I have an old Gibson guitar that I am looking to sell. A few people have seen it and the lowest eyeball apprasial has been “at least $1500”. What would be the best way to sell it? eBay with a starting price of $1500 and hope it is popular enough to get into a bidding war? craigslist with a price of $2750 O.B.O. and be willing to take $2250? Guitar forums that have a marketplace?
What model and year is it? Just curious. To get an idea of what the guitar will sell for on ebay, you can do a search on ebay for completed auctions. If there is a pretty consistent price range on ebay, then that will be a pretty good indicator that you will get a price in that range. I wouldn’t use craigslist for something like this, and guitar forums will not expose your item to nearly as many people as ebay will.
Agreed with **Crotalus **here - with the possible exception of craigslist - it can sometimes be a good channel if you know exactly how much you are willing to let the guitar go for.
I have a vintage Gibson acoustic and stay up on models and values - or could point you to a bit more information. Do you have a sense for what year and model and what condition it is in? You can PM me and I can do my best to point you in the right direction. I am not in the market right now, so won’t be trying to angle anything for myself 
I’d go to a guitar shop and ask for an appraisal. They should be able to come up with a retail price, and you can probably sell it for something like 20% less than that (it’s hard to get full retail when you’re not a shop that can offer a warranty and other services). If there’s a fee for the appraisal, I’d expect it to be nominal.
Some shops will take desirable guitars on consignment for 20-25% of the sale price. This can be hassle-free, but it might take quite a while for it to sell. A shop might even buy it outright, which would be a quick sale, but for a wholesale price.
In general, a lot of “how to sell it” decisions depend on whether you want to spend time to get the best price, or spend money (i.e., take less for it) to get a quick sale.
At work but looking and pointing at a website I would say an ES 175 and from the history I know, early 70’s. Condition is great. Hardly played and stays in its hard case (also Gibson).
I hope that your old Gibson doesn’t contain any rosewood or federal agents may be forced to raid your facilities.
Related story here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/08/the-gibson-guitar-saga-gets-steadily-curiouser.php
Gruhn’s Guitars publishes the ‘blue book’ of guitar values, and can be found online, or in print. It’s called Gruhn’s Guide.
They also offer appraisal services for $50, and an appraisal from them is far more likely to be accepted by most private and commercial buyers than just about anything else.
Ah - a nice old Gibson jazzbox archtop. They are well-known and in demand, so it shouldn’t take much to figure out it’s value. I would hang out on eBay and search for closed auctions for ES-175s and get a sense of its value that way.
ETA: oh, and go to Gbase and do a search on that model for that timeframe: Find Gear - All Gear | Gbase.com > Guitars Amps & More (select Advanced Search and fill in the fields accordingly)
$1,500 doesn’t sound too far off, but jazz archtops are NOT my area of expertise (darn it!). Once you have a mental price point, then the approach is up to you.
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if you want to move it fast, price it at your point, declare it FIRM and put it out on craiglist and/or eBay. It will either move or it won’t.
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if you want to see what you can get, bump up the price, don’t include any language indicating how firm it is and have fun haggling. I don’t haggle via craigslist so have no clue what the “actual interest vs. looky-loos” ratios are.
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or you can list it on eBay with an entry price higher than your minimum and see if you get any takers. or, if there are no takers, whether you get folks pinging you with emails with best offers…
Bottom line there are a lot of ways to go based on your need to move the guitar and your willingness to engage potential buyers and inquirers…
best of luck!
Good advice above. If you go eBay I would suggest a starting price or reserve that is really, truly your bottom-line price. Which you don’t know quite yet.
I have a Hofner archtop and have looked at and played ES-175’s but am not terribly knowledgeable about pricing vintage instruments. (I do have a mid-70s ES-335 that I will never sell for any price.) I would think that $1500 sounds low for that guitar in “hardly played” condition.
I will also add: If you list it on eBay please post a link here. I might be interested if I get a GAS attack 
I have a Greenwood and Hembree price guide that indicates your estimate of the value may be low. The ES-175 was made from 1949 to 1971. The 1970 and 1971 versions are priced at $2,500 to $3,000 for guitars in excellent condition. There are a few other guitars that have ES-175 in their model name. The ES-175 CC was made in 1979 only and has a price range of $3,000 to $3,300. The ES-175 D was made from 1951 to the present. Those from the 1970s range from $2,800 to $3,300.
There is a ES-175 Steve Howe that was made 2001 to the present, which has a range of $2,000 to $2,200. Finally, the ES-175 T was made from 1976 to 1980 and has a range of $2,800 to $3,000.
These are price guide prices. ebay history will give you a better idea of real prices, but you will need to know exactly what model and year you have. If you need help nailing down the year, I have a guide that will give me the year if you give me the serial number.
The closest recently completed auction I found on ebay is this 1979 model. It sold for $1,999.99. The same guitar from the same seller failed to sell a week before due to the reserve price not having been met. My price guide indicates that the 79s are worth a couple hundred less than 70 to 72s.
I don’t think the book you linked to has prices in it. It is a field guide to identifying guitars and verifying the originality of parts. The best price guide I have seen is the one I mentioned above, Greenwood and Hembree’s Vintage Guitar Price Guide.
Found the info: 1978 ES 175CC. Right now the people on eBay (FWIW) want about $3600 although those are all buy it now prices and seem inflated.
Buyers will want to know if the neck is straight. It can warp sitting in the case.
I’ve see listings on ebay with a ruler or other item to show the neck is straight in a photo. Sometimes the seller says the neck is straight in the listing.
I second going to a music store. I had a few years ago my teenage-years SG 1974 Special – nothing that special, but still a pretty nice rig for me at the time – and wanted the cash since I was done trying to play jazz on it. It had a neck repair (some asshole [not me]) sat on it or some shit when I was lending it to a friend.
Craigslist people, when I asked 800 OBO, had a shit fit that I was asking too high. A local shop took it for 700, so IME Craigslist people, especially with all kinds of musical instruments, don’t usually know WTH they’re talking about and can get nasty. That said, I have sold a number of things on CL, but these were known quantities (Voce MIDI drawbars, a vintage drum machine) and not specialized guitar equipment where fit and finish is arguably much more important.
I’d sell things on a dedicated forum with PROs on it, not a bunch of kids, and have bought a few boards that way – usually you have to be an established member to get any cred though. (And don’t bother looking for me, snoopers – I use a different handle when I post tracks and share my real name :))
If you sell on ebay you will probably have to ship it. This is where the nightmare sometimes starts. Consider having it professionally packed at a music store or by UPS/FedEx store. Gibson headstocks are fragile and many bad things can happen in transit. Insure it fully. Dealing with damaged shipments with the carrier can be a real headache, I’ve been told.
Generous insurance and bullet proof packaging will be time and money well spent.
Also, keep in mind that, in addition to the placement charges of a few bucks, eBay now charges about 9% of the final sales price and Paypal takes another 3% or so. So at best you will net about 12% less than the final price.
I just sold a few items on eBay and ended up with far less than I expected.
My big mistake was not accurately estimating the handling and shipping costs. Make sure you know exactly what it will cost to pack up the guitar for shipping and put that, or a little more, as the handling fee. Also, get the actual package’s weight and dimensions right, so that eBay’s shipping calculator will be accurate.
One package I shipped was in a box that was nominally 32x24x24, which gave a price of $80 by UPS Ground. But the actual package was about 1/2" to 1" larger in every dimension, just enough to cross over UPS’s large package limit, which made the actual charge $156. :eek: (For various reasons, I couldn’t go back to the buyer and get the difference; I just had to eat it.)
I saw that. Over 10% in fees. WOW!!! Looks like CL or a music store may be worth it.
Well, as someone else above said, you’ll reach a lot more people on eBay, and could get a much higher price in the end if several interested parties start seriously bidding. Just keep all your costs in mind.