Increasing prices of new gear doesn’t necessarily increase the value of used gear. If you’re selling a piece of gear that's a dime a dozen. For example a Fender or a musicman I’ve watched the prices for new ones double over the years, the used value has gone up some but no where close to same rate as the new prices. Because of this those particular basses went from being products we used to buy new knowing the resale value would be good to now being basses that much like many others you’ll be lucky to sell it for half of what you paid new. It’s definitely not an issue with rare high demand gear though. Take dingwall production basses for example. I saw one sell the other day for 90% of what I paid for mine new and I have a 2018 so I’m not talking old prices. But they are much harder to come by than say a fender and buying new often means waiting several months to get it then. I had to wait two months to recieve mine because I wanted a finish no one had in stock at the time. And that was actually quicker than normal because the dealer I bought it from actual had that finish on order for a couple months before I ever contacted them. I can buy Mexican fenders used in the $300-$400 range all day long, I can find American made fenders and Musicmans for sale used for under a grand despite their ever increasing new prices. Part of it with those basses is they’ve saturated the market over several decades. I also think theirs a lot of sellers out their that are posting stuff at unreasonable prices because they saw another bass for sale at a certain price. Just because someone lists a used bass at a certain price doesn’t mean it will sell for that. There are a lot of people who post gear for sale that don’t really want to sell it so they list it for a ridiculous price to maybe get their spouse off their back, “ honey I’m trying to sell one” or they aren’t in a rush to sell and are wishful thinkers lol. I typically like to use Ebay to keep an eye on used value. You can see what a particular model bass has recently been selling for. Though I do recommend when looking at that to investigate a little further and make sure an item didn’t sell below the normal market value because it was damaged or something. I consider what they’ve actually been selling for at the condition they are in And make the decision to sell or hold on to it and I really don’t have this problem with tons of lowball offers. Every once in a while I might get a message from a wishful thinking buyer who can’t afford the item but I’ll say “Sorry, im not willing to go less than yada yada” and they always seem to understand.
