Hey all. I've just acquired a Darkglass Microtubes 900 V1 for the ludicrously low price of $130 out the door at a local pawn shop. I brought it home to test out and it fires up and puts out signal. The switches and knobs all work, the fan works, all the lights work... Seems to be in fine working condition. Cosmetically it's a 7/10. It is missing the footswitch. For this price I keep expecting something to be horribly wrong with it. Are there any issues common to these amps that I should be on the lookout for? Thanks!
Sounds like you went into a pawn shop that doesn't know the internet exists. You don't find deals like that very often these days.
Ha, funny thing is, whenever I try to haggle with them over anything they pull up Ebay completed listings immediately. In this case I just kept my mouth shut and walked out of there as fast as I could!
I bought a used gk700rb-ii for under 200 at Long and mcquade once, but for new tech stuff that seems really low. In Ontario at least there is a holding period at pawnshops and even music stores on used gear to try and discourage stolen gear.
That's the case here in California too. Used to be 30 days but it recently went down to 7. In any case, I seem to recall the amp having been there for a few months but I wasn't in the market for another amp, and I just assumed they did their homework since I know them to be usually well informed... It was kept on a shelf behind the counter with something on top of the price tag and I didn't bother to ask about it until now. So I don't think they were knowingly trying to rush out a stolen piece, but there's no way to know for sure. I don't think I can escape feeling a few kinds of guilty having this though.
I had a bass stolen years ago. The cop came to fill out a report. As he was getting in his car he stopped. He turned to me and said "Your bass will be in a pawnshop in Jacksonville North Carolina before dawn tomorrow. By Tuesday it will be in another pawnshop in Jacksonville Florida. They have a network of trucks going up and down I-95. That bass is gone. Wish I had better news."
For $130, something must be wrong with it! No footswitch!? What? Ridiculous. Tell you what, I will give you $150 to take that piece of junk off your hands...
Cops have other things that are more important on their schedules, especially in Florida., Corralling shirtless, yelling drunk guys on camera, for example. When a call comes in for a domestic disturbance, the first thing they have to do is call ahead and convince the guy to take his shirt off before they get there, or that scene won't air. Plus, often the guy isn't particularly drunk, so they have to coach him on that, and hang out somewhere so he can get a few beers in him before they arrive. That kind of work is very time consuming.
Sometimes pawn shops just get tired of having the same thing taking up the same space for a long time with no interest. If I see something with more than 6 months worth of dust on it, I start thinking maybe they want it gone. Sometimes, they do.
Where are all the people who would never do a deal like this and would have educated the shop owner so they would have a clean conscience?
How much do you think the pawn shop paid if they're listing it for 130$? They're not in the business of losing money and it's definitely not OPs fault if they didn't do their research. What you say is noble but really the only person who loses is you for not getting a good deal - the pawn shop still makes money... or it's stolen, in which case just saying something about the price isn't fixing anything either!
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