Buying used guitars. Multiple previous owners depreciate price. Thoughts?

Chewie5150

Chewie5150

Fractal Fanatic
Curious as to what you all think on this. Say the guitar you're looking at is in good/satisfactory shape. Would it matter to you if it had passed hands more than once before your potential purchase in terms of negotiating price?
 
Chewie5150 said:
Curious as to what you all think on this. Say the guitar you're looking at is in good/satisfactory shape. Would it matter to you if it had passed hands more than once before your potential purchase in terms of negotiating price?
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Nope. If it plays how you want and has a good sound and is an acceptable price then, to me, it means it wasn’t a good fit for those other people.

I have a beat up PRS DGT. I don’t know its history, but I really enjoy how it plays, looks and sounds and I thought it was a good deal. What else is important? That others touched it?
 
Follow up question: you meet a girl (or guy) , would it matter how many.... yeah I'm with you guys. For me as long as its in good shape and preferably I'd like original owner if there were any mods to it to get a good history on it. Otherwise don't really matter to me
 
The only time I've passed on guitars with stated multiple owners is if I was able to trace the ownership. One had 3 different owners in 4 months, that was a red flag for me.

If you're able to play it, don't know why the number of owners would matter. I've had a few guys play a couple of my guitars but I'm the original owner. Go wherever you want with that one....
 
The way that people flip gear nowadays, I wouldn't sweat it. People have different tastes when it comes to neck profiles, radius, etc. One person's holy grail is another's POS.
 
JoKeR III said:
The only time I've passed on guitars with stated multiple owners is if I was able to trace the ownership. One had 3 different owners in 4 months, that was a red flag for me.

If you're able to play it, don't know why the number of owners would matter. I've had a few guys play a couple of my guitars but I'm the original owner. Go wherever you want with that one....
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that's the kind of scenario i was thinking about when i posted this thread. Looking at a guitar that by all accounts looks great but seemed to be many owners in a relatively short period of time. So red flags were going up but the possibility that it was just as lot of you have said...just people changing tastes/minds/flipping gear etc...
 
Guitars are not like cars for the most part where number of owners is discernable on the title.

Even if it were possible, unless there were odometer readings at each point of ownership, how much value would that info add? If 5 people owned a guitar and each played it for an hour, would that really be more depreciation than one owner who played it 25 hours? History on instruments is such a murky thing for the most part.
 
Hmmm.... when I see a used guitar that's absolutely pristine, it's like a big warning flag. Nobody played it--what's wrong with this thing?
 
I tend to stick with what I'm familiar with when buying used. I broke that rule when I bought my Gretsch, I had never played one before. When I got it I was relieved I was so worried about the neck carve being to fat.
 
Not even in the slightest with anything other than maybe a burrito. You don't pay less for a car in great shape with 20k miles just because 5k of those were from someone who couldn't afford to keep it longer.
 
ElectricPhase said:
Hmmm.... when I see a used guitar that's absolutely pristine, it's like a big warning flag. Nobody played it--what's wrong with this thing?
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Fair, but you might be missing out on all those sweet guitars Dentists bought when they thought they wanted to play. For context I got a $6500 PRS from a dentist for $1200 once. Fun irony of that is higher end PRS are often joked about as Dentist guitars since they cost too damn much.
 
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