Bass brands with bad resell value

[tradernick]

Barely any brand has a re-sale value over 60%. Used guitars, on the other hand, sell again for pretty much what you paid for them, provided you looked them up on ebay first.

Correct. Around here, there are a few exceptions. Sadowsky seems to hold north of 60% of retail on a good day. Having said that...

some of them will fare worse (virtually any... 'boutique' bass).

I think Sadowsky may have moved up from strictly boutique status. But guess what? I've had a thought in my mind lately about moving my main player of 4 years, an NYC Will Lee 4. I'm really getting into my Precision. I'm old, so a few hundred bucks don't matter as much. I thought I'd call the local shops to see about consigning it before I listed it here, save the hassle of shipping/Payal fees. Guess what? They're basically not interested in offering me anything reasonable because they say a bass like this is hard to move.

So maybe the vaunted Sadowsky value retention is limited to marketplaces like ours here. I can hardly find an NYC Will Lee 4 For Sale thread that lasts more than a week when the bass is properly priced.

 

[bassballs27]

Alembic have fairly bad resale in comparison to their selling price for an Uber high end brand. Warrior is another.

Many brands made overseas have not so great resale.

 

[DJ Bebop]

I try to buy and use things that I don't have to worry about resale...

 

[somebrains]

Always buy used. Nothing has resale value like a bar of gold.

 

[obimark]

Kiesel / Carvin for sure--- and the more bells and whistles/exotic you make it the bigger the beating you will take if you sell...

 

[Charlzm]

In the long run I would like to know what brands out there that have just terrible resell value whether it be a good brand or not...

All?

 

[somebrains]

I could say the same thing about Warwick, or doing a Warmoth build from all new parts.

 

[Maiden Bass]

It sure ain't Zon, and it sure ain't Skjold!!!

Buy one of those basses and if you ever decide to sell it you will have people fighting over it.

 

[somebrains]

If I'd known the neckthu Modulus would achieve Porsche 959 hype I would have bought one a long time ago.

Nothing else really gets close to that pre-CBS Fender "portfolio asset" thing.

 

[bassbully]

Carvin...ouch!

 

[xnewyorka]

It sure ain't Zon, and it sure ain't Skjold!!!

Buy one of those basses and if you ever decide to sell it you will have people fighting over it.

Also Wal, Fodera, MTD, Dingwall, and LeFay.

Basses that are awesome and seem to sell for much less than what I think they should include Roscoe and Brubaker on the higher end, and G&L slightly lower on the luxury spectrum.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

We live in an era where we buy instruments based on their re-sale value. I find this to be very silly.

 

[Acoop]

First, you buy an instrument you want to play because it'll improve your playing. ... Second, if you decide to resell it you'll get your money back. ... I own 10-electric basses, 9 are Fender and one is a Musicman. ... Third, I bought them because I enjoy playing them. ... Forth, I could resell all of them for more than I paid for them.

 

[Bassdokes]

Keep in mind that guitars are iconography for Baby-Boomers and Gen-Xers - the subsequent generations started caring less and less about them as time moved on....They were a HUGE part of culture between the 60s and 90s - not so much today as they slide into niche market instead of mainstream....My prediction: Within twenty years, Baby Boomers will all be senior elderly-- most of their collections will be gone on to their children or grandkids (who dont care about guitars) and the market will be flooded with vintage and boutique instruments fetching prices nowhere near what they were initially appraised at.....so goes the Real Estate Market

That is interesting discussion. I hope to someday benefit from this theory. I wonder if over time and general population increase, and the explosion of the internet sales market that now includes most of the world, I would think there will be an increase of the potential consumers of these iconic instruments. I would be surprised if the prices soften significantly over time.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

We live in an era where we buy instruments based on their re-sale value. I find this to be very silly.

Not at all. It’s a widely touted metric for car sales, for example. Would you buy a car that you know will be worth considerably less than a similar car? Unlikely. Not everyone wants to keep their instruments for life.

 

[pingvuiini]

Anything left handed.

 

[Leo Thunder]

Correct. Around here, there are a few exceptions. Sadowsky seems to hold north of 60% of retail on a good day. Having said that...

"Seems to" tends to be a false friend. I made an analysis of 120 recent sales of Harley Benton guitars on German ebay, because they "seemed" to re-sell better due to the ridiculous prices. That turned out to be confirmed in many cases but the average re-sale value to the seller, after deduction of fees, was 61% of the new price while the average price paid, after addition of shipping, was 74%. I think that 74% is pretty high. I never pay that much for my guitars, it's actually been an average of 58% with shipping.
Searching for sold items on ebay is an easy way of evaluating market value.

 

[Real Soon]

Looks like a pretty sweet bass to me. Were I in the market for (read: had I any money for) an active 4, I'd wanna take it for a test drive. Since it's active and looks like it's got a 3-band EQ, you ought to be able to pull off a good variety of tones, from FISTS OF FURY punch to "That's not a P. ...is it??" warmth. It's a lotta bass.

And IMHO, its resale value issue is all the more reason to hang on to it. If you're not gonna get a lot of money out of it by selling, then get your money's worth out of it playing it. Bang it up. Slap it around. Get your chops up on it. Live with it. Snuggle with it. Open it up. Experiment on it. Finally, make a well-shot video setting it on fire and sending it off to contribute slightly to global warming.

 

[Neal Brakey]

Looks like a pretty sweet bass to me. Were I in the market for (read: had I any money for) an active 4, I'd wanna take it for a test drive. Since it's active and looks like it's got a 3-band EQ, you ought to be able to pull off a good variety of tones, from FISTS OF FURY punch to "That's not a P. ...is it??" warmth. It's a lotta bass.

And IMHO, its resale value issue is all the more reason to hang on to it. If you're not gonna get a lot of money out of it by selling, then get your money's worth out of it playing it. Bang it up. Slap it around. Get your chops up on it. Live with it. Snuggle with it. Open it up. Experiment on it. Finally, make a well-shot video setting it on fire and sending it off to contribute slightly to global warming.

I think I'd like to do all that lol.
It makes sense to keep it over the money I would have gotten anyways.

 

[928cat]

I want to learn, but I wanna find the right one for me first, and maybe that's where I'm going wrong sadly.
At the end of the day I can't tell what I want.
I just know in my heart I wanna play bass, I'm just letting it slip away by trying to find the one

With all due respect, you don't want to learn to play. Sell them all.