Estate guitars
Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2021 12:11 pm
I want to love estate guitars for all kinds of reasons. My first estate guitar is my flame natural Gibson ES-335. Because lefties are hard to come by, the wife and I took a road trip to Kansas City for an estate sale of a lefty guitarist. There were about 10 great guitars there, and I had to compete with 3 store representatives bidding over them. I missed out on an R9, an R8, and a disassembled LP Standard because they went too high. I let the dealers have the acoustics, but I really wanted the 335, and I did win it. Being able to play it before bidding showed me how perfect it was, and I respect it at least as much as its first owner did. As a bonus, we had a great night on the town before returning home the next day. On top of that, the wife got into the whole guitar buying thing, and went on more trips with me after that, not to reel me back in, but to take part. Just awesome.
But not all estate guitars are within an overnight trip, so complications arise. When you can't check out the guitar in person, you have to depend on reliable descriptions. Those come from honest player/owners, but you often can't get good descriptions from people who inherit the guitars. In at least several cases, I have bought guitars from surviving parents, and those have not gone well.
My first round with uninformed owners was over a 2002 Limited Edition Takamine Whale acoustic electric. The ebay seller did not convey that he was selling his late son's guitars. On top of that, he tried to come off as knowing the guitar well and listed it as being in "new" condition. What arrived was a seriously weathered guitar with over-dried areas and rusty steel parts. The battery was rusted into the preamp, and the frets were too pitted to play reasonably. The seller then told me it was his late son's guitar. It might be that since he didn't play, he could not see how far the condition was from his description, but suffice to say we strongly disagreed on what "new" meant. As bad as I felt for him losing his son, I was not going to take a bath on a badly described poor condition guitar. It was heartbreaking on both ends, and the return was a nightmare. So much so that I swore off ebay for over a year. But you have to take the good with the bad so I got over that.
A few years later, an auction popped up for one of my dream guitars, a lefty red MIJ Gretsch Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird (to each his own, right?). The pictures were not detailed, but looked good, and it was described as "fantastic, barely used". I was the high bidder, but the auction closed without meeting the reserve. The seller reached out to me as the high bidder and tried to get me to buy it for more than my top bid, I said no, but I offered to still buy it at the closing bid price, and he agreed. When it arrived, I found damages that were not pictured. They appeared to be for two causes - first, someone modding a guitar who had no idea what they were doing, and second, someone converting a lefty guitar to play righty, then putting it back lefty. As much as I liked those TV Jones pickups, I again was not about to accept a badly described guitar with undisclosed issues. This seller became highly argumentative, and then I learned it was his son's guitar, and after his son's suicide, he wanted it gone. Sigh. I was as nice as I could be about the return, but was not going to keep an expensive problem guitar.
I understand that someone who inherits a guitar and can't play it may see it as a beautiful instrument and fail to see its flaws. But I hate being the person to have to expose those problems and diminish their perspectives when they're already suffering a loss. I guess my bottom line here is that I am deciding to tell my family that when my time comes, they should sell my gear through a reputable auction house, and not even attempt to save a few bucks. I think that's better for sellers and buyers.
But not all estate guitars are within an overnight trip, so complications arise. When you can't check out the guitar in person, you have to depend on reliable descriptions. Those come from honest player/owners, but you often can't get good descriptions from people who inherit the guitars. In at least several cases, I have bought guitars from surviving parents, and those have not gone well.
My first round with uninformed owners was over a 2002 Limited Edition Takamine Whale acoustic electric. The ebay seller did not convey that he was selling his late son's guitars. On top of that, he tried to come off as knowing the guitar well and listed it as being in "new" condition. What arrived was a seriously weathered guitar with over-dried areas and rusty steel parts. The battery was rusted into the preamp, and the frets were too pitted to play reasonably. The seller then told me it was his late son's guitar. It might be that since he didn't play, he could not see how far the condition was from his description, but suffice to say we strongly disagreed on what "new" meant. As bad as I felt for him losing his son, I was not going to take a bath on a badly described poor condition guitar. It was heartbreaking on both ends, and the return was a nightmare. So much so that I swore off ebay for over a year. But you have to take the good with the bad so I got over that.
A few years later, an auction popped up for one of my dream guitars, a lefty red MIJ Gretsch Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird (to each his own, right?). The pictures were not detailed, but looked good, and it was described as "fantastic, barely used". I was the high bidder, but the auction closed without meeting the reserve. The seller reached out to me as the high bidder and tried to get me to buy it for more than my top bid, I said no, but I offered to still buy it at the closing bid price, and he agreed. When it arrived, I found damages that were not pictured. They appeared to be for two causes - first, someone modding a guitar who had no idea what they were doing, and second, someone converting a lefty guitar to play righty, then putting it back lefty. As much as I liked those TV Jones pickups, I again was not about to accept a badly described guitar with undisclosed issues. This seller became highly argumentative, and then I learned it was his son's guitar, and after his son's suicide, he wanted it gone. Sigh. I was as nice as I could be about the return, but was not going to keep an expensive problem guitar.
I understand that someone who inherits a guitar and can't play it may see it as a beautiful instrument and fail to see its flaws. But I hate being the person to have to expose those problems and diminish their perspectives when they're already suffering a loss. I guess my bottom line here is that I am deciding to tell my family that when my time comes, they should sell my gear through a reputable auction house, and not even attempt to save a few bucks. I think that's better for sellers and buyers.
