Author Topic: Your Best Musical Bargain (Read 1374 times)

hammer · « **Reply #30 on:** June 07, 2014, 08:20:26 AM »

Tony:

If you had included one more fantastic item that you had received free I would have been tempted to have added...

Instruction as to how to burglarize high end musical instruments and not get caught... priceless (haha). I am SO jealous.

peoplechipper · « **Reply #31 on:** June 12, 2014, 12:37:56 AM »

OK, how about this; I got a Foxx fuzz wah for free from a guy who ran a recording studio; he had a Guild foxey lady(very early EH big muff pi) and the foxx; if I could fix the guild, the foxx was mine...as many of you probably know, fixing old EH pedals only requires resoldering everything and sure enough, it worked like a charm...sounded awesome too!...anyway, that was so worth it...oh, and I recently got a Vox ac15 for free too...a recent one, so not like it's anything...the Lenny Kravitz V used to have his signature on it in 2 places but they were removed before I got it...a funny thing about his setups though; the bridge was slotted so the strings ran straight from nut to bridge, no spread...never seen that before...Tony...I beat the snot outta that guitar and it now had p90's in it (stock pu's sounded like poo)so it has little collector value( Lenny wouldn't even recognize it)...oh well, Tony

peoplechipper · « **Reply #32 on:** June 12, 2014, 11:58:01 PM »

Here are a couple more...Marshall JCM 800 combo for $250, which I sold for same to a friend's daughter, a Traynor mark III combo I sold to a friend for $200 ( I had to scrub a lotta nicotine off that amp; shoulda charged for it...) a Yamaha blue label FG-150 that sounds fantastic; I literally put in a gig bag and said it's mine and no one did a thing...it's all being in the right place at the right time, in my case for other people too as they look for something...I think if you work long enough in music stores/pawnshops you become a music barnacle; the flagellum catches things at opportunte times...Tony

(Message edited by peoplechipper on June 13, 2014)

edwin · « **Reply #33 on:** June 13, 2014, 10:09:00 AM »

I guess a good strategy for getting killer deals is to become a good friend of Tony. :-)

peoplechipper · « **Reply #34 on:** June 13, 2014, 11:10:16 PM »

Thanks Edwin, that made me howl...I've never been especially lucky, although the number of times I could've died in bike and car accidents and didn't might put lie to that...when I started at the guitar shop and later the pawnshop things just came to me, sometimes for me sometimes for others; it's good to be a conduit for gear...the funniest thing is whenever I play a show someone says 'hey, it's pawnshop guy'...Tony

bigredbass · « **Reply #35 on:** June 14, 2014, 12:21:14 AM »

I wouldn't say I stole it, but I did get a little payback on a pawn shop.

I walked into one here in Nashville, and they had a Yamaha BB5000AII, the last version with the ridiculously wide fingerboard and 1st-gen TRB electronics, in Pearl White.

Well, it only had four strings on it (?!?), and those four had obviously been installed, shall we say, hurriedly . . . . whoever it was had cut them off really short, and they basically made half a turn around the post and were stuck down that hole in the middle of the shaft ! So I asked if I could plug it in, and NATURALLY I made sure it sounded like hell, as if it had a wiggle stick on it. I made the guy stand there, and every time I made a note, it just dropped in pitch. You see, I knew there was really nothing wrong with it, but I was hoping I was dealing with Chumlee and not Dan Erlewine !

I told him I'd like to have it, but seeing as how I'd have to replace the keys, buy strings, and probably take it to a repairman, I damn sure wasn't going to pay the 800 bucks he wanted, as I was probably looking at spending $400 to get it playable. I offered to give him my tech's phone number (an expensive well-known shop that caters to all the big players in town, NOT cheap, but very good).

So . . . .

No case, but $400 out the door. Put a set of strings on it when I got home, straightened the neck a few days later, played and looked like new.

J o e y

gtrguy · « **Reply #36 on:** June 14, 2014, 10:10:39 AM »

I love those Yamaha bass guitars; TRB-JPs, TRB-Ps, B1X, etc. The bass player from Earth Wind & Fire plays a TRB-4P but does not like to mention it.

peoplechipper · « **Reply #37 on:** June 14, 2014, 11:06:42 PM »

Good job Joey!
I love when guys try to pull stuff on me at the pawnshop and I actually know more than they do; I don't beat them over the head on it (usually) but it's funny...I'm a little less forgiving on the bike customers though (we sell bicycles) as I was in the bike industry for 15 years, had my own company designing frames and components, etc. so dudes try to trip me up or play me on bikes and they always lose...amazes me that people figure the pawnshop guy is stupid; seriously, if the guy was stupid he'd be outta business quickly...mind you, sometimes the great deal is still to be had...Tony

bigredbass · « **Reply #38 on:** June 15, 2014, 11:34:22 AM »

I was lucky. Here in Nashville, most pawn guys have seen LOTS of good guitars, being where we are.

That being said, I figured if he couldn't put 2 and 2 together (obviously it wouldn't hold pitch with half a wind on the pegs, and missing the big B-string the neck would buzz like hell), it wasn't my job to take him to school . . . . not when he'd tell the next guy through the front door his Omega SeaMaster was only worth 20 bucks !

J o e y

sonicus · « **Reply #39 on:** June 15, 2014, 12:13:25 PM »

OH yes___ Those pawn shop guys . I have rubbed their unscrupulous assessments in their face a few times ___JUST for fun with a smile Most of the time I just left them speachless ____ . LOL ___

peoplechipper · « **Reply #40 on:** June 16, 2014, 10:26:03 PM »

Hey, some of those '70's ones ARE only worth $20 to a pawnshop, if it's broken...some of them only sell for 2-300 working, so if it needs work, there's all the money...sad when that's the case, but sometimes it is...anyway, I am honest with folks and don't rip folks off; what's most common is people have no idea what stuff sells for used or how fast stuff depreciates, so they think I'm trying to rip them off and I'm not...Anyway, I'm not trying to hijack this thread, so let's get back to good deals! Tony...that '61 strat kinda takes the cake here and I'm not even a strat guy...

sonicus · « **Reply #41 on:** June 17, 2014, 04:02:08 AM »

And then , _____there was that diabolical 16 year old hippy kid who made a hobby out of pulling the wool over the eyes of pawn shops after having had a bad experience with them . In his eyes they were part of the corrupt evil capitalist establishment _____

He would take tube gear that had been cannibalized of all its internal parts except for some junk tubes that were just wired to filament transformer so the tubes would light up and give the false appearance of functionality of the equipment to a technical laymen. See how , the tubes light up ! ____ He would just ask for a loan on the gear that was really just a worthless empty facade of junk ! ___ A prop for phools ___ LOL !!!!!

That was his retribution for having been told by the pawn shop guy that his Crown Dc 300 was only worth $5.00________because it only had two knobs!

( The above is fiction, non of the people or events existed or occurred)

flpete1uw · « **Reply #42 on:** June 17, 2014, 06:10:07 AM »

Ha Haaa! Wolf, this enterprising young lad could have offered to throw in a bag of 10K to sweeten the deal. Everyone knows tubes sound better with them.

Pete

sonicus · « **Reply #43 on:** June 17, 2014, 09:42:23 AM »

No offense intended to any pawn shop guys . My stories are intended as intriguing entertainment only. If anyone on the staff of Saturday Night Live, OR Tina Fey reads this maybe they will offer me a gig as a writer .

OK musical bargains____These are real ! here it goes ; The list could get very long so I will not list all of them because no one would believe me anyway___

All legit ___
While still in high school ___ 1965 Guild Starfire $300

At a recent Guitar show 1990 USA Fender Deluxe Plus P bass fretless needing a little TLC $150

Soundcraft 200B 24 channel mixer frame with all ribbon cables from a nice producer in Los Angles $50
( now in my studio filled with mid-swept channel strips)

1949 Selmer Paris Trumpet in decent shape $300 , from a nice pawn shop guy in the state of Washington.

Ampex AG440B full track quarter inch machine in a roll around , fully functional with light use $110 from another producer.

Ampex AG440C half inch machine in roll around with DC servo capstan $100 , from a former original member of the band: It's a Beautiful Day.

I972 Fender Unlined Maple Neck fretless bass neck in a solid walnut body custom body with Dimarzio pickups ( I am thinking of replacing those with Alembic Activators), from another nice pawn shop guy in San Francisco that he sold it to me in his going out of business sale in the early 1990s. It had been there for a really long time since the 1980s and I often came in to check it out to see if it was still there. He originally wanted quite a bit more for it and told me that if was once owned by a member of Santana, but I do not know how much truth there is in that._____$300.

And then there is the truckload full of radio station gear that I was asked to pick up and remove that was blocking the fire aisle in the basement of a radio station . It had been removed from service during the analog digital conversion . It was all or nothing because the fire Marshall wanted it gone months previously , MCI JH110's / Otari MTR 12/ Gates stuff/ broadcast cart decks all kinds of stuff ,All very vintage _ALL DIRT CHEAP !!!!

There is lots more cheap stuff , AND I almost forgot the 2 Dual throat folded horn cabinets ( like the Cerwin Vega Earthquakes) loaded with JBL K155 18s , The deal was I had to take them both for $200 . They really did go on a Santana world tour and were part of Tom Costers's keyboard rig. I sold one of them to a friend immediately because I did not have a vehicle to fit then both in at the limited permitted pickup process . I still have mine LOL!

Next 2 empty cabinets from the GD Wall OF Sound complete with aluminum speaker clamps. One of them single 15 and the other 2 12's __ It is possible that one was for Mr. Lesh and the other either for Mr. Garcia or Mr. Weir ! I have since installed 2 K120's in the double 12 and a Gauss 4580 in the single 15.They are really HUGE and very heavy and awkward to handle and remain in my music studio on the bottom of a stack of their close cousins the Alembic A15 and early Bagend type.

There might be more stuff that I forgot about ___

(Message edited by sonicus on June 17, 2014)

peoplechipper · « **Reply #44 on:** June 19, 2014, 10:32:53 PM »

I tip my hat; that's an impressive amount of stuff...amazing what comes up if you're in the right place at the right time...I was wondering if they'res any bike collector geeks here? if so I'll start a thread on that for fun...ya know, vintage mtn bikes, cruisers, road bikes...Tony