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.

Hey all,

I have a couple incoming pedals that may or may not become flips. We'll see once I've inspected and played the pedals. What I'm receiving (and what I paid) are the following:

• DOD 280 Compressor Pedal ($40 shipped): I've been dying to get my hands on this, it's an older (reissued) optical compressor that is known to be fairly unique in the compression department. I bought it because the price was right, and I could easily flip the pedal if I wasn't happy with it. This isn't the actual pedal, but I believe it'll look like this:
  
• Maxon AD-80 Reissue Pedal ($25): VERY excited to get this, and at such a great price. According to the description, there is an issue with the blend knob, such that not a lot of delayed signal is mixed in even with the knob at full, so I'm hoping for an easy fix, but this was a no-brainer. Either I can't easily fix it and I sell it as a fixer-upper for at least double of what I paid, or I fix it, and have a very popular analog delay pedal either to use or to sell for over $100 (perhaps even closer to $200). Here's a stock photo: 

At any rate, those pedals are incoming, and I'll make a tech post or two for the Maxon and keep you updated on the flip!

~C

Other Features Coming Soon

All,

I wanted to share some additional thoughts regarding how this blog will eventually end up. Obviously, if I only focused on flips, I probably would have some dry spells...and with my family about to grow, it's likely that would really happen! So, to augment that content with other valuable information, I'll also be making some posts regarding pedals I used to own, my current loadout, and other gear-related posts. So, for example, I'll talk about what my current pedals are, what I've done to them, and what I think about how they work. I might include some video reviews, but I don't consider myself the greatest electric guitar player, so the jury is still out on that one.

I can also talk about the tech work I do on guitars and pedals on occasion. Sometimes a flip involves buying a pedal that isn't up to par, for a good price, and fixing it back up and selling it. Sometimes I'll buy a guitar that needs solder work, or new hardware. I'll post more about what I'm actually doing to the gear, to help those of you who are interested in learning more about the tech side of gear ownership. Finally, I do build pedals and guitars from time-to-time, so expect some build threads and commentary as I go through with that. I'm making new categories now to reflect all of that, so stay tuned for new content. I plan to post at least 1-2 posts per week. Keep me to that!

~C

Latest Flip: Ibanez ART100

...it came right out of left field!

Just made a flip yesterday. I didn't figure it would happen, but I did, and I let it. Sort of bittersweet. Here's the story:

I was doing my regular rounds at pawn shops when I discovered a new guitar, which looked great, but I hadn't read much about:

Really a great-looking guitar. A nice, carved top, Les Paul copy, with an impressive headstock and great color palette. Really, the binding on this guitar was topnotch:

Kind of a white-outline-around-black-binding sort of binding. Really cool, really smart. A small chip on the back showed me it was real binding, not painted, which made it all the more impressive.

I never had a chance to test out the sound, as this is not my way when flipping guitars. It doesn't matter if I like how it sounds, it only matters if others like how it sounds and are willing to pay for it. There were a couple of issues with it. Some scuffing and dents on the back, and both of the strap pegs were completely stripped out. Some of the dings convinced me that this guitar was probably dropped when the pegs loosened (maybe someone was pushing down on it? Not sure...) as there was a finish crack where the neck met the body and some dings on the bottom of the headstock. One of the tuners was loose.

I bought the guitar for $75, haggled down from $85. I assume they made the price low because of the issues, but it turns out they had such a low price because they didn't know what guitar it was. It was listed as just "Ibanez Guitar" while all the other guitars they sold had a model number. A few Google searches on my smartphone and I found out what I had. The ART100 went through a design change. Here it is now:

So the fingerboard inlay has changed to the rectangular type. Honestly, I like the old inlay better. Sort of a tribal graphic.

At any rate, I bought the guitar, with all of its baggage, knowing this guitar was $350 new and could sell for maybe $250 if really fixed up.

Repairs:

• Used the toothpick-and-wood-glue method to repair the strap peg holes and installed Planet Waves Elliptical End Pins in their place. I really like those pins! They lock the strap in place really well but it's easy to remove the straps.
• Used the same toothpick method to repair the low-E tuner which was loose. It would rotate slightly due to an enlarged screw hole. A single toothpick cleaned it right up.
• Electronics needed work. Not much, but the hot signal on the 1/4" jack was loose, as it was physically tightened in place. I soldered it good and secure.
• As a side note, one of the downsides of this guitar is the controls. It has a master tone but individual volume for bridge and neck pickups. This seems a weird combination, especially not having tone control for each pickup. I would recommend having master volume and individual tone controls. I didn't make the change, but it's something to consider. Or go to a 2-band active EQ.

And that's all she wrote. After that, and a good polish, I had a great guitar. When I plugged it in, BIG MISTAKE! This thing sounded great! Very hot, but not metal-hot if you didn't want it to be. It took pedals well but had a great warm clean to it. Even my bandmates were impressed.

But alas, this guitar was bought for a flip. Hesitantly, I put it up on Craigslist, with an asking price of $200. Because I love the sound, this price was firm.

It just sold yesterday. The guy who bought it was really nice, a drummer who wanted to learn guitar, so I showed him the ins and outs of it, etc., and he happily paid my asking price. It was a good profit but I will miss that guitar! The one thing holding me back from making this a keeper was the color. I already have a black strat and a black bass, but I don't consider myself a "black" kind of guitarist. I prefer colors, yellows, reds, blues. I would really jump at the opportunity if I got the same guitar in the silver sparkle color. Look at this!

So pretty...

Buy Price: $75
Sell Price: $200

TOTAL NET: $125

I still miss her!

Soprano Uke - Sold! Flipped!

Well, it didn't take long at all before the Martin ukulele sold. Up on eBay with a Buy-It-Now price of $250 plus calculated shipping, ended up selling for $250 shipped.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301036994423?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1561.l2649

So, that's my first flip after starting this website. Calculation time!

Buy Price: $80
Sell Price: $250
Less: $50 (shipping and eBay fees)

TOTAL NET: $120

Not bad for a single day of posting a sale on eBay!

Couple of take-home lessons from this for anyone interested in flipping guitars:

• Wait for the right price -- you should never buy a guitar if you think you'll only get lean profit back. I could have bought the ukulele for about $200 given the right circumstance but I would have had to wait longer for the right buyer, maybe too long for it to be profitable. It's better to let some deals go and avoid the paper-thin profits in favor of faster, bigger deals.
• Pawn shops are a great way to profit -- not as many people do what I do in terms of searching for deals at pawn shops. It's actually surprising, really. There's a lot of deals to be made. Get to know the pawn owners. You never know if they are looking to you for advice or whatever. I have a couple where they don't really know me by name but know when I come in they can ask me about guitars and I can give them my honest feedback.
• eBay is a great way to reach a limited market: I doubt this uke would have sold in my area on Craigslist. I'm glad eBay exists. It stinks that they charge so much in fees, and having to pay shipping makes it doubly tough, but in the end, I made over 100% profit by waiting for the right deal and putting it on the 'bay. It's better to sell those Gibsons and Fenders on Craigslist, where people tend to appreciate the value of those brands, but you need to reach a larger market. I will also toy with the idea of using Reverb, now that it is gaining steam. More on that later.

I've ended up using some of that profit to buy gifts, etc., so it's not all going to fund more music purchases, but I just made a big sale that I'll post in a couple days that will keep me in the black for searching some more for some deals.

Thanks for reading!

New flip: Martin S1 Soprano Ukulele

So, at one of the local pawn shops, I saw a Martin S-1 Soprano Ukulele for sale. Whenever I see something that might be of worth, I tend to pick it up, inspect it, and look up the going rate for a new version of the instrument as well as the used price (hint: I typically go to ebay to get a quick pricing guideline. What people are asking for is typically inflated, so keep that in mind.) The cheapest one I saw was for $300 used on ebay.

The price of the S-1? $300. This is typically what I call a right-on estimate, and in most pawn shops, that is not really what they're expecting it to sell for. You've seen the TV shows. You know that there's some negotiation. I have never paid retail on anything from a pawn shop.

However, when what they're asking is the same as what people are asking on ebay, it's a toxic sale. I could probably talk them down to what, maybe $250? There's no margin for profit there. Assuming I sell the ukulele on ebay, we're talking maybe getting $280-300 shipped, and with ebay's fees and shipping costs, I might even lose money.

Pass.

I even talked to one of the pawn brokers about it and he said it was something sent their way from another pawn shop in their chain (this was a new pawn shop that just opened in the area) and we both agreed that there aren't many people hungry for ukuleles in the area that would be willing to drop $300 on a uke. But I didn't push it at this point. I don't typically push the price if it's really high. You'll end up feeling like you negotiated well below the asking price but you almost always feel bad in the end because you can't make the tidy profit you were looking for.

However...

3 months later, I see that ukulele still for sale. I didn't inspect it closely, opting to look instead at some Epiphones and Fenders to see if there was anything of good worth (there wasn't), and I even bought a pedal to flip (this was a short flip. Bought a Boss CE-3 MIJ mid-80s for $30, sold on ebay for $65, so I won't go into that one). However, when I noticed the tag, I saw the word that really mattered:

CLEARANCE

God, that's a beautiful word. Turns out, it had been for sale all that time and people hardly even picked it up because the price was so high.

And their asking price now?

$100.

$100! Bingo!

Now, admittedly, I immediately went to what kind of profit I might make off of it, but I'm also a nice guy, and I have a lot of musician friends who might be interested. So the first thing I did was contact all my musician friends (the closest via text/call, others via Facebook) to see if anyone was interested. I would be even happier if I managed to get someone looking for a ukulele to buy a great one for 1/3 the cost. I let that fester for a couple days with no real interest, so then I went back in the shop.

Turns out, the pawn broker also needed a guitar re-strung. It was a Jackson with a Floyd Rose trem, so a pain in the butt to re-string, but when all was done there, I got $20 cash and turned around and bought the ukulele. I count the work I did for the $20 as taking off the cost of the uke, even though the broker considered it a $100 sale (for margins' sake).

TOTAL INVESTMENT: $80 (I'll ignore sales tax)

CURRENT OWNERSHIP: Martin S-1 Ukulele

Pics:

Now, this might be a short flip. I really want to just turn this into cash. After all, it IS the holiday season, and those presents aren't going to buy themselves. Plus I've asked for a uke for Christmas. This would be something I immediately owned, but I really would prefer a concert uke rather than a soprano, so this one will be a flip.

So far, it has been listed on ebay and craigslist for $250. What do YOU think will happen?

Stay tuned!

What is "Flipping Guitars"?

Hey all,

My name is Collin. I live in central Illinois. I love music. And that's the basics.

I love to buy and sell guitars, along with some other instruments. I've always been interested in finding great deals on instruments and making a tidy profit, but I also enjoy getting instruments into the hands of people who will really appreciate them.

Where do I find these instruments?

In my area, I've got a few pawn shops, plus there's Craigslist and other online forums. Typically, "the flip" starts with the pawn shops or Craigslist, as that's where you'll find instruments underpriced and under-appreciated.

I've already got a few stories to tell, so bear with me as I assemble those stories. In the meantime, I'll start talking about my current score, and the ways in which I might flip my way up.

How does flipping work?

In most cases, the people who really want decent instruments are musicians themselves. If you've heard any jokes about musicians, they mainly revolve around them having no cash. While that may be a broad over-generalization, in my experience it is somewhat true. However, these musicians also have a steady stream of instruments they're willing to give up for the right one, if it comes their way.

A "flip" is over once the gear I have turns to cash, and I'll add up what all I've gotten from the flip. Some flips are pretty long -- a guitar for another guitar, then traded for some pedals and a guitar, traded for an amp...and so on. Sometimes I'll keep the instrument or gear that I've traded. I take pride in the fact that, technically speaking, I haven't spent a dime on the instruments I currently have, as I've made enough profit from my flips that I have been able to account for every dime spent. That doesn't mean I'm a penny pincher, as I'm definitely a spender. But I also have a wife and family and do not want to impinge on that by using money intended for my family on personal things.

Make sense?

So if I get a new piece of gear, paying with my own cash, that's the start of a new "flip." I'll probably have several "flips" going as I move to recuperate my original funds and make profit off of the instruments or gear. Hopefully you'll learn from this on the savvy way to make a little income off of this. This is not a living. I have a full-time job. To continue to provide my need to try out and own new gear, this supplies the money for that. Got it? Great! Let's get started...