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So what do you do with basses you can't sell
- Thread starter Swipter
- Start date
It's not just basses, it's seemingly every material possession human beings can own! Clothing is especially egregious.
I leave it posted, small price drops, update trades as things hit the GAS list. Keep up in maintenance so if someone does reply its ready to go. I have noticed a dip in used prices on some things. I think the main issue is used prices of older basses are now reflecting the price hikes of the last few years and people are just sitting and waiting for prices to drop.
I notice this often as well. Maybe a side-effect of industrial mass production?
Even though craftwork is still part of the process, the screws, fret wire, paint, electrical components, etc. are all mass produced, which enables profit margins in more steps of the supply chain, which supports slower response to drop in demand for the finished goods.
I hear you, loud and clear! Last year I sold a '65 Vox AC50 and 2x12 I'd had since c1978. Main amp for a decade and I had a lot of myself wrapped up in it, so it was easy to keep, looked great in the corner, etc. It went to another good friend and common-sewer of the stuff we love. We are both happy with that outcome as well.
Ten watt guitar amps are where it's at!
It's definitely a side-effect of industrial mass production!
Hunt down a guitar show. I walked in carrying my 67 EB-0. Sold it before I walked 10 feet inside.
Keep it until it's old enough that you can get away with labelling it "vintage", and then re-list it at at least twice the price!
On a more serious note, parting out typically works for getting rid of a cheap bass that's hard to sell.
On a more serious note, parting out typically works for getting rid of a cheap bass that's hard to sell.
While ^^^that's never my first choice, I want to strongly encourage anyone who can afford that level of generosity to seriously consider it.
During a recent downsizing purge, I realized I still had a guitar which, had it been in pristine mint condition, would have commanded serious big bucks on the vintage market. Sadly, this guitar was the polar opposite of "pristine mint condition"; it looked like someone had dragged it behind a pickup truck over a dirt road for 200 miles before soaking it in a vat of human excrement for a decade and then beating it with the Ugly Stick to get all the old feces off of it. Seriously, it was almost unplayable...it was actually painful to play.
So clearly no one was going to buy it. I conceded that it was destined for the dumpster
...but then I realized: I have an old acquaintance whose Facebook feed is filled with images of those guitars when they were new (from the 1960s). On a whim I asked him if he was interested in taking it off my hands...for free.
He not only was interested, he was gobsmacked. And, he said he had another friend who restored those same guitars as a hobby. I sent him the guitar (he paid for shipping), he sent the guitar to be restored, and ~12 months later his profile pic on Facebook shows him playing my old guitar, newly restored, and he is happier than the proverbial Pig In Poo. And he never passes up an opportunity to publicly thank me profusely.
I gotta admit, seeing how happy that guitar makes this guy feel makes me feel better than any music I ever played on that guitar in the 30+ years I owned it did!
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
Henry J's favorite stupid product. Pity. So much work went into making something so awful that only crushing them like that was the way to reduce the inventory.
Add some adjectives to the description. Ones that come to mind: Punchy, throaty, glossy, lively, dandy, zingy, handy, filthy, shiny, glitzy, tasty, sunny, jolly, etc., (use no more than three in a single sentence). That fails, lower the price. That fails, donate it and look at a tax (or moral) benefit. That's where I am with one of mine.......
Cool story. It kind of makes me feel bad about adding my fourth option.
4-burn it in your fireplace
When I got my Stingray Special my Sterling Ray4 just was not getting me excited, and the resale wasn't worth much to me so I converted it to fretless and it gets way more play now!
The key is to price stuff reasonably! I've sold a bunch of stuff on Reverb recently, and I don't think anything has ever sat for over a month. The difference in price between something that sits for a week or a year is often pretty insignificant in the scheme of things, so it's up to you how much you want it to sell.
what basses? we don't keep unsold basses here on talkbass!? right?
