Best deals you've ever found

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Inspired
I check all of the surrounding area's craigslist every day for used gear at great prices. You never know what you'll find. It's a fun hobby, but it can get expensive quick! I'm trying to slow down on it, but if I find anything Ibanez made in japan for less than $400 it's almost a must buy for me. Here are some of my best finds. What about you guys?

2000 Ibanez s520wnf $350
1999 Ibanez rg570 $350
1999 Ibanez rg7620 vampire kiss MINT $300
1992 Ibanez 442R $350 (extremely rare)
Mesa Triaxis $550 (it had some major problems though)
Engl e530 preamp $350

1933 Martin Acoustic $125!!! - In the ad the guy said he bought it new before he went off to fight in WW2 for $250 so he figured it was worth half of that now! I called immediately and the ad was taken down within 15 minutes. Someone beat me to it.
 
About to buy an old rg550 for $250 :)
I bought an 62 epiphone coronet dog ear p90 super rare color, paid $90 for it at a pawn shop, sold it for $600, worth more now unfortunately, but I had to fix my transmission.
 
searching said:
I check all of the surrounding area's craigslist every day for used gear at great prices. You never know what you'll find. It's a fun hobby, but it can get expensive quick!
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I have the same disease...um, I mean hobby. I check Craigslist, eBay, Reverb and Kijiji, here in Canada.

I bought a Korg SDD-3000 for $400 U.S., sold it a few years later for $1,200 U.S., about $1,500 CDN. Bought a second one for $750 and sold it for $1,200 as well. I bought an 07, U.S. Explorer for $700, I still have it. I bought a set of original 73 Strat pickups for a few hundred bucks, sold them to a guy doing a restoration for about $900. A Korg A3 for $50, sold it for a few hundred.
 
In college, in North Carolina, I bought a 1979 Gibson ES-335 TD in org case for $550. This was in 1993 though.
 
Many years ago I picked up a very nice Robin guitar in a pawn shop for like $200... No idea what they had, which is rare for a good pawn shop.
 
In the mid '90s I bought a 1978 Wine Les Paul Standard, a Roland Cube-60 amp, and a bag of assorted pedals for $700. Sold off the amp and pedals and ended up only paying $300 for the LP. Best deal I ever got.

Best deal I ever found and stupidly didn't jump on right away was a 24 channel Yamaha powered board, brand new (store was going out of business), SPX-900 built in, nice board...it was ~$3K new, they were asking $800 for it; I hesitated thinking it'll go down even more and when I went back to get it about 15 minutes later it was already gone....arg.

I found a Teisco Del Ray hollowbody in a friends garage...he said another friend had it in his trunk and didn't want it. I scooped it and still have it. Last I looked it was worth about $400 so that was a great deal too. Sounds wacky thru a Marshall...the cheap pickups squeal and scream like there's no tomorrow with only a moderate amount of gain and volume; can get a very cool raunchy slide tone out of it when you can control that raging elephant.
 
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I totally just remembered the real best deal I ever got:

Back in the mid '80s I bought some shitty Japanese "catalog" guitar from the sixties from a garage sale for $35 (I was just starting to learn guitar, no idea what a POS it was). The old codger selling said "I'll even throw in this little practice amp for free".

I was a metal kid, had no clue, but free is good!

It was an original Tweed Champ!

Years later I would run my Boss ME-5 into that thing and try to play metal :)

Eventually traded it (plus cash) for my first Ibanez... I got ripped off but that's a different story (the the "regret sale" thread for that).

Edit: just noticed the forum censored "shitty" for me... When was that feature added? @iaresee
 
I picked up an original Boss DM-2 for less than $30 from a pawn store a few years ago. Needed a little TLC to get it working properly but it runs fine now.
 
dpeterson said:
About to buy an old rg550 for $250 :)
I bought an 62 epiphone coronet dog ear p90 super rare color, paid $90 for it at a pawn shop, sold it for $600, worth more now unfortunately, but I had to fix my transmission.
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Nice! Where are you buying that RG550? I need to know just for... research purposes.
 
I bought one of the very first BC Rich Mockingbirds made (prototype, handmade by Bernie himself) for $500 many years ago. (I was the third owner.) To the right collector, it'd be worth a lot more than that now. Put a lot of miles and gigs on that guitar, and wouldn't sell or trade it for anything.

I have a MIM Strat that I bought used from GC for $189. The paint was pretty dinged up, but 10 minutes with a bottle of black nail polish made it look fine from a distance. With a good set of pups in it, it has become one of my favorite (and most played) Strats.

The of course there's the Axe-Fx Mark II and XL+. Both were great deals, even at full retail price!
 
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1987, I picked up my 1980 Rickenbacker 4003 for $400 used at Victor's House of Music (in Maywood, NJ) due to a divot out of the fretboard coating at the 17th fret and a couple of scratches in the back as well as a few dings. It came with the original hardshell case.

I figured if I was going to play it, it was going to get dinged anyways (this kids was before the craze called relic guitars and basses when you used to be able to get discounts on instruments being dinged up rather than paying more for them).

The bass just gets better and better over the years.
 
Best deal I kick myself for not taking was in 1988, Sam Ash (Paramus, NJ) was trying to unload Gibson/Steinberger collaboration called a 20/20 bass. It was a great sounding bass and was the perfect scale for my hands.

http://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/20-20.php

I talked my friendly salesman down to $450 with the hardshell case.

I went back the next day to hand over my cash and it was sold.

Now you can't find them and there were less than 200 made by some accounts and it was only made for one year.

A great bass if you ever get a chance to play or own one. I'm surprised Henry J. didn't try to reissue a half-assed version of it by now.
 
A Fender Custom Shop '57 that i traded with a Washburn N4 (which I do miss quite a lot though) and a thousand bucks.
Or maybe an original boss cs-2 I got from someone who didn't understand compression at the time. Think we trated with a set of strings...
 
ByTheHandOf said:
Or maybe an original boss cs-2
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I woke up early and in the bathroom was messing with a pawn shop chains new app- it showed at the closest one to my house 5 min away
"boss cs-2 $29"
I was there 10 min later.

The best was- I got a call at 8 am "hi i'm at whatever pawn shop and your number is on my desk to call you for music stuff- i have a pedal it's a boss ce-2" and i'm like- 'are you sure ce-2? not ce-3 or ce-5' 'it's ce-2' 'does it say on the back made in japan?' 'yes' 'what do you want for it' '30 or 40 bucks'

I ran there- it was missing the spring- and i told them hey look it's broken- they said 'ok you can have it for 20' I said 'no i'll do 40- but make sure you call me for stuff like this any time you get it'

I have enough crazy deals and steals to write a book on- maybe 2 books... I also like to keep it on the down-low

Ok one more story craigslist add 'joe satriani guitar $500' I call the guy- rich kid in scottsdale, dad has money- 'is it a js100 or js1000' he says js100- i'm like you're crazy then it's worth $250-300 tops- he sends pics- it's a js1000. I drive over there- and give him $200 cash

I could go on for hours- these aren't even my top 10 or top 100 best deals i've found...

But- anyway- here's one last picture- if you notice below the original distortion+ is an orange pedal- I couldn't get the damn DS-1 for $20- but I got the MXR for $15- I might have even got it for less - but priced at $14.99 you can't beat it
10415572_10203602473876635_179951779573633086_n.jpg
 
Best deal I ever got was a brand new axe fx for $3900. It still amazes me :)
Thanks
Pauly


searching said:
I check all of the surrounding area's craigslist every day for used gear at great prices. You never know what you'll find. It's a fun hobby, but it can get expensive quick! I'm trying to slow down on it, but if I find anything Ibanez made in japan for less than $400 it's almost a must buy for me. Here are some of my best finds. What about you guys?

2000 Ibanez s520wnf $350
1999 Ibanez rg570 $350
1999 Ibanez rg7620 vampire kiss MINT $300
1992 Ibanez 442R $350 (extremely rare)
Mesa Triaxis $550 (it had some major problems though)
Engl e530 preamp $350

1933 Martin Acoustic $125!!! - In the ad the guy said he bought it new before he went off to fight in WW2 for $250 so he figured it was worth half of that now! I called immediately and the ad was taken down within 15 minutes. Someone beat me to it.
Click to expand...
Best deal I ever got
 
I've got one of thos Mxr distortion pedals - what's it worth?
Thanks
Pauly

Jeries said:
I woke up early and in the bathroom was messing with a pawn shop chains new app- it showed at the closest one to my house 5 min away
"boss cs-2 $29"
I was there 10 min later.

The best was- I got a call at 8 am "hi i'm at whatever pawn shop and your number is on my desk to call you for music stuff- i have a pedal it's a boss ce-2" and i'm like- 'are you sure ce-2? not ce-3 or ce-5' 'it's ce-2' 'does it say on the back made in japan?' 'yes' 'what do you want for it' '30 or 40 bucks'

I ran there- it was missing the spring- and i told them hey look it's broken- they said 'ok you can have it for 20' I said 'no i'll do 40- but make sure you call me for stuff like this any time you get it'

I have enough crazy deals and steals to write a book on- maybe 2 books... I also like to keep it on the down-low

Ok one more story craigslist add 'joe satriani guitar $500' I call the guy- rich kid in scottsdale, dad has money- 'is it a js100 or js1000' he says js100- i'm like you're crazy then it's worth $250-300 tops- he sends pics- it's a js1000. I drive over there- and give him $200 cash

I could go on for hours- these aren't even my top 10 or top 100 best deals i've found...

But- anyway- here's one last picture- if you notice below the original distortion+ is an orange pedal- I couldn't get the damn DS-1 for $20- but I got the MXR for $15- I might have even got it for less - but priced at $14.99 you can't beat it
10415572_10203602473876635_179951779573633086_n.jpg
Click to expand...
 
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