and still feel like I over paid. Super pretty but plays like super trash.
So other than reverb where are a couple of other places to look online to just compare prices I usually look at eBay I used to go to Craigslist but I don't anymore any other places I could go to just gauge on roughly how much something would cost or how much I should be paying for a piece of gear that I may be interested in
Glad I got in right before things started going haywire on my Les Paul Custom. Looking for a cs strat and struggling with those prices. They are all over the place right now
I know I have already left one comment but I had to leave another one frankly I think Gibson's are way too much they are nice but way too expensive
I really would love to see you guys react to the old Esteban infomercial.
Ha ha, I see people asking near new prices for used gear. It just sits there. Why? Because most guitarists already have a used guitar.
It's hilarious you moaning about gas prices, I paid just under $10 last night
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha love stagflation
Ah, the ridiculous prices of Ebay Land Rovers at the moment!
I have an Esteban guitar. I'm willing to trade for a 👕 t-shirt from Casino Guitar
Guitar stores are already offering pre-pandemic prices for used guitars. In other words, ripping us off again.
I played at least 20 fender basses until I bought my new one in 1970.
Now that I think about it, I've never seen Esteban and Steven Segal in the same place at the same time.
So I was a bit impulsive and bought a few guitars over the last 2 years at the higher prices, I like them a lot and was gonna play them for a while before moving some on and replacing with something else. But if used prices will only continue to drop, and drop a lot, should I rush to sell some of my guitars now to minimize the loss I’ll take in price?
@@HK-21 Thanks so much for etching that out. I’m quite a novice in the world of guitar dealing. Will put them up for sale locally just in case anyone buys, but continue to play them for as long as I enjoy them. Thankfully I don’t need the cash or money from selling them unless I need to fund other gear so I can wait as long as I don’t look to buy anything else for a while which I’m fine doing. A bonus to all these crazy prices and tough market it’s made me appreciate playing and using what I already have and thinking twice before buying or selling any more gear.
Considering Seagals hair and gotee are fake that could be true
I know what it is. You guys are partnering with Rally
My dad gave me his Esteban guitar and amp. But unfortunately the amp does not work :/ I think it might be the soldering on the speaker tho so probably pretty fixable.
Much better than the Fender acoustics
What a wonderful Dad....
My Dad kept his wrapped in plastic and left it to my sister...
Baxter you spoofing c u next Tuesday. You know you buy for investment.
I enjoyed buying something different to try it out and, if not what I wanted sell it off. That's stopped now for about a year or so. Now I'm just enjoying what I have (still too many - lol) and just keeping up by watching channels like these and following the trade. Pricing now makes no sense, it's understandable, but since they most likely won't go down by much if at all, I'm priced out of the market and am just very happy with the collection that I have.
Play what you have and enjoy it. I would venture to say most viewers on the web site already have multiple guitars.if I decide I want another guitar, I’ll wait till the 8million new players that bought one last year, realize the don’t really want to put time in learning and start to sell.
Love the video , I was thinking a guitar rents for about $5 a week .you sell it after say three years at same money you gave. How much money did you make ?
After repairs, probably not a lot.
Nice to see the market correcting itself.
Everyone knows Estabon is Zorro 🤪
Esteban rules!
Still got my Estaban acoustic, that thing went up and down the east coast with me and made lotsa music in different places
They don't make 'em like that anymore!
It's the Corinthian leather of guitars!