Vent: "Used" is not a Condition!

[Wilmywood]

They will still sell it as new with a new car warranty.

Yes, but with one caveat - the time warranty started the day it was put into service, not the day you buy it.

 

[RBSinTo]

I checked it out and the industry standard is that a new car at a dealership is considered used if when it exceeds 200 miles.

Roland,
Perhaps the music stores should adapt a note or chord limit being played on their in-stock instruments to define them as new or used?
RBSinTo

 

[davismanLV]

And often those pix are terrible or just of the front of the guitar. How do sellers forget that guitars have sides and backs? Egads.

Even some of the manufacturers do this!! Taylor promotes all these different models on line and they give a description with the top and headstock taken from different angles. The End. So then I'll say, "You've only shown the front. Why no pictures of the back and sides??" And they say, "The back and sides are maple."

Thanks ever so for that.... now I can die happy!!

 

[RBSinTo]

Even some of the manufacturers do this!! Taylor promotes all these different models on line and they give a description with the top and headstock taken from different angles. The End. So then I'll say, "You've only shown the front. Why no pictures of the back and sides??" And they say, "The back and sides are maple."

Thanks ever so for that.... now I can die happy!!

Tom,
Those Taylors are part of their Mobius Line whose guitars only have one surface, so there is no need for other photos.
RBSinTo

 

[adorshki]

Good question, I wonder if there is. When I bought my GS Mini I did it online from a store in Alabama. It was what it was. My Guild I bought from a local dealer. I test drove it myself. Anyway, the store manager knocked off a hundred dollars for shopwear. He said that for them at least, it was pretty much routine. I thought that was a stand up gesture on their part.

Bingo! So you get a warranty for new and a break for shopwear!

I checked it out and the industry standard is that a new car at a dealership is considered used if when it exceeds 200 miles.

Sold cars in CA, never heard of that. Suspect your source is in error. A new car is a new car until it's titled. Mileage is irrelevant, and in fact if a car gets "unwound" because dealer couldn't get financing and customer can't or won't make a bigger down and/or payment, it's still new because it was never titled.

I sold a Dodge Ram 250 long bed crew cab, fully loaded with every accessory down to the brush guard and over-cab light fixture, and the then first-year V10 in the truck, with 8300 miles on it. It had been the sales manager's demo for about 6 months and was displayed and available 6 out of 7 days a week. With the factory new vehicle sticker as required by law (in rear window behind driver).

It was very rare and desirable vehicle at the time, and I happened to luck into the perfect customer for it, who showed up in an '87 Buick Grand National GNX. After an hour or so showing him and driving different versions of the "regular" Rams for ride quality, he was obviously winding up to leave when the significance of his ride dawned on me: Image.

So I showed him the Ram. "Can I drive it?" "Well sure, that's my job."
Over 8000 miles the dealership'd obviously had a chance to address any problems or surprises that came up so we sold it for full list plus dealer markup and a service comp package to address the mileage issue. He got full factory warranty. And the only V10 Dodge Ram in private hands in San Jose for several months.

 

[adorshki]

Yes, but with one caveat - the time warranty started the day it was put into service, not the day you buy it.

Nope, time warranty is from date of purchase, but they may lose benefit of mileage warranty for all the miles already on the vehicle if they don't ask for compensation for it.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

It seems a little disingenuous to call a lot of the guitars hanging on the wall at the music store as new. Even if they are not pre-owned, a lot of them are not new, they've been played and some played a lot. I realize that people want to test drive them before they buy, but a lot of people are driving them around with no intention of buying them. Both of my guitars bought new were not in new condition.

This was pretty much the case with my S-300. I bought it new, but it was certainly shop worn, most notably a knock to the top of the headstock and a missing G shield from one of the control knobs. That said, the shop were completely honest about the condition and it was reflected in the price, so no complaints

 

[Guildedagain]

"new" often refers to an economic reality and not a condition (thus adding to GAD's point even if I don't want to). "new" just means "never sold at retail before". How may miles must there be on a "never sold previously" automobile before the consumer refuses to accept the vehicle as "new"?

An alternative would be "Demo".

Many shops are going to have a demo of a model, car or guitar, and let it get knocked around a bit, and eventually sell it as a demo model.

The thing is, were I to ever buy a new guitar, if I liked the demo, I would insist on having that one because no two are alike.

 

[Guildedagain]

'87 Buick Grand National GNX

Vaguely remembering the road tests at the time, "Corvette eater", 13.6 ET?

I also sold cars one summer, interesting...

I found out that car salesmen rate somewhere between lawyers and child molesters in public opinion, per an article written at the time.

I was good at it, had the beginner's luck anyway. I learned some life lessons. There was an old Buick 4dr on the lot that hadn't been detailed yet, probably not worth detailing or beyond it. Everytime I got in the car, I had to roll the windows down because it smelled like vomit.

I told my boss/mentor "Hey, we gotta get this car detailed, I can't sell it like that", and he puts his arm around my shoulder in a fatherly fashion and says "In life, there's an @ss for every seat". Touché.

Then I got disillusioned over the low commissions, let him know I was going to job interviews on my lunch hours - brazen - and landed a job at the SAAB/Nissan dealership just down the road, where you had to dress really well.

They wouldn't let me sell SAABs - even though I drove one - or Nissan, I got to sell the junk on the lot, anything better than backline cars to be wholesaled to auto auctions.

This is about when the recession started, and cars weren't selling.

Only folks buying were the well to do, and all they wanted was the ginormous Armada, but there was only one, a Demo, and not for sale.

At first, we had weekly - Friday morning - sales meetings with donuts, who was "on the board" who wasn't on the board, and how you'd lose your job if you weren't on the board for a whole month, meaning they'd have to pay you minimum wage instead, and it would be your first and last check all at the same time.

As desperation set in, we started having a sales meeting without donuts every morning, and eventually it came down to this "If someone drives onto the lot, and they don't buy a car, you may was well get in the car with them because you don't have a job".

So this carload of stoners pulls in, wanting to know where the Taco Bell was, a giant sign way up high on pillars visible for blocks...

I walk back into the showroom and my boss says "Pack your stuff, you're done" and I had to explain they weren't even looking for a car.

One day it dawned on me years earlier this was the dealership where I'd been sold an ex Ugly Duckling Rent a Car 1976 Volare station wagon with high miles, no hubcaps etc for more than high book, when it was barely worth low book - when I found this out and asked why, the explanation was "Because we can", and they were already trying to upcharge me some exorbitant amount "for something they'd forgotten to include" at the time of sale, and they "wanted me to come in" meaning repo the car right out from under me, so I hid the car a couple blocks away and walked up to the dealership to see a very large plate glass window right next to the stairs had had a brick thrown through it overnight, another happy customer I could tell...

One morning I came in and they just said "Pack your sh*t, you're done". No one had sold a car in weeks, but since I was the last guy in, first guy out. I couldn't get unemployment because I didn't have enough hours, so while having a mortgage, I went 100 days without a paycheck from anywhere. I couldn't get a job. I was either under or overqualified.

That's when I learned to eBay, and even though I did eventually get a job, I kept doing it, sales eventually exceeding my wages, and eventually my employer and I mutually parted ways, as I'd been on the job for over a year at my "let's see if we like each other for a couple weeks" starting wage of a buck lower than anything I'd made in years, and when I approached my boss about it, he went to the owner and got me a raise, $.15 cents an hour. I about flipped. The owner was old, in business since the 70's, in his mind that was maybe a decent raise but it wasn't long before I got disgruntled and it showed, especially since I'd been told by my boss Paul - we're still friends - that "I was the best he'd had out of the last couple hundred guys".

He was 30 and had been working there since high school. He still works there, but they were bought out by a large corporation.

 

[chazmo]

I am so tired of seeing auctions and for sale ads that say "condition is used".

Condition is poor, fair, good, very good, excellent, maybe even "mint", though we all know how that term gets abused. You know, something that describes the condition of the item. "Used" is a loophole that people use so that no matter what condition it arrives in they can say, "well, it's says used - and there's pics". Oh, and how about "The description is the pictures" or "the pictures are part of the description"? Use your words dammit!

ARGHH!

I wish sites like Ebay and Reverb and such would disallow this and force people into a ranked scale. Most hobbies that deal in used goods have published known scales and they're pretty similar unless the hobby has specific requirements.

Sigh... OK, I'm done.

Great rant, @GAD, but who trusts seller's condition rating anyway? My 5 is another person's 9?

 

[fronobulax]

An alternative would be "Demo".

Many shops are going to have a demo of a model, car or guitar, and let it get knocked around a bit, and eventually sell it as a demo model.

The thing is, were I to ever buy a new guitar, if I liked the demo, I would insist on having that one because no two are alike.

Yes. If the seller says "demo" or "floor sample" the buyer expects and accepts something different from "new" or even "used".

Like many things (acknowledging the vent is real) we are trying to have a simple description of something more complex.

"new", "used", "demo" all say something about the economic journey of the guitar. "new" and "demo" set up the expectation that the seller is a dealer and this warranties and other services may be available.

But they also say something about the physical condition of the guitar. If we pretend that "playwear" is a measurable condition then a new instrument has no playwear, a demo has slight but noticeable playwear and used has noticeable playwear.

If an instrument is economically used but has spent 20 years under the bed and never played how do you describe that in one or two words? "like new" condition comes to mind

 

[Guildedagain]

My roughest looking guitar, the '71 F30, spent 30 years "under the bed", all dried out with heavy strings on it, so unplayed but neglected is possibly worse than any matter of furniture and low ceiling bonks, pick scratches and soundhole wear.

At this point it is the scariest guitar I own. I showed it to someone the other day, showing him what the vagaries of time have done, and he instantly said "I don't want it".

I was contacted by someone on the Verb, who wrote two huge messages about how fabulous it was, and how the Sunburst meant it had been "Red tagged", to wit;

"Your F-30 is anomalous in that it was made in 1971 as reflected by the handwritten serial number, yet it appears to have been repaired at the factory in 1972 and thus also bears a stamped serial number from that era. If the guitar was radically modified at that time -- if for say the neck broke off and was replaced with a similar neck and an F-112 neck block for stability -- that might account for the restamping, as the originality of the instrument might have been compromised.

This is an Al Dronge instrument and is also likely a red-tagger (about which more below).


These guitars are noteworthy for their incredible sunbursts, which were done by guys from the Westerly area who came on board in '69 and brought their auto-body experience with them. Fred Augusto supervised these and this was the golden era of Guild sunbursts. When you see one with a 'burst this even and gorgeous, that means the guitar was likely "red-tagged" as a winner during production and received special treatment."

When I wrote back to say that according to the seller, who I had no reason to doubt, the guitar had been repaired by a Guild employee and gifted to his mom who never played it, I got back an almost angry mail;

"Your story does not match the information I tried so helpfully to provide. When Guild double-stamps serial numbers the instrument is always defective or a second. It may have been repaired by Guild but the numbers tell the story.

Please don't reply. Thanks. "

I've been listing instruments and amps on Reverb since it started, and I've never gotten any similar emails on any item. Whether this is influencing me to keep it or part with it, I'm not sure but it feels weird the I peeved someone in one short message.

The best thing to do if I sell it is lose the story, play dumb about the warpage and extreme condition of the top. Also, the guitar was lost in transit - Good old USPS Parcel Select - during a Polar Vortex, got here looking like it had been through a vacuum chamber, reminding me of one of these "Bitter beer face" commercials from way back.

Comments on the site were "Send it back" but I didn't feel like that was the best thing for the guitar.

It sounds great though, good bass, sweet overtones, chords ring boldly, but no one - but me - can get past the cover, as in judging a book by the cover.

And the kicker is, to bring it back to the thread, it's not very "used" at all, has barely discernible fretwear, as in almost no fret wear at all.

At any rate, like a Guild, it makes an impression.

Quite possibly, erasing the elaborate description to avoid problems and going with "Used guitar" might sell it faster.

 

[FNG]

Veer..

Cult classic movie...Used Cars. What a great movie!

 

[adorshki]

An alternative would be "Demo".

Many shops are going to have a demo of a model, car or guitar, and let it get knocked around a bit, and eventually sell it as a demo model.

The thing is, were I to ever buy a new guitar, if I liked the demo, I would insist on having that one because no two are alike.

In fact, my D25 was the "Demo". When I decided it was the one, for the neck, I noted the s/n 'cause I still needed a couple of days to organize the cash. Later at the register the sales clerk asked if I wanted one "fresh out of the box from the back". Said "Nope, this is the one".

Just occurred to me that possibly one reason I got such a great price was that it was a demo by their standards even though unblemished, but it wasn't specified as a reason for the discount. In 1997.

 

[Guildedagain]

Veer..

Cult classic movie...Used Cars. What a great movie!

I gotta find this movie ;[]

Dog is a dead ringer for my neighbors Beagle.

 

[adorshki]

I gotta find this movie ;[]

Dog is a dead ringer for my neighbors Beagle.

All beagles look alike to me.

 

[fronobulax]

All beagles look alike to me.

and all cats are gray in the dark, but that is a different innuendo.

 

[Guildedagain]

and all cats are gray in the dark, but that is a different innuendo.

Not this one.

 

[JavelinaJoe]

Veer..

Cult classic movie...Used Cars. What a great movie!

I was an extra in that movie. Loads of fun!

 

[FNG]

I was an extra in that movie. Loads of fun!

Awesome!