Made me ill!

[ripley156]

I had to bring a friend to the eye doctor in Appleton today. While in the waiting room, I read a newspaper to see what was what...In the Classified ads, (under HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS, no less) there was an add for a Dell laptop (paid $1100, sell for $600), a Blue-Ray DVD Player (Paid $585.00, sell for $350) and a GIBSON LES PAUL CUSTOM with CASE for $400.00)

Needless to say, when I called it was already sold...The guy on the phone said "geez, that went fast too, sorry)

Arrrrggghhhh!

[SEEGERMANY]

Here's a little gas for the fire. Six years ago, I had a new neighbor move in next door. Two weeks after moving in, they had a garage sale. My wife called me at the office and said that the lady next door was selling an acoustic guitar for $10.00 and wanted to know if I was interested. She said that it only had four strings on it and the name started with an "M." I told her that for $10.00, I could always use it for kindling. When she got back to the sale, the guitar was already gone.

When I got home that evening, I started asking the neighbor about the guitar and she said that it had belonged to her dad and when he died, it was given to her. She had no use for it, didn't give a rat's ass for it, and was tired of it cluttering up the attic. Bottom line, it was a pre-WWII Martin that had belonged to her father's father. Final sale price = $8.00 because of the missing strings.

P.S. Guess who found and bought this jewel. My postman!

[Bengal65]

OMG! What stories! Sheez, kinda sad in a way!

[Racerx2k]

(In Jerry Lewis voice...) OI! Da pain!!!

Oh my God, that last story about the Martin about made me sick. I gotta start visiting garage sales!

[budgolf]

(In Jerry Lewis voice...) OI! Da pain!!!

Oh my God, that last story about the Martin about made me sick. I gotta start visiting garage sales!

No kidding. Seems like some one is always finding the deal of a lifetime. All I ever run across is junk.

[SEEGERMANY]

In my neck of the woods, the best place to locate vintage equipment is in rural towns or communities at "estate sales." I hate to sound harsh, but I've found estate sales where older women had recently lost their husbands and they were trying to get out from under a pile of debt. Most times, they have no clue what their husbands owned or its value. That's when you strike. After all, it's not my duty to educate.

[khabibissell]

I dunno guys, if I found a valuable guitar at an estate/garage sale being sold (by an older woman especially) for a ridiculously low price I would tell her to keep it or help find out what it is worth.

Sorry, I can't rip off people when they're vulnerable. I'm funny like that...

[Racerx2k]

No kidding. Seems like some one is always finding the deal of a lifetime. All I ever run across is junk.

for some reason, I'M always the one giving the deals. I've "quit" playing in bands, 2 or 3 times, before, only to buy new stuff, all over again, after getting the bug to play, again. And until I joined here, I didn't know that the sickness that I had, actually was fairly common, and had a name: G.A.S.. My wife bitches about my buys, but if she looked at how bad some of YOU guys have GAS syndrome, she'd be kissing my ass!

[fett]

Speaking of Martins. I was working at a thriftstore as the receiving guy. Go figure.:ROTF: Well, the boys on the truck were offloading the donations. So, the driver hands me a guitar case and states he knows nothing about guitars. I opened the case and it was a "Martin" . I about died. I said; "Do you how much this thing is worth?" He didn't. This was years ago. I was one of the first persons to start selling on-line for the benefit of a thriftstore. I may have been the first. The guitar sold on E-Bay for $2,500. The manager gave me $300 for listing it. However, I always thought that we should have contacted the donor to inform them that they donated a very valuable item to make sure they really wanted to. I was overruled. The rationale was they were rich and didn't need the money.

[Coyote]

Uh Oh Oh man I got done reading those stories and I just puked all of the keyboard, Uh Oh here it comes again



All of this talk about this makes me won't to go down to the pawn shop and see if I can find a good deal,

[Robert Burns]

Ten Dollars?? Why not get a 1942' D-18 for free? Just have your
grandfather buy it in 1943 for $210.00!! A fortune back then.
My Grandmother told me that he wanted the D-45 but it was....
hold for it.... $600.00!!!!!!!!! Now people bought brand new Cadillacs
for $600 back then so that was impossible money.
' So for a measly extra $390.00 i could have an $80K martin now!
Instead all i have is this near mint D-18 just like Elvis owned...for Free!
Last appraisal i got on it was in 2002 and it was $9500.00
Just be born into the right family! :-))

[Robert Burns]

I once went to an estate sale that had a ton of watches..wrist and pocket. ( i used to be insanly into watches) So the lady tells me that
her father was a watchmaker in NY for Bulova in the 30's, 40's and 50's.
It was most of his tools...and many watches. I purchased what i
feel was about $1200 worth of PW's for $400.00 (like Kahib, i didnt want
to walk away screwing the old lady) (she only wanted $20 each for them)
I did find a prescription bottle full of a dull silverish metallic substance..
It weighed about 2 lbs! On the back, her father had written..."Platinum".. I explained to the nice lady that she had better
take this somewhere to get it appraised, or sell it to a larger Jewelry
company, as she had somewhere around $4K in the small Prescription
bottle! :-)) I could have walked away with it for $5.

[pagemalicious]

I remember I walked into a guitar store years ago. Me and my friends would just go there and see what they had in and admire the stuff we couldn't afford.

In the corner was this really nice Vigier Excalibur Indus. It played and sounded amazing. Then I looked at the price tag.....


£250!!!


They go for £1000ish else where, but this was second hand and I don't think the store guys had a clue what they had.


I tried to borrow money from my parents because I was too young to work but sadly it got sold.

I'm still gasing for one.

[coloradoman25]

I have a 1920s Kalamzoo kg-21 that I paid 8$ for. Not a huge score but damn good none the less.

[khabibissell]

I once went to an estate sale that had a ton of watches..wrist and pocket. ( i used to be insanly into watches) So the lady tells me that
her father was a watchmaker in NY for Bulova in the 30's, 40's and 50's.
It was most of his tools...and many watches. I purchased what i
feel was about $1200 worth of PW's for $400.00 (like Kahib, i didnt want
to walk away screwing the old lady) (she only wanted $20 each for them)
I did find a prescription bottle full of a dull silverish metallic substance..
It weighed about 2 lbs! On the back, her father had written..."Platinum".. I explained to the nice lady that she had better
take this somewhere to get it appraised, or sell it to a larger Jewelry
company, as she had somewhere around $4K in the small Prescription
bottle! :-)) I could have walked away with it for $5.

Good on you dude! Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be honest and help people...