How to sell a guitar on eBay
There has never been a guitar I've parted with where I regretted selling or trading in for something else. I've owned some fairly ritzy axes in the past, both electric and acoustic (one of them was an upper-end Ovation Balladeer with a stereo output). Once I decide it's time to get rid of a guitar, I get rid of it and don't look back.
Lots of guys buy guitars but never sell them. Or if they do sell, it's rare when it happens.
The reason some guys hang on to guitars is because of what's involved with selling one on eBay.
Important note: What I'm going to tell you below is absolutely not the cheapest way to sell a guitar. Not by a long shot. But it is the easiest.
What most people deal with when selling a guitar on eBay, and how to work with it
Once you know all the costs involved with selling a guitar on eBay, you'll feel more comfortable selling that way if that's what you want to do.
Typical scenario:
- You have a guitar you want to sell, and the guitar is in pretty good shape. Not perfect, but still good.
- You have absolutely no idea how to ship the guitar properly, nor do you have any packing materials to ship with.
- You have absolutely no idea how much you're going to lose in fees and shipping.
Here's how it works.
Step 1. Use a gig bag instead of a guitar case no matter what the guitar is
(Tip: If you want extra padding, get the bag for acoustic guitars even if shipping an electric.)
A guitar shipped in a guitar case vs. in a gig bag is the difference between a 18-to-20 pound shipment and a 9-to-12 pound shipment. Use the gig bag to ship with.
If you're thinking, "That's insane!" No, it isn't. All that matters is the bag so the guitar doesn't get scratched up; UPS takes care of the rest. Keep reading.
Step 2. Understand eBay and PayPal fees
A 10% fee will be taken by eBay, and another 3% fee will be taken by PayPal.
Step 3. Understand how to list on eBay
Always post the listing with free shipping, and adjust your price to accommodate for shipping costs and 13% eBay/PayPal fees. Ship free and adjust price. Why? Because it will make the guitar sell faster.
Step 4. Understand how much it costs to ship from a UPS Store
A guitar in a case will run you somewhere between $100 to $150 to ship. Yes, it will cost that much. A guitar shipped in a gig bag will be around $75 to $90. Obviously, this varies dependent on how far it has to ship.
You use UPS Store for three reasons. First, they take care of the packing and boxing and you don't have to pack a thing. Second, they take care of the forms for you. Third, they have full tracking from start to finish.
What you're paying for with UPS Store is convenience. Worth it? If you don't feel like packing a guitar yourself (which is a royal pain to do) and don't feel like dealing with forms, yes it is.
Step 5. Understand how to ship
You always ship a guitar with signature-required-on-delivery and full shipping insurance whether the buyer asks for it or not.
If you don't ship with signature-required and insurance, there are some buyers out there who will try to say "I never received it" and try to get a free guitar out of you. You avoid this by shipping it with signature-required and insurance. If the buyer tries any funny stuff, send him straight to UPS and tell him package was shipped fully insured, and if he did not receive it to contact UPS and file a claim.
Believe me, you do not want to take the risk of not using a signature or insurance when shipping guitars, because it can cost you dearly.
Step 6. Do not sell internationally
Stay within your country borders because otherwise your shipping costs will jump up to an insane level.
Without fail, you will always get a guy who will write you a question on your eBay listing and ask if you ship to his country. Ignore it, because he's trying to get you to change the listing in the hopes you will not adjust your price for international shipping and may even try to get a free guitar out of you as described above. Don't fall for this. Stay within your borders so you can keep your price the way you set it originally.
An example of how much you will lose with all fees taken out
We'll use the example that you sold a guitar for $500 within the US, and the guitar will be shipped 1,000 miles to its destination by UPS Store.
13% of $500 is $65. You end up keeping $435 before shipping.
Assume $100 for shipping with packing by the UPS Store, signature and full insurance. Now you're left with $335.
On a $500 sale, you keep $335, which is close to 33% taken out from what you made.
Yes, that is significant. But at least you now have a very good idea of how much it would be.
Yes, there are many other ways to sell cheaper
The method I listed above is probably one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) way to sell a guitar on eBay.
But like I said, it is the easiest because there is nothing to pack.
This is the process to ship after your guitar is sold:
- Get the buyer's shipping address; you obviously need that.
- Drive to your local UPS Store with the guitar in a gig bag.
- Ask UPS (yes, you must do this) to ship the guitar with signature-required-on-delivery and shipping insurance for the amount you sold the guitar for.
- Pay the shipping fee.
- Get a receipt with the tracking number.
- Go home, update the sold listing with said tracking number.
- Send a message to the buyer that the guitar has been shipped UPS Ground with signature required on delivery and full shipping insurance.
That's it.
Again, there are many ways to do this cheaper, but none easier. You pack nothing, you don't have to fuss around with any stickers or labels, you need no packing materials since UPS Store takes care of it all, and so on. Expensive? Yes. But very easy.
Adam-12 television show review
Finished watching Dragnet a little while back and have been watching episodes of Adam-12 off and on.
Now I will admit up front that Adam-12 is nowhere near as good as Dragnet is. Not even close. However, the styles of both shows are very similar. Why? Because Jack Webb took part in creating the show, and was the executive producer as well.
There's one episode of Dragnet where you will see Malloy and Reed there. It's in the episode "Internal Affairs: DR-20".
By the way, yes you will see the same sets and locations shared a lot between those two shows. You'll also see many actors that worked parts on both shows too. So if you watch Dragnet first and then Adam-12 second, you will instantly spot familiar sets and think to yourself, "Yep! Seen that house before. And that hotel too. And that road..." You'll also think to yourself, "Yeah, I've seen that guy before. And that lady too.."
Adam-12 is considered to be the last "good cop" show. And by that I don't mean "good cop show", but rather a police show in where the cops are shown as the good guys where they exhibit high moral values. Sense of duty, sense of honor, sense of police brotherhood, rigid responsibility to the citizenry, etc. All that stuff is in the show.
The show ran for a long time. Seven full seasons from 1968 to 1975. I've no idea how well it did in the ratings, but it must have been good enough to keep people watching it.
I've almost finished watching the second season, and to be honest I don't know if I'll watch the rest because I'm not nearly as interested in this show as I was in Dragnet.
Here's some observations I've had about the show so far.
Malloy is rude
The attitude of veteran cop Malloy is of a guy who is flat out rude. It's really difficult to like this character, and in all honesty I don't. The character is a guy with a permanent bug up his ass.
What's even more annoying is that there have been several times he's been introduced to women by his partner - hot women, mind you - and he won't give them the time of day. We're talking ridiculously hot girls here, and Malloy wants no part of them. And in the few instances you see him with a woman, who of course is supremely hot, he just doesn't care. It honestly makes you wonder if he's gay.
There's one episode in particular where he gives a traffic ticket to this insanely hot blond who is absolutely loaded with money. This blond starts pawing after Malloy and totally wants to bang him, so much to the point she even bought him a Porsche, which he of course refused to accept. Yes, really. Malloy wanted nothing to do with her. Totally hot chick, absolutely loaded with cash so she's not a gold digger, and a fine prize for any man, but... nope. Malloy couldn't be bothered. At the end of that episode, he finally relented and went on a date with her, which you never see because it's only said he would. After the date, his only explanation for why those two won't be together is that he told her something that would "make sure" neither of them would see each other ever again. My guess is that he told her he's gay. What other possible explanation could there be? The guy just needs to come out of the closet.
If a big-racked, hot-assed blond with a perfect face and body along with being loaded with money came up to me and said, "Here, have a Porsche. Now come over to my house and do me", I would have been naked and in her bed right after the word Porsche.
Malloy at times also drives like a complete idiot. Almost every time he pulls up to a scene, he slams on the brakes, screeches the tires and I'm surprised he doesn't run over a baby on his sudden way to a halt.
Basically speaking, Malloy's character is just a tough one to believe. Stiff as hell, hates women, sarcastic in a real non-funny way... the guy is just rude.
Reed is either really stupid or really smart depending on what week it is
Reed is the rookie cop and a much more likeable character. The guy is married, and even though his wife is a total ditz, that's fine. For some reason I get the impression that his wife used to smoke a ton of weed (or maybe she still does) and was a total tart in high school. Her character is just that she's basically a busybody and is always complaining about something whenever she's not busy. I think the writers probably had a hard time depicting what a "1960s cop's wife" was supposed to be. When it came to writing for an older cop wife, that was easy because all she had to do was be elegant but firm. But for a young cop wife, the writers had no clue.
Reed tries his best to make friends with his partner, Malloy. But Malloy being the total rude dude he is always shoots him down with one of those non-funny sarcastic idiot comments (again, writer's fault there). Reed, not knowing any better, just takes it. Over and over.
There are times when Reed is smart, but other times when he is ridiculously stupid. It's almost as if the writers for the show would simply flip a coin to decide whether or not Reed would be smart or stupid for that week's episode.
Reed's character definitely has more of a moral center than Malloy does. Malloy is hardened and crusty, but Reed isn't and actually has a heart when it comes to his work. That's a good thing, because above all else, it's the only thing that makes his character likeable.
Storylines
All the stories told, said honestly, suck. And the reason they suck is because of the stiff acting. I don't blame the actors for this but rather the writers. The actors are handed a script, and the director says "Okay, act like cops", so the actors take their best guess as to how a cop is supposed to act like. The end result is acting that's a bit on the plastic side.
Good episodes of Adam-12 is when the show brought in some really good actors that weren't playing cops and had actual character to them. For example, that episode where I talked about that super-hot blond that was pawing after Malloy? She was a good character, and it wasn't just because she was hot, but because she was also interesting.
Whenever actors are playing drunks on the show, that's always a good episode because they are hilarious.
Like Dragnet, Adam-12 absolutely hated hippies and went after them with a vengeance. Anyone who smokes weed - even if the person has just one joint that's not even lit - is as far as the show is concerned a total menace to society and should be locked up immediately. I don't even smoke weed, but when watching how the show treated hippies, I was thinking to myself, "You have GOT to be kidding me..."
Cops on Adam-12, of course, never smoke weed. Ever. And this was during the late 60s and early 70s. Riiiiiight... Maybe if Malloy smoked weed, he wouldn't have been such an idiot.
Aside from the hippies, Adam-12 also hated what they coined the "counterculture" of America at the time. The show depicted the cops "just trying to do their job", but there were many instances where the cops outright harassed citizens for basically no reason. You'd have to watch the show to know what I'm talking about.
Plymouths and AMCs
The cop cars used in Adam-12 were all Plymouth Belvederes in the early years, a Plymouth Satellite for one year, and AMC Matadors after that until the show ended.
It was Jack Webb's idea as far as I know to have the patrol car appear as if it were an actor. As such, you see shots of the patrol car quite often. And of course the patrol car was shown in the opening title of every show.
Are the Adam-12 patrol cars memorable? Not to me. The ultimate memorable cop car is the one used in The Blues Brothers, which was a '74 Dodge Monaco. That car was amazing because it was old, dirty and ran like a bat out of hell. Those Belvederes in Adam-12 have got absolutely nothin' on that shitbox Dodge.
I will say this however about the cars used in the show: At least Adam-12 had the nerve to keep up with the times and used cars the LAPD actually used, and changed them when it was necessary. Dragnet didn't do that. Friday and Gannon drove that same craptastic 1967 Ford Fairlane from beginning to end.
Is Adam-12 worth watching?
Somewhat. It's woefully dated. While it does have a Dragnet style to it, it doesn't have the flavor, but...
...it's been said that Adam-12 is like watching life through the windshield of a car. I'd have to agree with that. The more you watch the show, the more you think you're actually living in that time (in short bursts, obviously). With each episode watched, you actually start to learn the environment they patrol, get to know certain characters fairly well and yeah you feel like you're living in the "clean side" of the late 60s and early 70s.
You can get wrapped up in the Adam-12 world. Sort of, anyway. If you watched 4 episodes in a row, that's about the length of a short movie. Watch anything for that length of time and yeah, you get that "took me to another place" feeling. A little bit, anyway.
I'm not saying Adam-12 is great television or anything like that, because it is a bit plastic. But it is unique.
Cheap easy ways to prevent guitar theft (and gear theft)
I've learned quite a bit on how to prevent gear theft over the years. There are many methods of gear theft prevention, but here are the ways I've found that actually work.
Know that anything that can be carried by one man will always be stolen first
The first step towards gear theft prevention is gaining knowledge. And the first thing to know is that whatever can be carried by one guy is what gets stolen first. Always.
This means that guitars, pedal effects, microphones and so on can be stolen easily. It also means that larger items such as a 4x12 cabinet cannot just for the fact it's so huge and would be very difficult for one man to haul around, even if it's on wheels.
Most thieves are dumb enough to believe a sign
Let's say you're forced into the situation where you have to leave your gear somewhere unattended, such as in a practice space.
Assuming for the moment your friends (as in your band mates) aren't thieves, placing a sticky note on the neck of your guitar with "Broken electronics! Do not use!" is usually enough to stop a thief from stealing a guitar. He's not exactly going to plug it in and check because that would make noise and he'd get caught.
Sticky notes work for basically anything. "Broken, do not use" can be put on mics, amplifiers, pedals or anything else.
In fact, you could put all your carry-able stuff in a box, then just put a sticky note of "Everything in this box broken, do not use". Make sure that sticky note is really visible so a thief would see it. If a thief ever breaks into the practice space, he'll see the sign and most likely ignore anything labeled "broken".
Use a busted 4x12 guitar cabinet as a storage area
Thieves will not steal 4x12 closed-back cabinets because they're just too large to move, and you can use this to your advantage.
Buy a cheap used guitar cabinet, and if possible, get one with blown speakers.
Take the bottom two speakers out, put adhesive Velcro on the four corners where the speaker screws go, and cover the speaker holes with two square sheets of black fabric.
Whenever practice ends, take off the front grill, remove the black fabric over the speaker holes that's held on by Velcro, put all your microphones and pedal effects inside, put back the black fabric sheets and then reattach the speaker grill.
While this isn't a foolproof way of hiding your stuff in a practice area, it's certainly better than nothing.
If the practice space allows it, build a steel cage out of old steel grates
I knew a few bands back in the day that used to do this, and it always worked well.
Back where I used to live, guys used to rent practice spots in old mills. These were old-ass buildings where you could basically build whatever you wanted in there since the owner didn't care.
Guys in bands around the area were mostly blue collar types, and as such had access to things used on construction job sites either for cheap or free. One of these things were thick steel grates. These guys would cut these grates in such a way where they'd build a large cage out of them and use a corner of a back wall in the practice spot to put the cage together. On the front of the cage was a fabricated door on thick steel hinges.
If you're thinking, "That sounds almost like they were building a prison cell", that's not too far from the truth because it was basically constructed that way.
When the band was done playing, all the stuff went in the cage (drums, amps and all) and was usually locked down by a large steel bar with a large padlock at the end of it. And the industrial padlock was mounted in such a way where it was next to impossible to get a set of bolt cutters in there to cut it loose.
To add even further security, the band would put black sheets or tarps over the gear once in storage so any would-be thief couldn't see what's in there.
I can say for a fact that guys in bands who stored stuff like this never had their stuff stolen. Even the most desperate of thieves wouldn't put all the effort forth of busting into a thick steel cage without knowing what's in there first.
Take it home with you
This is the best advice on this list. When you're done with a gig or done with practice at the practice spot, take all your gear home with you.
Yeah, it's annoying to lug around all your stuff whenever gigging or practicing, but that is the #1 way to keep your stuff from being stolen.
Oh, and one final note. If you haven't done so, write down the serial numbers of your guitars or at least take a photo of them. It doesn't matter if your guitar is worth $10,000 or $100. Do it anyway. If your axe ever gets stolen, that's the only thing that can really identify it.
Why does a guitar neck sometimes buzz one day and not the next?
Earlier this week I picked up my Squier Strat and started playing it, but noticed I was getting some serious string buzz, so I put it down. The next day, I picked it up to play again, and there was no string buzz.
Was this magic? No.
On the first day I picked it up, it had been raining for a few hours and I had the window open in the room where the guitar was (I live in Tampa Bay Florida so it wasn't cold or anything). Because of the rain, the air got really thick with moisture, as in it got muggy, and even with air conditioning in the room, there was enough of an environmental change to shift the wood in the guitar neck. As such, the neck flexed a little, and... string buzz.
On the next day, the air and temperature went back to how it normally is (for here anyway), the neck flexed itself back into shape, and... no string buzz.
Is it normal for guitar necks to do this?
For modern guitars with plainsawn guitar necks, yes it is.
There are three ways a board is cut from a log to make a guitar neck with. It's either plainsawn (sometimes known as flatsawn), riftsawn or quartersawn.
Riftsawn is almost never used for electric guitar neck construction for the reason there's a lot of wood waste involved.
Quartersawn is used on more high-end guitar builds, but it's a much more expensive way of cutting boards due to the fact that it does take skill to actually have quartersawn wood cut correctly the first time, and the fact that quartersawn boards do not automatically qualify them as "good". As with any board selecting process, there will be good and bad boards from any log cut. Part of what makes quartersawn more expensive is that the luthier does have to hand-pick a board that not only has the straightest grain but also would make the best choice to form into a guitar neck. The process isn't cheap.
Plainsawn is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to get a log cut into boards, and that's what the vast majority of electric guitar necks use.
What makes a quartersawn guitar neck so desirable?
A quartersawn board has the straightest possible grain, resulting in a guitar neck that's very stiff.
In luthier's terms, this means you get a neck that's more "stable" compared to plainsawn.
Quartersawn necks can typically handle environmental changes a lot better than plainsawn can. Because quartersawn is more stiff, it resists excessive bowing/flexing. A real-world example of where quartersawn is good is with a gigging guitar. A guitar with a quartersawn neck can handle the hot lights of a stage or outdoor use a lot better than plainsawn can.
How do you recognize a quartersawn neck?
You just look at the grain. Or at least for maple-necked guitars (like Stratocasters and Telecasters) you do since nearly all of them use unpainted maple.
Is quartersawn always good?
No. There are times when using quartersawn does not make for a proper playing guitar.
For example, certain acoustic guitar builders will use quartersawn for the top of the body as it resists flexing/bowing quite nicely, but never use it for the neck as it can wreck not only the guitar's tonal character but also make it a difficult-to-play instrument.
Where electric guitars are concerned, there is such a thing as having a guitar neck that's too stiff, and with quartersawn you always run that risk.
Seasoned luthiers know how to pick a quartersawn board that has the correct amount of flex to it to avoid the neck-is-too-stiff problem. They know how to pick the right board because they've built many guitars and know which boards work and more importantly which ones do not.
Plainsawn, while cheap, is not "bad" and never has been. Some are quick to say things like, "guitars that have plainsawn necks use nothing but crap lumber". Well, that's not true at all because there are plenty of 20-year-old-or-greater Squier guitars out there, all with plainsawn necks, that never exhibited bad neck problems.
In the end, if you have a guitar with a plainsawn neck (which is probably true since most guitars are made that way) where the neck flexes and causes string buzz one day, don't worry about it. Just wait a day and it should flex back to normal. If it doesn't, a minor truss rod adjustment usually fixes the problem.
An example of a non-Custom-Shop Fender guitar that has a quartersawn neck on it is the Eric Johnson signature Stratocaster. He specifically wanted a quartersawn neck on his model, so that's what it's built with.
Why I may get a Squier Jazzmaster
Last Saturday I went over to Sam Ash in Tampa, Florida and they had just received a new crop of Squier guitars. Included in this crop was a Squier Jazzmaster in Candy Apple Red. I picked it up and strummed it a bit.
This was actually my first experience with a "traditional" Jazzmaster. As in the the kind of Jazzmaster with all the wonky stuff on it, meaning the bridge with saddles that have strings pop out constantly, the traditional top-load for strings, and of course the top horn electronics.
I almost bought the guitar. Almost. What kept me from buying it was that the store was trying to short-change me big time on a guitar trade and wouldn't even get anywhere near what I would have considered acceptable. But that's another story I may tell at another time.
What are the differences between a Jazzmaster and a Jaguar?
Players who look at the Jazz and [amazont link="fender jaguar"]the Jag think they're the same guitar. They're not. They may look similar, but they're two totally different instruments.
Neck: The Jazz has a 25.5-inch scale (same as Stratocaster or Telecaster) while the Jag has a super-short 24.0-inch scale.
Pickups: The Jazz has large overwound single-coil pickups while the Jag has skinny ones. What this basically means is that the Jag sounds Strat-like and the Jazz doesn't have as much treble and a lot more "honk" to it.
Electronics: The Jazz has a pickup toggle switch while the Jag has on/off toggles on the lower horn with the addition of a filter toggle.
Which would most players prefer?
Easy answer: Jazzmaster. The electronics on the Jazz are easier to deal with, and because of the 25.5-inch scale neck, the strings are more taut (as in "tighter").
On the 24.0-inch Jaguar neck, a common complaint is that the strings are "too bendy" because there's not enough tension. It's also common that most Jag players will switch over to a .010 to .046 string set or even .011 to .050 just to the strings don't bend or "flop" as much.
Is it true the Jazzmaster string saddles cause strings to pop out of place all the time?
Yes. When you play a Jazzmaster, you have to adjust your playing style. And while true there are aftermarket Jazzmaster bridges with saddles that prevent the pop-out issue, I personally believe you're better off just adjusting your playing style instead.
What makes the Jazzmaster so cool?
The sound, the "slow" vibrato system and the fact it's a very comfortable player.
Comfort-wise, the offset body of the Jazz is just amazingly comfortable whether playing sitting or standing. It's a shape that just molds right to you.
Sound-wise, the big single-coils have less treble compared to Strat/Tele singles, which in this case is a good thing because it gives the guitar more tonal character. To describe that character isn't easy, but it's best described as more "honky" and "surfy".
Concerning the vibrato system, it's called slow because you can't "dive" with it. Think of it as Fender's version of a Bigsby. You can only bend a few semitones at best, but you'd be amazed at how often you can use it.
Because the vibrato arm (which you know as "whammy bar") is longer and the vibrato system "slower", it does stay in tune much better than the Strat tremolo system. The Jazzmaster vibrato is one of those things that takes getting used to, but it's arguably the only Fender-designed vibrato that's any good and usable.
Why is the Jazzmaster not for everyone?
The Jazzmaster is not a guitar you can wail on because you'll keep knocking the strings out of their saddle grooves constantly. While it does have an amazingly good sound (and it truly does) along with an amazingly comfortable shape, it's those darned saddles that everyone hates about it.
In other words, playing aggressively on a Jazz simply doesn't work. If you try playing hard on the Jazz, the guitar will go out of tune constantly and that floating vibrato system (which by the way is non-locking and can't be "decked" like a Strat's can) may really annoy you.
However, if you play with a light touch (or can train yourself to) and don't mind using a pick with some flex to it (to prevent string pop-out), then yeah, the Jazz is great. You just have to know what you're getting into when you buy a Jazzmaster.
Why may I get a Jazzmaster?
For the reasons I said above. Very comfortable shape, good tonal character and that slow-style vibrato system is just amazing to play around with, and very usable in many playing styles.