Screaming good deal on an A2 snakehead in Orlando! Underpriced!

[mrmando]

Here's a dealer ad on the Orlando Craigslist:

http://orlando.craigslist.org/msd/4864498642.html

That is not from 1920, it's a Loar-period snakehead, and worth a good chunk of change more than the dealer is asking, even with its missing pickguard and loose binding.

The dealer refuses to ship, otherwise I'd be on this myself. Weird, I can understand individual sellers not wanting to ship, but an actual dealer who runs an actual music store?

In the photos, the bridge saddle is on upside down! I don't mean it's rotated 180 degrees so the compensation is off, I mean it's upside down, so the slotted side of the saddle doesn't even show. Granted, there aren't strings on it in the photos, but that is a very weird thing to do with a bridge saddle.

So given the incorrect dating, low pricing, refusal to ship, and bridge-saddle shenanigans, I think it's safe to say we're not dealing with a Nobel Prize winner here.

If you live near Auburndale, Florida, and are looking to save a pile of cash on a Gibson snakehead, either to keep or to flip for a nice profit, get thee to Jimmy's Vintage Music.

P.S. Nice arrow-ends with coffee buttons! Mmmmmmmmmm...

[pheffernan]

Thanks for the heads up, Martin. I've made an inquiry from within the state!

[Petrus]

When an instrument is sold unstrung I would be concerned about neck issues. Twist and/or bow or warp.

[pheffernan]

When an instrument is sold unstrung I would be concerned about neck issues. Twist and/or bow or warp.

At that price, one could put $300 into a neck reset / replane and still come in well under market.

[mrmando]

When an instrument is sold unstrung I would be concerned about neck issues.

We do not know why it is unstrung in the photos, and we do not know that it is being sold in that condition. Maybe somebody consigned it with really cruddy strings on it, and the dealer removed them and decided to shoot photos before stringing it back up. One sees this on eBay occasionally. As I've already pointed out, the dealer is doing several other things that don't make sense, so shooting photos with no strings on the mandolin fits the observable pattern of behavior.

It has a truss rod, so the risk of neck issues is somewhat lower although not nonexistent.

[jefflester]

Already gone?

[mrmando]

Heck yeah, it wasn't going to last long at that price. pheffernan, did it go to you?

[mrmando]

An image for posterity.

Little bird sez Jimmy may still have the mandolin, but might have been tipped off about the value of snakeheads ... so the price has gone up.

[mrmando]

Well, this one went south. Sometimes these things don't bounce the way you hope they will. A lot happened behind the scenes, with people who may wish to remain anonymous, so I won't name any names ... but I know there are some disappointed Cafe members out there -- although I think it is Jimmy who bears the responsibility. I don't know how a guitar shop owner welches on an agreed-upon trade, plays bait-and-switch with prices, and manages to stay in business.

[Jeff Mando]

I hate when that happens. When eBay first started I spent an insane amount of time, around 18 hours a day looking for deals. It was great, like panning for gold, except you didn't even need a pan. I found something about every hour and once a day I got a screaming deal. But, just as often, between the time I made my payment with Buy It Now and the item getting shipped--somebody would get to the owner and tip them off and the owner would change their mind about selling it--welching on the deal. Don't worry, I'm allowed to say that, my ancestors are from Wales! And you know it was sour grapes on the part of somebody else who wanted to buy it, and tipped them off. Still burns me up, when they have agreed to sell it and have already been paid. C'mon, be an adult!

[barney 59]

I have noticed from following various items over the years that sometimes there is a surge of interest after it gets discussed on MC. To a certain extent we 're shooting ourselves in the foot by bringing an item out in the open like this. It is possible that sellers also become aware when it gets discussed here ---if general consensus here is the seller has undervalued something and the seller gets wind of it -you bet there is every likelihood that the seller will pull the item to regroup and most of us would do the same! Maybe some well meaning soul sends a private message to the seller "You may not know this but....." What used to happen a lot and not so much anymore on ebay was a no reserve auction on something pretty valuable and the seller has at least some awareness as to what they have..The bidding is slow on the thing and the seller figuring that they weren't really planning to give it away gets cold feet late in the auction and pulls the item. I never personally had someone refuse to sell me something after the auction had gone full term.
There is a certain dishonesty,and I'm as guilty as the next, when someone has an item listed and through some folly is not going to get the proper return on their thing and as a buyer we exploit that! Heck, I may be more guilty that most since I have actively hunted and acted on those types of listings! ebay, for the most part, works the way I would like it to work. Back in the day if an individual had something to sell they had newspaper classifieds which could be expensive and inconvenient or they could carry the item to a dealer or maybe even to a pawnshop. I have had the experience of doing those things and pre internet you would be often offered a price that was often really low and some of those low balls came from dealers that have good reputations and are in business to this day (and who I will leave unnamed.) I could give you stories about some things that I had witnessed done by some well known high end dealers with stellar reputations that were downright nasty! I had seen many items purchased by dealers at one price and end up on the rack for 4 times that price! There are a lot of justifications or excuses for that, granted, but the seller of the item ended up with the short end of the stick. I do believe that it is better dealing with them now that they are in a more competitive market. I can't think of any pawnshop that ever had a good reputation, they mostly operate as a place for desperate people!. A pawnshops real purpose was to provide a short term loan to people who needed quick cash back for collateral --before credit cards -not buy things outright and resell them.
ebay created a level playing field -forced a level of honesty on the brokers, who previously had pretty much a monopoly. and brought a great many things out of attics that people were sitting on because they previously had,as individuals, no easy way to sell them. We should be, if we're honest about it,expecting good fair deals at good prices, not super deals because of someone else's ignorance or misfortune.

[Jeff Mando]

Well, yes and no......

Due to eBay and the internet, in general, the selection of vintage instruments available for sale has never been better. There are tons of great instruments on eBay, Reverb, Gbase, etc., all at top retail prices........

When someone underprices an interesting piece, then it becomes subject for conversation, and the competition to purchase it increases, obviously, as in this case. When a dealer underprices something, it is fair game, but usually it is first come, first served. It this case, he wasn't willing to ship, so that limited buyers' access to the item and gave the dealer time to "wise up". That's another reason I prefer eBay to Craigslist--99.9 percent of eBay sales are shipped. Also, the Buy It Now "locks" the dealer (seller) into a set price that cannot be raised. (who ever heard of negotiating UP???) Unless, of course, they change their mind and decide not to sell. As my buddy, says, until you get the item in your hands, the deal is not done.

As far as leveling the playing field, sure. If Grammaw has a Mastertone banjo and puts it on eBay with a no reserve auction starting at a nickel, it was still end up selling for thousands of dollars at the end of the week, as it should. However, if she decides to put a $500 Buy It Now, it will sell in about 3 seconds to the first or second person who views it! Did she get taken advantage of? Of course not, she got $500 bucks for something that was taking up closet space--she did great. Is the person who bought it a bad person? Of course not, if the person who bought it is a dealer, then they get to make a profit--that's why they are in business and how they make their living. If the person who bought it is a player, they got a nice deal on a great banjo. Everybody wins.

When, I've gotten the best of a pawn shop, I can't feel too guilty--just karma for all the stuff the bought cheap. It all works out. I will say, I've been broke before, and sometimes a pawn shop is your only friend. If you are hungry, selling a $300 guitar for $50 is a great deal. You can't eat a guitar, as they say......

[mrmando]

Well, perhaps next time I see something like this I'll post a teaser and ask people to PM me for details, instead of hanging the ad out in the open for everyone to see.

[Jeff Mando]

Well, perhaps next time I see something like this I'll post a teaser and ask people to PM me for details, instead of hanging the ad out in the open for everyone to see.

Probably wouldn't have made any difference with this seller, unless you had your own "agent" in Orlando to stop by his shop and buy it---quickly!

[allenhopkins]

Any "dealer" who advertises on the internet, even if it's locally through CraigsList, is a fool if he/she doesn't spend 15 minutes on Google figuring out an approximate market price. Jeez, it's so damned simple to get a feel for what an A-2 snakehead might be selling for.

So I have no sympathy for the dealer who underprices an instrument, and then has "seller's remorse" and wants to up the price. If he/she had done a bit of homework ahead of time, the mandolin would have been listed within the current ballpark of vintage-market prices.

If the seller wants to back out of the list price, because of "wising up" to what the mandolin might bring on the market, then I have major doubts regarding his/her reliability and professionalism. If that's his/her line of business, not too good at it, eh?

[jclover]

I also have zero sympathy for a "professional" who makes a deal and then decides to break it for the sake of greed. He made a deal with an acceptable profit margin and then broke it to try and make a deal with a higher profit margin, causing considerable inconvenience for the initial buyer. Maybe he does not plan to be in business long.

[fatt-dad]

zero sympathy also. . .

I also wonder, if you are going to be a jerk, why not then let the original, "Buyer" know there's a bidding war - at least you could then cough up some money for your interest rather than just, "Lose out?"

f-d

[goaty76]

What was the original asking price?

Phil

[mrmando]

Phil: it was $1399. Listed as a "1920 Gibson A2." It was also another one of those ads where the mandolin is described as "all original" even though the pickguard is missing.

If you go to the dealer's Web site, there are photos of his shop, including a display case with 4 or 5 mandolins in it ... so it's odd that he apparently didn't know how to put a saddle on an adjustable bridge.

[Tom Sanderson]

I called about it. The guy who answered the phone (didn't get an a name) said he doesn't have it in his shop, never did. He said his brother posted the Craigslist ad, and he knows nothing about it.

[mrmando]

What time of day was that, Tom?

Jimmy was replying to email about the mandolin at 2:16 AM Eastern time, and again between 6 and 7 AM. Then by 1 PM both he and the mandolin had gone poof, and he left his know-nothing brother in charge.

[Tom Sanderson]

It was the next day after it was posted around noon. I had emailed them the day you posted it on the forum at about 630 AM. I said I was interested in buying it and wanted to know what time they opened. They replied to me the next day, just saying they opened at 11AM, and that the mandolin was "clean clean clean" . I called them immediately.

[mrmando]

Whoa, Tom ... I started this thread at 5:44 AM Eastern on TUESDAY, and I know for a fact that a certain individual went to the store that afternoon and was told the mandolin had been sold. You're saying you got a reply on WEDNESDAY implying that it was still available?

[Tom Sanderson]

Yes. I would have been ok with an honest answer , something like: Sorry, we made a mistake about what the mandolin is because we mostly deal with guitars , therefore it is not being offered at that price.

[mrmando]

Well, as a non-attorney I don't know exactly where to draw the line between incompetence and fraud, but I sense that this dealer's conduct is pretty close to that line...