Daddy's Junky Music - Big thumbs up!

[billoetjen]

People ime only ever speak up when something negative happens. We neglect to broadcast the good stuff.
So, I am pleased to share this experience with Daddy's. I've been aching for some vintage 4 string shortscale, hollowbody vibe. I saw an early 70's bass fitting this exact description on the Daddy's Junky website. The item's picture looked great; pretty much stock components except for the bridge (as expected, this particular bridge earned a rep for failing - it is after all, it is >35 years old). It was located in Rhode Island. DJM has a location right near my home, so I called and they promised to ship it to that store for me so I could try it out. Two weeks later, they told me it was here and I almost couldn't contain my excitement. I checked it out, brought a friend, checked it out and played it for over an hour. We totally dug the sound. I was tempted to look around the room to see if Sir Paul was there....
Took it home and got 3/4 of the way into replacing the flatwound strings of unknown age and origin with some recently retired D'Ad flats.
That's when it became obvious that my excitement was unjustified. this axe was not going to work - at least reliably and under the variety of conditions that I needed it to. Not for the kind of money that I put across for it. A third of the price would have been right, given the amount that I'd have to invest in giving it another ten years. Unfortunately, accomplishing that task would also mean leaving it very un-stock. So, for my purposes, the wrong bass.
BUT, Daddy's left me an out: their 15 day refund guarantee! They are awesome! Now I don't have to stew about packing it up or paying to ship back.
Am I bummed that the much-anticipated bass didn't work out? Yeah, but not NEARLY as much as if I felt "stuck" with it.

Long story; short lesson:

Moral for buyer - make sure you have a 100% guarantee and roll up your sleeves and dive into your new purchase right away;

Moral for retailer - a guarantee like that guarantee's permanent loyalty from customers.

Now, does anyone have a vintage, shortscale, hollowbody 4-banger out there?

[insomniac2295]

daddys is sweet. i've nothing but great experience with them.

[laboitenoire]

I've bought tons of gear from Daddys. They actually cut me some slack on trying to return an Alesis mixer I bought that refused to work on my computer even though it was probably after the 30 day return period.

[lowendblues]

I've never bought anything from Daddy's.

But I've been playing bass since about '77, and I've been hearing about Daddy's Junky Music shop since then.

Nothing but good reviews, and if their still around, then damn!, that ought to count for something.

[timmbass]

I bought a used Ibanez 335 style guitar from them. Their ad said that an original case was included. The guitar showed up without a case, and a letter that they could not find the original case, and had ordered a brand new one from Ibanez and would ship it to me as soon as they got it. A brand new case showed up a few weeks later. Pretty good customer service from my experience.

[Diogenes]

I used to live a block away from the Daddy's on Mass Ave across from the Christian Science Center in Boston back in the early 80's. They were a rockin' place then and I'm glad they're still around.

[Surprise Panda!]

Isn't someone on here work/own Daddy's?

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

I've been shopping at Daddy's since high school, when they used to put out a newspaper-sized monthly catalog of used gear, and I've bought God knows how much from them since then. It's probably been four or five years since I've bought a big-ticket item from them. I just haven't found anything I like in one of their stores for a while.
But, that said, Daddy's and my favorite car parts store have something in common: if it doesn't work for you, you can bring it back, no questions asked.
I still wish I'd snagged the Alembic Series 2 Exploiter they had in the early 90s.