Now the DOD has sold!

Just yesterday, the DOD sold for my higher asking price on Reverb, at $65 + $10 shipping.

So let's put it all together:

Purchase Price: $65 shipped for both
Sale Price: $220 shipped for both
Net: $155 profit

After the ebay and Reverb fees, I'll end up with about $145 profit. Not too shabby!

So....once again I do not currently have any active flips. I've been going to pawn shops looking for the next one, but haven't seen anything worthwhile. I'll update you once I do, and do some gear and tech reviews in the meantime.

~C

Half of a Flip Done! Maxon AD-80

Well, the Maxon has finally sold...

I was getting impatient. Some nibbles on Reverb and no real interest on Craigslist, so I cranked the price from $115 to $135 and put it on eBay.

Remarkably, it sold, within 24 hours. Wow! eBay still has the wider market. Probably a "duh" observation but it does prove an important point:

• Maximize the markets you use. If one market has higher commission (fees), reflect it in your price. You may be surprised at the results.

I surely was!

Buy Price: $25

Sell Price: $135

Net: $110

Not bad! I should add that this pedal did need work, and it amounted to cleaning the pots, nothing more. I took a risk on buying a pedal without knowing the issue fully, but in my calculation, I could sell a nonworking AD-80 for more than $25, even if I couldn't fix it. Either that, or I had a good enclosure and some decent components for $25.

So that's half the flip. The DOD 280 is seeming like a tougher sell, but I think it'll come through. I had a potential buyer in Brazil ask me about shipping to his country and seemed interested, so maybe that'll hash out. Not a huge profit there but I've played the 280 and had a "meh" viewpoint on it, so it'll go, and I'll count the Maxon as a win.

Keep your eyes out for those good deals!

~C

Gear in Review: Menatone Blue Collar

I'll admit, I'm currently getting rather impatient as I wait for the Maxon and DOD pedals to sell. I've got my eye on a new pedal (which I won't share at this point as I'll talk about it if and when I get it...) and to afford it, I need to unload those pedals. I'll still net a small profit, but occasionally I need to get something for myself, you know? :)

At any rate, in the midst of my boredom, I'll share another pedal review. And this one is my go-to dirt, which makes it a worthwhile review. I don't think this pedal will ever...EVER leave my board.

Menatone Blue Collar

Brian Mena has something of a cult following among a lot of circles. He doesn't make many pedals, but he's fairly famous for preferring point-to-point soldering over PCB wiring (though he occasionally does PCB) and still managing to fit his circuits in reasonably-sized enclosures.

I first fell in love with Menatone listening to reviews of the King of the Britains pedal. Something about British growl got to me and I kept looking into Menatone, trying to figure out what I wanted. Some amazing pedals, but the one that many were talking about was the Blue Collar. Having recently gotten my main guitar, a Fender Standard Stratocaster in the limited black paisley finish, I was drawn to the reviews that emphasized how well the Blue Collar was highly paired with a single coil guitar like a Strat. I saw some reviews (like here and here), and knew it was really what I was looking for. Capable of getting mid-gain-ey but not over the top, fairly clean if needed, but definitely gritty, it was perfect, at least on paper.

I found a good deal (I think I bought it for $120) and jumped on it.

The day it arrived, I had about an hour to use it, and I plugged in just the Blue Collar to my amp, so I could see how it sounded without any other coloration. In a word, I was impressed. This pedal sounded great!

I don't think it's limited just to single coil guitars, as it could fatten up any sound, but having a presence knob and the ability to add some sparkle by increasing the tone, it really is quite compatible with a Strat. In hardly any time at all, it became my go-to, kicking off the Behringer Vintage Tube Monster (reviewed earlier) and beating away any other dirt pedals I came across, until I found a Klon clone pedal that runs in to the Blue collar to add extra dirt, but the Blue Collar is my always-on pedal. It is my tone.

I highly recommend anything from Brian Mena in the Menatone line. I've seen a lot of praise over the Red Snapper, and that might be a neat pedal to pair with the Blue Collar (a la the Fish Factory custom pedal). You should look into their pedals if you're looking for your tone.

Brief Tips on Flipping

So, over my time flipping guitars and gear, I've gained a bit of experience and reached a groove with which I'm comfortable. As always, your mileage may vary, and your approach can certainly be different, depending on the funding you have, the gear in which you're interested, and the risk you're willing to take. At any rate, here's a few rules I follow:

1. Your paying/trading price has to leave you a fairly considerable profit margin: This might go without saying, but if you pay $580 for a $600 guitar, you're probably going to lose money or make
   
   no profit, reason being that you may have to pay for travel (gas), shipping (and packaging, and insurance...), fees if you're using a website, etc. I typically will only invest in something if I can make close to double what I pay. This allows me to flip with a low asking price if I want to sell quickly, or if I want to maximize profits, I don't have to worry about breaking even after the bits get taken off  the top. Plus, this adds justification to the sale. Like my below flip of the Martin Ukulele, it required me to pay $100 (actually, $80) out-of-pocket, but I was all but certain I could make at least $100 more off of the sale, and I surely did. I would only drop that kind of money if I was sure I could make a considerable profit, otherwise, that money's better in savings.
2. You should buy something you know something about: again, this seems like a no-brainer to me, but you'd be surprised the people I see buying gear about which they know practically nothing. Looking up the price of a guitar on eBay or elsewhere is not a sure-fire way of knowing the price of an item. Look it up: what materials are in it? In what country was it made? Even more important, what do other musicians think about it? The Ibanez flip I recently did involved a guitar I didn't know much about (ART100) but forum searches showed that there was a decent following for the guitar. That made it worthwhile, again considering the price I paid and the potential money I could get off of it. I more than doubled what I paid because I recognized a good investment.
3. You need to know your way around inspecting and running tech on what you buy. It would be a mistake to buy a Fender MIA Telecaster if the neck was warped, or worse yet, not original to the instrument. You need to know your way around these instruments. How to inspect string height, action, intonation/setup, fret wear, electronics, etc., and how to run the gear through its paces -- what to listen for, what to adjust. A lot of the problems with instruments might lower the resale value, but they can often make for strong negotiating chips when buying gear. I bought an 80s MIJ Telecaster at a huge reduction because the wiring was all messed up. I saw the back and knew it would be an easy soldering job, but the pawn broker knew that most consumers wouldn't buy something that made no sound, regardless of how easy the fix would be. They'll sell it for just a tiny profit at that point.
4. Buy things you wouldn't mind owning: every once in awhile, you make a great buy on a well-loved item but no one pulls the trigger on buying it from you. This often happens for the higher-end gear, like a MIJ 52 Fender Telecaster reissue I got on the cheap. I ended up getting practically no profit off of it because people wouldn't buy it at the typical price others bought it at. It was frustrating, but it's the truth of the matter. Unfortunately, I didn't have room for that extra guitar so I took it for a small profit. That was a real way of showing me this fundamental rule. I loved the guitar but really only got it for making profit. If I had figured it'd be ok to keep, I'd have an amazing guitar for not much investment. The recent pedals I bought ($60 total for a DOD 280 and a Maxon AD-80) follows this rule well. They haven't sold now a week after putting them up for sale, but if they end up on my board, it's pretty great. Both pedals have a strong positive reputation and sound great.
5. Buy lower-priced items rather than big-ticket items: In my experience, it is really hard to unload the higher-priced items, especially locally. I might be able to sell a guitar for $200 or $250 to the occasional buyer around my area, but anything more than that is really tough. Most folks looking at higher-priced items are in love with trading rather than buying outright. A lot of gear forums are the same way. Don't get me wrong, you might get a buyer, especially if your asking price is below what most people ask, but then you're losing potential profit and spending a lot of time on little gain. Now, if someone tried to sell me an American Stratocaster for $100, I'm sure I would take it and try to resell for $500. That doesn't happen, though, at least not to me and not that often otherwise. People might recognize that price as a good one but may want to try to trade their way into it rather than paying the money, which makes it tough. Plus, big ticket items cost more to ship and insure, store, etc., so keep that in mind. I make a fairly good amount of profit getting items in the $10-$100 range and selling for substantially more. You're welcome to pursue the higher-priced items, but the profit margin is typically lower because the sellers know what they have, even if they're pawn brokers. I saw a great 90s Gibson LP Double-Cutaway that was gorgeous at a local pawn shop...their asking price? $1200. But you can get MIM Fenders for around $150 every day and make decent profit for little effort.

I hope this helps. I enjoy the activity but wanted to share the lessons I've learned. Feel free to ask any questions you may have!

Fixing the Maxon AD-80, and an Important Lesson About Upkeep

So, a few days ago the Maxon AD-80 showed up in my mailbox, along with the DOD 280 pedal. Here are the real pictures:


Both in pretty good condition, and not too shabby at $65 shipped.

Unfortunately, the Maxon didn't work correctly out of the box. There are 2 output jacks, see here:

(ignore the chunky fingers.)

See how one jack has the word "amplifier" and the word "dry" by it? Yeah, that's messed up. Truth be told, what it is trying to say is that the right jack is fully dry, and if you use both jacks into separate amps, it'll put the dry signal in one jack and the wet signal in the other, but if you just plug in to the left jack, you'll get the wet and dry signal. Get it? Got it. I made that mistake and thought it wasn't working at all. Moving on...

Plugged into the right jack, I could see what the seller was saying about it being out of whack. After all, I would turn the blend knob and barely get any delayed signal. But here's the big giveaway:

It crackled when I turned the knob.

Any experienced pedal tech knows what the crackle means. And it comes down to the mechanics of the potentiometer that the knob turns.

A potentiometer is basically a variable resistor that is controlled by a small metallic sweeper that moves with the potentiometer's shaft (which is then connected to the knob), which increases the distance from a static metallic sweeper to the mobile sweeper, hence increasing the distance and therefore the resistance. Ok, with me so far? Good.

Over time, especially when the knobs are not regularly turned, the inside of the potentiometer oxidizes, gets dirty, and whatever else, causing the connection between the mobile sweeper and the pad controlling the amount of resistance to go bad. In most cases, it just kills the connection entirely, effectively "turning off a switch" between the 2 lugs of the potentiometer (or 3, but that'll be covered later). Sometimes, the connection is so weak that it has its own resistance or doesn't send the signal well, causing discrepancies in the audio. Any time a pedal tech turns a knob and hears a crackle, their first thought is "dirty pot." Seriously!

There are a number of products with their own cheering (or booing) sections on how to resolve the issue, but the main issue is to clean and lubricate the connection so that it will continue to operate properly. Since most pots are fully enclosed, oil-based lubricants/cleaners are best, because they will pick up the particles as they are cleaned off and won't rust/oxidize the insides. My go-to is typically either Liquid Wrench or WD-40. I know there are a lot of techs who are against using WD-40 as it causes some chemical reactions and may (emphasis on may) wear out the pots more quickly. However, I'm not dealing with a Klon Centaur or any multi-thousand dollar digital effects pedal, and potentiometers are cheap and replaceable, so I go with an easy fix that works and has never failed me.

UPDATE: I was doing some research to support that WD40 is an effective contact cleaner, and while I believe it is, and folks seemed to support that, products like DeOxIt tend to have less corrosive and more lubricative ingredients, lessening wear and improving life (see here here and here). I'll probably get it eventually if I do more pedal tech, but I won't hesitate to use WD40.

A short application of the WD40 (which was also a great adhesive residue remover, I'll have to write that down...) and the pot was moving smoothly. Plugged it back in and it worked perfectly, no issues at all. Really great sounding pedal. Very warm and organic. Provides a bit of lushness similar to analog choruses at the right setting.

Consequently, I've fallen in love with the pedal, but the chance for quick profit is tempting. I've put it up for sale on Reverb and Craigslist and I'll leave it there for a couple weeks and see if there are any bites. If yes, great, if not, I'll keep it. The DOD is up there too. I definitely bought that to flip it, but I've always wanted to own one for a brief time just to see how the opticals work.

My Favorite Flip, and It Only Took One Step!

I've done quite a lot of flipping in the past 9-10 years, but I have one that sticks with me as being my favorite.

A couple years ago (2011), a new store opened in Urbana, called Buy-Sell-Trade. The shop had an operation in Springfield as well. Similar to a Pawn Shop without the loan side of things, so folks could drop by and sell their gold and silver, collectibles, etc., and people like me could swoop in and buy some of the items.

Side note -- this business has closed down for being absolutely toxic as a business. Apparently they bounced checks to those selling stuff, couldn't pay employees, etc., which is really skeevey if you ask me. Read more about that scandal here.

I actually bought a signed baseball from them, signed by an old roster of Twins players. They had a lot of guitars in their windows and on other displays (including old vintage 60s tube amps, the kinds you buy from Sears, but they were asking way too much). One guitar got my attention because it had the Greco brand, and I knew that there were people who loved collecting Grecos. Here's some pictures (from when I took it home, so I apologize that you know what happened next):


So this was for sale with a price tag of, I believe, $180. Given the condition of the guitar, that seemed pretty high. I decided to do some further research and see what I could figure out. After hitting up a few forums, I came to the conclusion that the big Greco enthusiasts liked the copies that came out of the Matsumoku plant, especially the Gibson copies. This was an original design of theirs, and so wouldn't have as much value. The tuners, at the time, were a hodgepodge, and the finish was quite cracked up, so I wasn't too keen on getting it.

However, after going back to the shop a few times, I decided to take a chance. I asked how much they'd be willing to do and their offer was $150. I told them that I appreciated the offer but that was too much, to me. They put it back, and I had already moved on, looking around at some of the amps. Before I went out the door, they asked if I wanted to make an offer on the guitar. I think the person was a co-owner (and given their reputation, not the person with best intentions...). I told them what I had learned, and said that I could make an offer, but it would be really low. They said that the worst they could do was say no. My offer?

$35.

And they said yes.

It took some research on their part but I allowed them to do the research and they decided it was fair, given the guitar's condition. So I took it home and opened it up. Apart from a cracked pickguard, the electronics were all there, but really messed up. Nothing worked on it, and would require some work. Luckily, with the addition of a tone capacitor (to replace an old and presumably broken one) everything was working great. Some WD-40 on the pickup and you could see red pearloid around the pickup poles, which was really cool. The neck itself had some chipping and dings, which I repaired using superglue and some light sanding. The sanding really lightened up the wood on the back of the neck but it became smooth and fast. New tuners for $15, and with a total of a $50 investment, I had  a decent working guitar, but nothing I would consider a keeper. I decided that was the end of the "improvements" and I would just cut my losses there and try to sell the guitar for $80-100. So up it went on Craigslist.

I waited.

And waited.

...and waited...

And no real bites. Well, shoot, people probably aren't interested in this guitar! Well, let me drop my asking price to $60. Just see if I can break even.

Finally, a bite. Someone e-mailed me, interested in the guitar. Apparently he had owned something similar back in the day and was interested. He asked if I might be interested in a bass. Of course I would be. We arranged to meet.

So he tried out the guitar and loved the sound and its simplicity. I described the improvements. Then he brought out the bass.

Brand: OLP (Officially Licensed Product)
Model: MM2 - MusicMan StingRay 4-string clone

(stock photo, but the exact type I have)

I didn't know much about it, but decided to try it out and see how it played. I never owned a bass and would have liked to own one, so I went for it. Made the trade, straight up.

It wasn't until I got home that I realized what I had. It was a GEM of a bass, with a lot of supporters who viewed it as one of the best values in basses.

See here, here, and here. (Note, they're all from TalkBass.com. I don't really hang my hat on other forums that aren't dedicated to bass players. They're a strange lot, and tend to keep away from the guitarists...for good reason.)

Playing it, there's a couple things that stand out. First, the sustain. This thing has the most impressive sustain that I have ever played. It plays for so long. It makes for a great tone. Second, the tone itself is great, though lacking in the sparkle or spank of active pickups. I've heard good passives but the low notes and tone requires a good active preamp. In the past couple weeks, I've actually installed an inexpensive 2-band EQ active preamp and it really had promising results. There might be benefit from going to the vintage tone of AlNiCo pickups, but I don't want to put much into this or ruin what it already has going for it.

This goes to show you that some flips are not meant to profit. In a way, this was the greatest flip ever because I only spent $50 and I ended up getting a keeper bass that I plan to have with me indefinitely. Always great!

~C

Gear Review: Behringer VT999 Vintage Tube Monster

Speaking highly of a Behringer product is often a source of discredit among musicians. After all, their gear is not that terribly expensive, so how could it actually be good? Seeing as I'm in a different camp, where I see products as a jumble of metal and electronics components, I realize that any company or manufacturer is capable of making quality equipment. It's typically quality control that makes for differences in cost, which means you should be wary of inexpensive products, but don't dismiss any gear simply because of its cost.

I've owned a few Behringer pedals and they have all been decent, but nothing compares to my experience with their VT999 Vintage Tube Monster. This pedal completely blew me away as an overdrive pedal, and it took a lot to take it off my board.

This pedal has 5 controls -- Master Volume, Gain, and a 3-band EQ. You can really dial in a lot of tones, from mid-humped rhythm, to treble-enhanced lead, and anything else. There's a lot of tone afforded by running signal through a 12ax7 tube, though I would recommend testing out the stock Chinese tube you get to see if it's workable, and putting in something more recognizable and pre-tested if it doesn't work as well. I put a JJ 12ax7 in with amazing results. Monster of tone. It even has a built-in noise gate which works incredibly well. I had a telecaster with some noise issues in my church (sconce lighting that really was noisy in the grounding) that this fixed in a jiffy.

The pedal is large. It takes up a lot of real estate, and to me, it's fairly unnecessary. Look at this gut shot:

There's a LOT of unused space in there, and while I know tubes tend to warm up and need some space, this seems a bit excessive. This also means it's a great modding platform, and there's a few mod kits out there that help. I've never tried them but I hear they add some additional tonal variety. My biggest suggestion would be to install a second circuit in all that space by re-housing a pedal in there. Something like a boost or compressor would really improve the efficiency of the real estate.

In short, it was the size of the enclosure that eventually convinced me to move on. I had some great tone out of this and would not hesitate to buy it again, if I had the space. It's, quite frankly, the best OD pedal in the sub-$100 area. I had to get 2 boutique pedals to finally take this off the board, and even then, it took the right kind of boutique pedals to make it happen.

If you're on the lookout for a pedal, regardless of your budget, I suggest you check this one out. It's a worthwhile investment. I used mine for over 4 years and it never failed on me.