What's the best deal you ever got on music gear?

DLM

Power User
I have four Fender bass speaker cabs. Two BXR 410's and two BXR 115's, which I've had for 21 or 22 years now. They have Eminence speakers, but they're custom to Fender specs (I'm assuming). Well I wanted to replace them with new Eminence speakers, because I use them for guitar too, so I wanted a fuller range tone.

So when Musician's Friend had a tax day sale, I took advantage of it and ordered eight Eminence s2010 10" Neodymium speakers and two Eminence Legend CB158 15". The s2010's were $79.99 each. Unfortunately, they only had 5 in stock, so those are on the way but the other three are on back order and won't be here until the middle of May. :p

Anyway, I went back literally like three days later to grab the link of the page for the s2010's to show a friend of mine what I bought, and suddenly they're selling those speakers for 134.99 and they're special order only. Why? I have no freakin' clue. All I know is, because I bought them a few days prior, I saved $440 bucks, plus the discount from the sale! The 15's are both on the way and are still the same price. The weird thing is, almost everyone has the s2010's listed for $134.99 now and have them listed as special order only. Only a very few places still have them for the old price.

Anyway, I got an incredibly sweet deal on those! So what have you all gotten a sweet deal on gear-wise?
 
i bought a parker fly deluxe with case about 10 years ago for $700. got my new anvil 7 space shock rack for $160. bought my x2 rack, korg rack tuner, and furman and 6 space forack for $250... few deals there.
 
I managed to get my Axe FX standard + Behringer FCB101 + Gator 4 space rack case for £1200. Had to drive half way across england and pay in cash to get it though haha.
 
I bought a 1967 Fender Blackface Super Reverb for 115.00 about 12 yrs ago from a guy who wanted to purchase memory for his computer. Had this old amp sitting around and wanted to get rid of it, said it smoked after he got it. I pulled it apart once I got it and found that he stuck a old report card from the 70s in it and whenever he turned it on the paper would start to smoke. Well I worked with the guy, so when I saw that he got an F in gym I could not let that one go, hung it on the board at work and circled the F. Bought 115.00, cost to repair 0, the look on his face - Priceless....
 
My most recent deal was my Velocity 300 that was brand new with a channel out for $155 and FREE shipping. Took delivery of it and there was nothing wrong with it other than the fact the original buyer tried to run it in stereo with the amp set up for bridged operation.

My other deal was picking up an '84 Marshall JCM 800 (2204) for $300. Turned out to be WAY TOO much amp for my needs. I ended up selling it for almost $600
 
I bought a Rivera TBR-2SL for $600 from a guy that took it as payment for unpaid borrowed money, even though he wasn't a guitarist. That was one BEAST of an amp head.
 
Had this old amp sitting around and wanted to get rid of it, said it smoked after he got it. I pulled it apart once I got it and found that he stuck a old report card from the 70s in it and whenever he turned it on the paper would start to smoke.

LMAO! That's hilarious! :D
 
I've gotten lots of great deals, especially on gear that's not working right but isn't actually broken. Like a V4 with a shorted output tube for $150. But the best, without question, was a mid-60's Reverberocket, the R-12-R-B that uses 7591 tubes, the one they only made for like two years, for $0 cause it was put at the curb with an entire house worth of trash. It wasn't even broken at all, it just smelled quite bad. I de-tolex'd it, gave it a good brushing, hit it with some spray cleaner, and it was no longer foul. After I recapped it, it's awesome. It's one of the two Reverberockets I'll never let go. The other was a similarly amazing deal in that it is one of the first production guitar amps on the planet ever to have reverb. Ampeg invented the amp with reverb when they first converted a rocket into a Reverberocket back in '61. I have a '60 Reverberocket where they altered the tube chart by hand to write in the extra tubes and amend the model number from a stamped R-12 by adding the -R with pen. It was made several months before Ampeg unleashed the world's first reverb-having amp at a trade show, I forget if it was NAMM? I got it on eBay for around $250 just a couple years ago. Two awesome 60's Reverberockets, one historic even, for around $250 total. That's my best deal by quite a bit.
 
Two weeks ago at a yard sale, a '95-96 Jackson DR3 MIJ with the awesome graphite finish, sharkfin inlays, great frets and hardware (Takeuchi FR), original HSC, including the original instruction manual, pickups had been upgraded to EMG 81/85 combo (now with 18v mod). The guitar had two stickers on it which came off with a hair dryer and Goo-gone. Total cost: $45. And the wife likes it, too!
 
Wolf Hoffmann (from Accept) gave me his old Warwick Bass a while back. That was pretty sweet.
 
I've benefited from a couple of errors on Musician's Friend/Guitar Center's part. Got a brand new $799.99 Markbass amp for $79.99. Also got a new EHX Q-tron+ XO from them for free.
 
Back in college in the late 80's a guy I knew was quitting to join a band (once in a lifetime opportunity he said). He needed to raise cash quickly and sold me his 59 reissue Les Paul for $350 (he was the original owner). I never really warmed up to it so it stayed in it's case. Sold it 2 years ago for $3,300 on evilbay.
 
1+
full price here too- I bought a used standard and loved it so much that I wanted Fractal to get the full price for such a priceless item !

Thanks, Cliff, for both of them

Cheers,
jjel
 
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