The magic of pawnshops.
Pawnshops can be the ideal place to find a piece of gold priced by a fool. It is common to find mid range guitars priced as if they were a first act from wal-mart. Just the other day I went into a pawn shop and found a $900 Ibanez Prestige missing the volume knob other wise the thing looked and played as if it was brand new and a circuit tester showed that all the electronics seemed to function just fine. What was the price of this? Funny thing is it was $400, sure that is not very cheap but for what you get that is the price you expect a high end guitar to go for with a broken neck. Especially when you consider that replacing the volume pot can cost as little as $3.
Here is a picture from a local shop.
Here is a picture from a local shop.
Yes that is a $1000 guitar, the price tag was $500 and it has no blemishes at all.
During there weekly blowout sales it drops to $385. How crazy is that, this is just a couple examples of what you can find. Pawnshops price to sell but most of the time they base the price off of what they sell for on Ebay. If you do not believe me just take your guitar to them and while they are checking there *price guide* take a glance at there screen and more often than not you will see a page full of listing right under a Ebay logo.
But that is where some of the fun is, a guy will post a guitar on Ebay for a quick sell price so the pawnshop will try to sell it to you for the highest bidding guitar of that model but after a few weeks they will start low balling the low price to get it out of there shop. So what you have to do is just wait and bide your time, check in on the guitar every couple days and when that price drops that is your chance to strike but be quick cause others will be doing the same thing. Even after the price drop you can some times talk the price down, even if you are happy with the price you are paying I highly suggest at least trying to get it cheaper as the only thing they can tell you is no but they will still happily sell it to you. Most pawn shops will also do trades so if you want a new guitar and do not have enough to buy what you want try taking your current guitar in if you do not like it as much as the one you want and see what kind of deal you can make with them.
During there weekly blowout sales it drops to $385. How crazy is that, this is just a couple examples of what you can find. Pawnshops price to sell but most of the time they base the price off of what they sell for on Ebay. If you do not believe me just take your guitar to them and while they are checking there *price guide* take a glance at there screen and more often than not you will see a page full of listing right under a Ebay logo.
But that is where some of the fun is, a guy will post a guitar on Ebay for a quick sell price so the pawnshop will try to sell it to you for the highest bidding guitar of that model but after a few weeks they will start low balling the low price to get it out of there shop. So what you have to do is just wait and bide your time, check in on the guitar every couple days and when that price drops that is your chance to strike but be quick cause others will be doing the same thing. Even after the price drop you can some times talk the price down, even if you are happy with the price you are paying I highly suggest at least trying to get it cheaper as the only thing they can tell you is no but they will still happily sell it to you. Most pawn shops will also do trades so if you want a new guitar and do not have enough to buy what you want try taking your current guitar in if you do not like it as much as the one you want and see what kind of deal you can make with them.
Tips
- Wait for the Blowout Sales
- Try to talk them down on there price.
- Try trading in
- Wait for price drops
- Study the guitar and there value carefully.