I have a couple of vintage guitars I want to sell. Doing so on Craigslist means that I’d have a small audience of potential buyers and, what’s worse, I’d have to associate with other musicians.
Selling through eBay gives me a much broader audience but only for a limited time and with a fee structure that takes a lot of the joy out of it. Besides, with sniping being allowed and rampant I fear I could lose a good deal.
The guitars are collector items and old enough to be considered vintage, but nothing super rare (a 70’s Fender Jaguar and a Fender 50th Anniversary Strat in silver). I think that I might be able to interest an auction house in them and I’d like to think that if they were bid on by people specifically looking for musical instruments at an auction I might be able to secure a higher price, even with the house’s fees.
My problem is that I’m not having any luck with finding said auction house. Searches of Google for various combinations of the terms “auction,” “vintage,” “guitars,” “musical instruments,” etc. just aren’t pointing me to someplace that would do this in a professional manner. I’m in the metro-Phoenix area, but willing to ship to someplace that could get me better exposure if it would be worthwhile to do so.
In my time at SDMB, I’ve learned that there’s an incredible universe of human experience and recommendations here and–assuming I’m not violating any Board rules–I’d like to tap it.*
If the idea of trying to get these things auctioned is one I should be disabused of, please tell me about that. I’m open to other ideas too.
*If I am in violation, please, Mod, kill the post.
This is a bit roundabout, but you might try calling the American Society of Appraisers (1-800-ASA-VALU). They can put you in touch with a Phoenix area appraiser of musical instruments, who, in turn, ought to know which auction houses are the best deal for you.
I have a number of vintage guitars - I focus on acoustics at this point, but have had a 1957 Les Paul Special, a '73 Limited Edition Les Paul Black Beauty, and a few other desirable electrics.
I won’t geek out fully but here’s what you should do:
Monitor Gbase and eBay to get a feel for the value you are comfortable with - and to see if the dealers on GBase have a general asking price for the guitars you are looking to sell.
Ask yourself which way to go - you probably are not going to place your guitars with Christie’s or Sotheby’s musical instrument department (they target higher end stuff), but you get some interest from Heritage - they have gone nuts in vintage guitars recently, with auctions about 1x per quarter featuring a wide array of guitars - some VERY pricey and some very much in your range. I hear they look for a pretty sizeable slice - you’d have to check.
Bottom line -
>> craig’s list is a hassle in terms of dealing with random buyers, etc. There is some risk
>>I sold a few guitars on eBay years ago, but it seems to be more of a hassle now.
>> Selling to a dealer - you might get 60% of the retail price they would look to get when they sell it - so GBase is a gauge to get their price, then discount it to get what they’d pay.
>> Consign them at a vintage dealer - different stores have different terms; you can sell your item through them and get 70% or more of the final sale price - you need to establish how much marketing leeway the dealer has if someone comes in who is interested.
