Gibson Resale Value

[Plank_Spanker]

OK...................time to honest...........................

Gibsons are one of the resale and collector kings. How many of us here consider that resale value when you look to buy one? How many of us here buy one to play the hell out of it and keep?

I'm of the latter. I buy guitars to play, and play hard. I can count on one hand the number of guitars that I've resold over thirty-odd years of playing. I've never considered resale value on a guitar purchase - if the axe is good, the deal is real. I'm in a working band, and my guitars are tools, albeit well cared for tools.


Does the resale value factor into your purchase choices? Or do you just buy a guitar that you know will deliver the goods for quite a while?

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

The quick answer ..ALWAYS , I've been playin a long time too and have gone through countless guitars and amps . when i buy now i NEVER buy new , i buy used and always look for the deal that will afford me the opportunity to at least get my money back , tools yes but my tools have to finance themselves at some point , when it comes to gear i refuse to buy junk just to satisfy gas , so i always have an eye to nabbing a great deal on a proven piece . just my 2 cents , but a great topic ...oh yeah belated welcome to the forum Plank Spanker.........6S9L

[Plank_Spanker]

Thanks for the welcome, 6S9L! This is a really cool board!

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

Great crowd here ... cheers

[Tone2TheBone]

I've sold 2 SGs and one Deluxe Les Paul (traded that one actually for a Marshall cabinet). Bought them all used and sold them for the same price I got them for. In hindsight I should have kept them all but at least I got back what I put into them. I'm down to only one Les Paul Studio but she's staying with me.

[aeolian]

I consider resale to the extent that if I don't like a guitar I want to be able to recoup close to what I put into it. That usually means looking at used instruments.

I had a Gibson Les Paul Custom that I bought new in 1979. It played great and sounded OK, but compared to my Yamaha SG it is definitely no match. I kept it until 2005 and finally decided there is no reason to keep it. I sold it for almost 3 times the dollar amount it cost me in 1979.

I used a third of the proceeds to pick up this used Heritage guitar.

aeolian

http://home.comcast.net/~kitn13/h6.jpg

[jpfeifer]

Yes, I'm the same way. When I buy a guitar I look for tone, playability, and overall quality. Resale value is kind of last on the list.

But, I also think that it is smart to buy name brands when you can in case you ever need to unload it sometime later. I've had the misfortune of trying to sell guitars that I had when I was younger, such as Ibanez, that were nice guitars but had almost no resale value.

But I tend to hang on to my guitars now versus when I was younger and didn't have any cash to spend. I'm also a little more pickier when I buy guitars now so I try not to buy guitars that I know I will not use very much.

With reguard to resale value I remember buying a used Rivera amp several years ago. I used it for several years until I started having tube reliability issues so often that I swiched to modeling amps. When I sold the Rivera I was able to get almost every penny that I paid for it used several years earlier. This is when I realized how good it is when you have to sell a piece of name-brand equipment. It's so much easier to get your money back out of it.

-- Jim

[marnold***]

As of this point, I haven't been able to afford a guitar that was worth worrying about resale value.