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Author
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Topic: Unknown Gold
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Eric Gearhart
Member From: Bellingham, Massachusetts, USA
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posted 29 June 2004 03:46 PM
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Who out there has bought a steel(or any instrument) at a low price, only to find out years later of it's astronomical(comparatively) worth? There aren't many pawn/junk shops that are not price savvy these days. |
George Rout
Member From: St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
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posted 29 June 2004 06:33 PM
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I agree totally Eric. But, in the past year, I did pick up three laps, two were $100 each, the other was given to me. None of them were spectangular items (one is an eight string), but all in very good shape. I find if you really want anything these days, whether it be records, Dinky toys or guitars, you have to spend you life on the trails. I'm a little too close to the U.S. border, and all you folks come over here and scoop up items where your $ goes 25 to 30 per cent farther, and stores around here play on that. Big stores in Toronto (check out the website of THETWELFTHFRET once in a while) and you'll see that they know the "value" of some of the old guitars. However, smaller cities and towns in Ontario, they seem to appear periodically in music shops. In Nova Scotia (just a day's sailing for you), some of my buddies have picked up some good ones including a Selmer for $100 to $200 in the last few months, even a Stringmaster and I think he paid $200 for it.
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Eric Gearhart
Member From: Bellingham, Massachusetts, USA
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posted 29 June 2004 06:44 PM
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Hmmm, I do have a week's vacation coming up.. |
Bryan Bradfield
Member From: Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
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posted 29 June 2004 09:08 PM
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Eric - I disagree with your last sentence. The pawn / junk shops are NOT necessarily price savvy. They just ask A LOT for whatever they've got. Therefore, today, you have to have a pretty good idea of what you are after. I tend to agree with your first sentence. There was a time when we could just about pick up anything, and then rejoice a little bit later for the rare "find", or write off a "bad" buy (or many of them) to the experience and learning curve.And George - stop taunting us with $200.00 Stringmasters. Nova Scotia is such a backwater. Isn't a cup of coffee still a nickel out there? |
George Rout
Member From: St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
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posted 30 June 2004 06:54 PM
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Hey Bryan, you be nice to my "home" province. But yes, they are still into "fish & chips"!!! I remember browsing the Hamilton (ON) music stores & pawn shops when I moved here (St. Catharines) in 1977 from Montreal, and there were many lap steels covered in dust under the counters. Even a year ago here, a chap had an Epiphone double 8 for $100, and my wife said, "What do you need another guitar for?". Her question was valid, but I'm sorry I didn't buy it!!! I went back a couple of weeks later, and this old couple (who had it), decided to take all the stuff they were selling out of their house to BC in their camper and sell it!!!! That's the second time I turned up my nose at an Epiphone double 8. Gee, I think I'll go for some fish 'n' chips now. |
Rick Alexander
Member From: Florida, USA
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posted 30 June 2004 08:17 PM
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I paid $75 for a 1951 Fender Dual Professional and $50 for a Fender Champion, both on the same day. The year was 1983, and nobody knew or cared what they were - the guy just wanted "those crappy things" out of his store! I was only too happy to oblige . . . 
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Rick Alexander
Fender Stringmaster D8, Fender Dual Professional, Fender Champion, Rickenbacker 6 String
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Ian McLatchie
Member From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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posted 01 July 2004 05:36 AM
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I guess my best buy was a Knutsen Hawaiian guitar which I picked up in a music store in Edmonton a few years ago for $850 Canadian, or about $600 U.S. I'm told it might bring up to $5000 U.S. today. Not that I'm in a hurry to sell it. In fact, it's the only instrument my wife doesn't actually WANT me to sell.Most of the electric lap steels I've bought over the past decade are now worth at least twice what I paid for them, and a few have escalated in value considerably more than that. It's not that I didn't have a good sense of the comparative worth of most when I bought them, but some instruments have certainly risen in value much more than one might have supposed. Which is why I wish I'd grabbed a frying pan when they could still be had for under a thousand dollars, not so many years ago. I keep hitting those yard sales every week, though. |
Paul Arntson
Member From: Bothell ,WA (just outside Seattle)
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posted 01 July 2004 11:12 AM
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My first store-bought lapsteel I got for $9 from a shop in Seattle in 1980. (Al's Guitarville).
The pickup assembly was hanging loose, but it was all there. Wish I still had it. It was a brown MOTS Supro Chicagoan.
About 20 years ago I got a Fender Champ yellow MOTS all orig for $95,but that was a hefty price back then. I'm waiting for the day that the $650 I just paid for my Epiphone horseshoe art deco 8 (1937) will seem reasonable. I think I overdid it on that one...(but I HAD to have it  ) |
Tim Whitlock
Member From: Arvada, CO, USA
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posted 01 July 2004 12:50 PM
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Ten years ago the wife happened on a Magnatone matching amp and lap steel for $100. A year later a fella had a 1956 T8 Stringmaster for sale for $650. He allowed me $275 trade for my lap and amp, making my net for the Stringmaster $475. Not bad. [This message was edited by Tim Whitlock on 01 July 2004 at 12:52 PM.] |
Rick Collins
Member From: Claremont , CA USA
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posted 01 July 2004 05:29 PM
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I paid $95 for a Fender Dual 8 Professional at a music store that was going out of business in Glendale, CA. With a new custom made case, it is the favorite of my four steel guitars.Rick |
George Rout
Member From: St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
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posted 02 July 2004 06:14 PM
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Hey Ian, if you were a really good friend, instead of buying that Knutsen guitar in Keoki Lake's home town, you would have called him, and guarded it until he came with his $$$$ !!!!!!! Geo |
basilh
Member From: United Kingdom
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posted 03 July 2004 03:16 AM
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A Gibson EH-150 Metal Body... bought in a 'Car boot sale' for $250....
sold for more than $4,500.00
Baz------------------
quote:
Steel players do it without fretting
http://www.waikiki-islanders.com |
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