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G&L Club Part 7

Sweetwater never does sales of their own. Every discount they give is just passing along a manufacturer's discount. That is what my sales rep told to me a few years back. Since then Chuck Surrack has stepped down as company president, so maybe new policies are filtering in. But I have to ask, is G&L suddenly giving out discounts or is Sweetwater discontinuing G&L and getting rid of their inventory? Or is it choice "C", whatever that is.
 
Sweetwater never does sales of their own. Every discount they give is just passing along a manufacturer's discount. That is what my sales rep told to me a few years back. Since then Chuck Surrack has stepped down as company president, so maybe new policies are filtering in. But I have to ask, is G&L suddenly giving out discounts or is Sweetwater discontinuing G&L and getting rid of their inventory? Or is it choice "C", whatever that is.

No proof, but I assume they are using their ability to move volume to help G&L clear some of them out.

I have had sales reps give me discounts that were not advertised. Typically happened when buying in store (Sweetwater retail store is a few hours from me). I assume they do this in store since they save on shipping (so they kept some savings and passed some along). Do not recall if they ever gave me a discount on an order I called my rep about. Calling this out to comment that they can discount. No idea what the official policy is though (maybe only retail store?).
 
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I am supposed to get my replacement Tribute Kiloton today. The one I originally purchased developed a crack in the body (apparently, based on the length and orientation - although IMHO there is a low percentage chance that the crack is only in the finish) not long after I got it. The dealer let me know that the replacement has a minor finish blemish. I hate to wait a number of months again to get another bass. Will take my original back and look at the blemish on the replacement today. The dealer and G&L have been great about addressing these issues - as they said that they can get a third bass if I am not happy with the small blemish. I'd like to get some playing time on the bass - and am thinking that since it's not a functional issue I may live with the slight blemish rather than wait some months again. It probably won't matter much to me - my only concern is that if it's a pretty obvious blemish it might reduce resale value if I ever want to selll it.
 
It probably won't matter much to me - my only concern is that if it's a pretty obvious blemish it might reduce resale value if I ever want to selll it.

See what the blemish is then make your call. Basing this on my experience buying from G&L closeout store.

First was a Tribute Kiloton B-Stock due to blemish. Took me a long time to figure out what the blemish was. It is an extremely small indentation in the fretboard that has no impact on playability. Doubt it impacts resale much either.

Second was a Tribute L2500 Garage Sale due to blemish. There is a very small clear coat defect on it. I have not tried yet, but I expect I could polish most of it out if I tried.

If you end up keeping a bass with a blem, I would not pay full price for it (noting I have no idea what you initially paid, so you can make that determination).
 
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I am supposed to get my replacement Tribute Kiloton today. The one I originally purchased developed a crack in the body (apparently, based on the length and orientation - although IMHO there is a low percentage chance that the crack is only in the finish) not long after I got it. The dealer let me know that the replacement has a minor finish blemish. I hate to wait a number of months again to get another bass. Will take my original back and look at the blemish on the replacement today. The dealer and G&L have been great about addressing these issues - as they said that they can get a third bass if I am not happy with the small blemish. I'd like to get some playing time on the bass - and am thinking that since it's not a functional issue I may live with the slight blemish rather than wait some months again. It probably won't matter much to me - my only concern is that if it's a pretty obvious blemish it might reduce resale value if I ever want to selll it.
I can't believe that any company would ask a customer to accept a new product that has a blemish of any kind without offering the customer a significant discount. I'm like you in that small blemishes don't bother me. If I have an instrument that is perfect, I'll end up putting blemishes on it no matter how hard I try to avoid that. But those are my blemishes, and I'm not turning around after I put a blemish on one of mine and trying to sell it as new for the new price. Plus, I'm not blackmailing my customer by telling them if they don't take the blemished one for my price, they might have to wait months to get another one. I'd probably take the bass and shut up and end up perfectly happy with it. But accepting "good enough" instead of "good" just doesn't seem right.
 
The imperfection was so minimal that I probably might not have noticed it if the dealer hadn't pointed it out. They didn't necessarily have to make me aware of it - but they did. Not necessarily blackmail - just the reality of how long it took to get this replacement and with this one coming from Indonesia, getting processed in California, shipped to my dealer, checked out by them, etc. there is quite a lot of waiting in the process. I took the replacement that they had for the one that had what was apparently a crack where different sections of wood for the body were glued together.

I can certainly see the reason some folks would wait for a third bass - but the imperfection on the 2nd bass was very minor and I was ready to play rather than wait. The dealer didn't really push me to take the bass - they mentioned that they would be happy to get another from G&L if that's what I wanted to do.

Played my 25+ year old Yamaha RBX350 while waiting for this one and, being a relatively inexperienced bassist, it served the purpose of a good bass to use to keep working to improve my skills.
 
G&L seems kinda unpredictable these last few years, including the way they sell their clearance/blem Tribute stuff. Twice I bought "blem" Tribute Fallouts there. Both were listed as blems, including pics of the actual blems (cracks, paint chips, etc), and the weights of each bass. Got great deals, but they didn't ship either of the basses that I thought I was buying. Instead, in each case they sent me flawless basses (yay!). The first one unexpetedly came in a G&L gig bag, gratis (say what?).

One of them did have a slightly wonky neck with not much truss travel left, but that issue was not disclosed. No prob though, they paid return shipping on the dud and sent me another bass with a perfect neck. Round trip was ~ a week. Amazing!

Then I read stories on TB where buyers are still having myriad issues. It's a head scratcher what must be going on over there.

G&L 'grab bag', anyone? :woot:
 
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G&L seems kinda unpredictable these last few years, including with how they sell their clearance/blem Tribute stuff. Twice I bought "blem" Tribute Fallouts there. Both were listed as blems, including pics of the actual blems (cracks, paint chips, etc), and the weights of each bass. Got great deals, but they didn't ship either of the basses that I thought I was buying. Instead, in each case they sent me flawless basses (yay!). The first one unexpetedly came in a G&L gig bag, gratis (say what?).

One of them did have a slightly wonky neck with not much truss travel left, but that issue was not disclosed. No prob though, they paid return shipping on the dud and sent me another bass with a perfect neck. Round trip was ~ a week. Amazing!

Then I read stories on TB where buyers are still having myriad issues. It's a head scratcher what must be going on over there.

G&L 'grab bag', anyone? :woot:
Speaking of these instances, whatever happened to that guy they hired a few months ago who was supposed to straighten things out and get stuff organized and efficient?