when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

[86barettaguy]

been thinking of upgrading a cheap guitar I have. naturally, the question "is it worth the money and the trouble" popped up. and really, how do you know if it is? I'm considering getting it an OFR, new tuners and new pickups (well, ok, I would be getting everything used for this one) because this guitar would really benefit from this. but I'm not sure if I should be doing it.

how do you know if it's "right" to mod a guitar?

[jgcable]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Its almost never right if you are considering resale value. Stock is always worth more. If you need to upgrade it to make it more useable than go for it.

[Newc]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

If it's a cheap guitar now, it'll still be a cheap guitar with better hardware, but it'll be more useable. You might get what you put into it, depending on the buyer - if he sees the new hardware as making it better, and worth the price, he might go for it.
However, if you approach it from the standpoint of making the guitar useable period (as opposed to making money off of it), then by all means, mod the hell out of it [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
Yes you can put more money into hardware than you did the guitar - there's nothing wrong with that IMO. Yes, you could spend the same amount on a higher-grade guitar with better everything, but if you mod it over time (months), it's not the same as if you bought it outright; if you dropped $800 on a new/better guitar at once, then something came up and you needed the money, you'd be screwed, whereas if you put $50-$100 extra here and there into a $400 guitar, and you need extra money, you just put off the other mods until it's financially viable to continue.

Newc

[metafaza]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

jg, I was wondering, if you put better elements instead of stock ones, doeas it still degrade the value of a guitar? From my perspective I'd rather have an OFR than a noname bridge. Can you elaborate a liitle more on that?
Art

[Newc]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Modded vs Stock is entirely up to the buyer in question, IMO. Mods are usually personal expressions and done to one person's particular taste, and that narrows the market.
However, a Stock guitar has two markets - the Modders and the Puritans. The Modders see the potential to express themselves without having to undo someone else's mods, while the Puritans see one that "escaped the torture chamber".

Of course it also depends on the guitar itself, though there is a market for every model/brand.
If you modded a Harmony Strat, someone would complain about it and devalue it, even if you upgraded everything but the logo.
Others would say - "damn, if Harmony did 'em like this, they'd sell".

Newc

[jgcable]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

If we are talking about high dollar GMW type mods than the resale can increase. Adding an OFR can never hurt a beater if it is done correctly. Cars are very similar to guitars. You usually never get the money you put in mods back. Putting 4 grand in top shelf aftermarket parts on a car will usually net you under 1 grand in increased value if your lucky. Guitars are the same way unless you can score top shelf upgrades at next to nothing prices. Think of it this way. If you add a $100.00 OFR and 2 new Duncans at $75.00ea will you now be able to sell your guitar for $250.00 more than before. The answer is no. You could probably get less than half back of the money you put in and forget about the labor. You never get that back. Adding alot of upgrades to a beater guitar might be more costly than actually selling the beater and buying a factory used guitar that already has what you need.

[Newc]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Which still makes absolutely no sense to me, as the most popular double-locking aftermarket (and stock on higher-end models) is the Original Floyd Rose. EMGs are among the top-selling pickups (for both aftermarket and stock). So, assuming a black OFR is the most-requested hardware upgrade from a pro shop like GMW, and the most-requested pickup swap/factory upgrade is an EMG 85/81 combo, and these upgrades add cost to the final model, how in the hell can you NOT add at least half that value to the resale of any guitar of good quality? [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

Newc

[j2379]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

when the mods cost more than the guitar....silly

& as far as collectors go stock is better. even parts that were changed, that are better than original doesnt matter. when i had my gretsch i took a hundred or so off the value when i added sperzels, & yes it was worth it. that said most people "cheap" guitars.

[jgcable]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

If you order upgrades from GMW or even from the factory you expect to pay more. It is the same at the car dealer. Have the dealer install nicer wheels and a better stereo and you will expect to pay more. Do it yourself and try to sell it and you will not even come close to what you invested in it. When I cruise pawn shops,Ebay and local guitar stores I am always looking for upgraded guitars. Think about it. Bring in a import Jackson with the stock trem and the stock Jackson pickups and you will get exactly the same offer as bringing in the same exact guitar with an OFR and a pickup upgrade. EMG's certainly add value in the resale but not nearly equal to what they cost and how labor intensive they are to install. I used to be a huge modifier of all my guitars similar to you but I never saw the return. I could take a USA strat and scallop the neck better than the factory, add better pickups than the factory, set it up better than the factory, add better electronics than the factory and I would get 1/2 of what I put into it and 0 of the labor cost and 1/2 of what a stock used Malmsteen would go for. You have to upgrade and personalize for your own head and forget about adding value to the guitar. The value should be personal to you. I just don't see dropping $200.00+ into upgrades on a beater when you can sell it and spend less and get one already done. My students do it all the time. They buy a $99.00 BC Rich Warlock and add $150.00 worth of pickups in it. Then they decide they don't like it anymore and are shocked when they can barely get what the pickups cost alone when they try to sell it. I tell them that you should have sold it for $75.00 and added it to the $150.00 they spent on pickups and go out and buy a $225.00 used guitar that has the features they are looking for. I have a friend who dropped $200.00 into a J-Turser $79.00 stratocaster. He bought all new Dimarzio's and electronics and pickguard from MF. He will be lucky if he could get $125.00 for it and the sad thing is that he will sell it. The good thing is that I will probably get it from him for around $100.00. I will then do what all of us "techs" do. I will part it out and make at least $100.00 profit on it because that is another thing that guitars and cars have in common. The sum of their parts are worth considerably more than the total unless you are talking about the vintage rare stuff. I used to take $69.00 Musicyo Kramer Focus guitars and part them out for at least $125.00 until everybody caught on and ruined it. I used to get $50.00 for the neck alone. Bottom line... upgrade for yourself and to enhance your playing and sound and forget about adding monetary value to your guitar.

[paddok]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Wait, so you guys are telling me that if I ever try and sell my black Ibanez Rhoads copy, with bright green Dimarzio X2Ns, nobody will ever want to buy it ? [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[pro-fusion]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Upgrading does not, and should not, have anything to do with resale value.

The question to ask is: "Will I have the guitar I really really want when I'm finished upgrading?"

I just went through this with a Model 5 that I sold on eBay. I bought the guitar (an '86 w/Kahler Pro) for the purpose of turning into my everyday player guitar. To that end, I blew $100 on a pair of EMG-81's (a great price, btw), and another $120 on a Kahler APM3310 fixed bridge (another good price for a NOS hard-to-find item), and used a Kahler flip-type stringlock I had sitting around and had purchased for $50.

So, at the end of this process, I had over $550 invested in this guitar. Enough to get me in the ballpark of a no-graphic early '90s USA Soloist. And guess what, after all those mods, I discovered that I really still wanted a USA Soloist more than a Model 5. I ended up selling the Model 5 for $350 after I bought a Soloist. But the point was not really the money--the point is that all those mods didn't convert the Model 5 into "something else".

And at least the Model 5 was a quality guitar to begin with. I see absolutely no point in taking a really cheap-ass beginner guitar, like a MusicYo Striker, and trying to "modify it into respectability." You will still have a guitar with crappy woods and sub-par frets, no matter how much fancy hardware you attach to it.

[pro-fusion]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

On the other hand, I just swapped bridge pickups in my Soloist (which already had a non-stock pickup when I bought it). I love the guitar, and the change in pickups is just to make it that little bit better. I'm not trying to convert "lemons into lemonade", to use an old cliche (one of my strengths...)

That's the crucial difference--I don't recommend sinking big bucks into a low-ball guitar unless you are absolutely sure that it will be what you really want when you are finished.

[86barettaguy]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

so, basically, I should keep this one the way it is and do mods to my two main guitars instead. not because of the value thing but simply because I'm unsure.

man, I need more kramer mutts... mutts are the greatest... maybe I should get a new neck for my '86...

[pro-fusion]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Well, the first step, in my opinion, is to figure out exactly what it is that you really like/want in a guitar. If one of your cheapies provides a good base on which to build that guitar, then go for it. But recognize that at least some of the cheap factors on those guitars are things like woods and frets that can't be upgraded (at least not easily).

Of course, you could start getting into new necks and such, but at that point you might be better off starting from scratch and buying Warmoth bodies/necks, or searching out old Kramer necks/bodies to match together, rather than using a cheapie as your building block--since you would be talking about a significant cash outlay no matter what.

Since I'm a neck-thru guy, I've never gotten into the mix/match thing with necks and bodies, but I may have to try that sometime, after seeing what Newc has put together.

[lerxstcat]

Re: when is a guitar not worth "upgrading"?

Originally posted by 86barettaguy:
so, basically, I should keep this one the way it is and do mods to my two main guitars instead. not because of the value thing but simply because I'm unsure.

man, I need more kramer mutts... mutts are the greatest... maybe I should get a new neck for my '86...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Would you mind telling us just what make and model you're thinking of modding?

Even not knowing that, I think JG hit it right on the head. You can't upgrade with resale in mind, because the upgrade may devalue the item in being non-original. Seems ridiculous, but it can be so. My '77 Les Paul Std. is worth
LESS for having Grover keys and DiMarzio
PAFs, even though they're a huge improvement over the stock hardware. I could go back in with stock stuff though,
it's not like I cut it up for a Floyd.

If you're modding a plywood-bodied guitar
it'll still be a plywood-bodied guitar and worth virtually nil at resale.