I will likely be buying a bass from a family member in financial need. I want to pay a fair price but don't know what fair market value for this used bass would be. Is it OK to ask for input on TB?
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Price checks on a bass?
- Thread starter darwin-bass
- Start date
My understanding is that you can definitely do this since you are a supporting member of TB.
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Any member (supporting or not) can ask for value of a bass they are looking to buy.
The rule was designed to non-supporting members that would use that question to skirt around the classifieds rules. (eg: “I have this bass that I am thinking about selling, any idea what it’s worth?”).
The rule was designed to non-supporting members that would use that question to skirt around the classifieds rules. (eg: “I have this bass that I am thinking about selling, any idea what it’s worth?”).
My guess is that any TB member is probably going to tell you to look at listings on Ebay and Reverb that have sold, since that's a pretty good indicator of the current market value of an instrument. Those services both take a cut (I think 13%) and the seller often pays for shipping, so you could subtract those things from the price to figure out wha the seller actually got for the sale. But I suppose if you want to help your relative, you could imagine that if they sold the bass locally, they wouldn't have to pay a feee or shipping.
Is it bigger than a bread basket?What's the bass? (The suspense is killing me)
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Right, and if anybody here knows the answer, it's probably because that's exactly what they did.
You could take it to GC and see what they offer for it, then add 50% more.
I tried to sell an Epifani cab to GC once. They used my own Reverb ad to offer me a crappy price. Screwed myself, and I didn’t even get a dinner out of it.
That's too sad. I feel guilty or lazy when I sell to GC because of the discounting, but then, it's a lot easier than selling it on your own. 40% easier? Well, maybe, but that assume my own time is worth something....
I know this doesn’t directly answer the question but this is my advice :Get the price from your family member and then decide if you have the money to help him out or not.
If this is not a matter of helping out then I would suggest to check guitar center used and see what bass you can get in the same price range. Most stuff there is priced to actually sell.
The family situation is deep and serious. In this case, I'm being called in to help convert the music gear (plus other stuff) to cash so I'm the price expert, sales agent, and in this case, customer.
