I’m often asked, “How do you determine what my guitar (or bass or banjo or ukulele or ???) is worth when it comes in?” The first thing I can say is that after over sixty years of doing this, it’s still exciting and it’s still fun for me, every single time. Every instrument has a story, and finding out and understanding that story takes experience, careful inspection, and some detective work. A journey!
It all begins with an incoming phone call, or an email, where someone might say “When I was in high school,” or “My uncle…” or “I was at a flea market…”. There is so much stuff out there from almost two hundred years of stringed instrument making in America; attic finds, heirlooms, stuff bought in a fit of passion when we were younger. It seems endless, not the least because manufacturing in quantity to meet consumer demand is one of the many things we do so well in this country.
How do we go about finding new homes for these instruments? When you bring in one (or more) here’s what we’ll be looking for. It starts with “We're going to need a few days to get all the information we need for you”. We do our job carefully, starting with an overall cosmetic examination. Is the finish original or has it been refinished, or has it had finish added on top of the original, what we call “overspray"? This is important, as if there's been a refinish there’s no telling how much the surface of the wood has been sanded down. Overspray, just plain unnecessary and forever eliminates that wonderful patina of a well-settled older finish.
Next comes the physical going-over. Any cracks or breaks, old or new? Any past repairs, minor or major? We often see very pleasing examples, nice and clean and tight but sometimes it goes totally in the other direction, as in the loveliest 1870s Martin that came in recently showing some very amateur and unfortunate “repair". Marks from overtightened clamps pressed into the back of the neck to take care of a small crack, along with a few huge blobs of Epoxy. The crime of it! In the 19th century Martin offered, for an upcharge, a solid peghead, which this guitar has, with solid ivory violin-type friction pegs. The beautiful solid ivory pegs had been replaced here with recent inexpensive geared tuners but fortunately two of the originals came with it and I had matching ones(!) from an old wreck that had come in years ago. This 150-year-old Martin is a work in progress and I’m in love with it.
After determining structural integrity comes playability. Is the action height correct? Are the frets relatively unworn and level? Are the nut notches all at the correct depth relative to each other? The wound strings, as opposed to the plain ones, wear down the notches more over time and it will drive you crazy trying to figure out why the 1st and 2nd strings sound sharp when you’re playing in the first position and you’ve just tuned them all so carefully to the correct open notes.
OK, the “brass tacks” department. What can I give you for it? I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times I heard over the fifty-or-so years I ran my walk-in store here in NYC: “I looked online and they’re selling for…….” Many prices you see online (other than from well- established dealers) are hopeful pie-in-the sky prices, wishful thinking as it were, that have been up for quite a while which means that they're impractically high, are what they're not selling for, otherwise they wouldn't still be up there. What we do when we want to know a sensible selling price for a particular instrument is to look online at all that folderol, find several examples from the approximate year and in the same condition, and look at verified sales and current market conditions. Then I'll know what’s a practical price for me to ask for mine after I’ve brought it to the top condition that my customers expect of me.
All this takes time, often a few days, and I need to have an instrument here in my shop to go over thoroughly and personally. When you’re emailing me about helping you find a new home for your guitar one or two pictures will be good but please no more than that. All the pictures in the world can’t give me the kind of info I need, gotta have the guitar here in my shop.
I’d love to hear from you so when you’re ready just email me or call me at 212 675 2157 Mon-Fri Noon-4PM Eastern and I’ll help you get a respectful new home for your guitar, bass, banjo, ukulele or maybe something unusual, and find it someone new who’ll appreciate it as much as you have and as much as I do. All the folks on my personal mailing list, put together over sixty years of loving what I do, will take beautiful care of your family heirloom or just plain extra stuff, the same way I do.
