Shopgoodwill.com. Up to $600 plus five days out, and even Goodwill is hinting that something’s amiss. So is this a glossy restoration, a fake, or an amazingly pristine find?
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Shopgoodwill.com. Up to $600 plus five days out, and even Goodwill is hinting that something’s amiss. So is this a glossy restoration, a fake, or an amazingly pristine find?
I cannot judge the back of the instrument or the originality of the frets because of the lack of in-focus pictures.
The rest of the instrument appears to be in excellent original condition, except perhaps for the nut, which may be a replacement.
If you study violin building and repair techniques and put some of them to use, you will find that it is possible to polish an old finish in excellent condition to a high sheen with rottenstone and oil, followed by rottenstone and water. The technique is pretty much non-invasive as long as you don't rub too hard, because rottenstone does not cut to any significant degree.
It appears to me that what you see is an original finish that has been cleaned and polished by someone who really knew what they were doing.
And I could be wrong, but if you buy the mandolin and find out that I am wrong, the instrument is still worth $600.
And yes, I have seen some old Gibson instruments that were even cleaner than this one.
Could just be a clean one. While it may have been professionally cleaned, it still doesn't look like it had significant use. The market is soft for old A models, IMO. Be interesting to see how much it sells for.
Upon a second look - it's been refretted. It has T frets in now. Originally would have had bar frets. That's why the nut looks like it was replaced. Might have been. Although it was a good job with the strings not too deep in the slots.
I haven't seen bar frets in old Gibson's. Martins had them, but I don't think Gibson used them.
Gibson did not use bar frets.
My mistake. Sorry about that.
It's easy to confuse small frets with bar frets.
It looks like it will go for near retail price by the time the auction is over. It's up to $740 with over 4 days to go.
The moral of this story is if you see a nice piece being auctioned off and the price is low, don't post it on a forum.
I posted because it had immediately rocketed up (auctions are about one week duration), so those who haunt Goodwill had already found it. What is amazing is that, unlike, say ebay or CL or the classifieds here, that everything is a crap-shoot, posted with no knowledgable information, insufficient photos, so the chance of getting something with serious problems should be built into the price. On items I know something about (not mandolins!) very often the item sells at or above normal market value, is missing parts, or is almost guaranteed to have a terminal problem. Auction fever? Faith that nobody else spots a bargain?
I’ve been very lucky buying a few mandos on this site, but mostly for low-cost experimentation in sound and repairs. Most well below $100, including shipping. None worth more than that, even repaired. This listing is the first time I saw a Goodwill outlet express concern about the authenticity of an item, showing that someone understood that it might go high. Ethics!
That is my concern, also, with Goodwill. Doubtful they have a vintage expert. Not sure if they can pack properly. What about returns? Yet, online buyers somehow think they are getting a bargain..........and bid like crazy. It confuses me. It seems like a better bargain would be to buy from an established vintage dealer and pay a couple hundred extra......and know what you are getting.
Yeah, I got stuck on a few items over the years from SGW. Mostly they don't offer exchanges, or refunds nor will they honor seller's not revealing flaws or misrepresenting.
I think the best advice is to never, ever bid on a mandolin or an accordion on Goodwill online.
Just don't do it. Spread the word.
Mick
No returns, no warranty of condition, but to be a little (a trifle) fair, all these items are donations; whomever owned them isn’t providing any history and is not available for questions. Each outlet is different and independent. Only one of them seems to know anything about instruments and will even show a quarter inserted to show action height, and knows enough to inspect the neck joint. Several of them (South Coast CA, and one in Fl) take the opportunity to seriously overestimate shipping and gouge, so you do have to check the ship cost. So far, packing has been very good.
What we’re doing is donating to a charity that helps the homeless, so worst case, overpayment is charity!
I do get the impression, though, that this part of the operation is not entirely worthy or skim-resistant. They all deal with jewelry, gems etc. No audit possible.
Well, I *could* call the Seattle Goodwill and ask if they'll let me preview it ...
It's at $751, so I'm out. My idea of a bargain is half price (preferably less) and you can get one at Carters for $1500, but this one will probably keep climbing to over that amount, so no bargain here, depending on how you define bargain, certainly I would define it as "not paying retail"..........for me, I've had a lot of vintage instruments over the years and I don't need anything, I would just be buying to resell and there's no point unless you can make money, at least that is my motivation. At the local flea market last week I bought 4 guitars for $550 and sold them for $2800, I bought another guitar for $820 and sold it for $3000 -- of course, you can't do that when people are bidding left and right to keep you from getting it.......you've got to buy them from the "source" -- eliminating your competition and making your profit on the front end.....
OTOH, it looks nice and clean and it might make someone a great player. No harm in paying retail if you are going to keep it. No mention of case, which is funny considering how clean it is........?
Yeah, it's just me, but the only way I shop on-line Goodwill items is through eBay. The Seattle store and a couple of others do put very fair prices on books. Possibly because folks want physical books less than even mandolins or accordions.
Anybody catch the final price? It ended a couple hours ago.
$1289
I've actually been pretty fortunate a few times. But you have to be willing to go through the musical instrument listings one at a time. A couple of years ago, I won an absolutely flawless, mint condition Breedlove Quartz mando for about $650 and turned it right around for double that. The catch was that it was listed as a banjo so it had only a couple of bids on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by brunello97
The couple of times that I was burned by a bad listing, I got them to accept an exchange without much hassle. Using PayPal helps with that.
In addition to the problems outlined above with Goodwill auctions, they are not a good organization. They pay their top people very generous salaries and a very small portion of the revenue ever makes it to charitable causes. There are better people around to deal with.
Yup!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevin
I agree, but as far as used instrument purchases, are eBay or Reverb any better?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevin
It depends on the seller. Some are authorities on vintage instruments with years of experience, while some are pawn shops or worse........Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottDT1
Vague bashing, likely based on long-refuted rumors from old chain emails.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevin
There are about 100 regional Goodwill organizations in the U.S. Each one functions independently and has an independent rating from Charity Navigator, so if you have questions about your local Goodwill you can look it up: https://www.charitynavigator.org/
More info here, with no hyperventilation:
https://www.countryliving.com/shoppi...l-a-nonprofit/
In my neck of the woods the biggest thrift store chains are Goodwill and Value Village. Value Village is a for-profit company *and* appears to be closing the store nearest my house, so it looks like my donations will start going to Goodwill.
Anyway, we're talking about mandolins here. If somebody has a mandolin I want, I've never asked what they were going to do with the money.