20's Gibson Tailpiece cover.. Value?

[mandotool]

need to buy one from a friend at a fair price..
Thanks much in advance..

[mrmando]

$100-150, methinks.

[F-2 Dave]

need to buy one from a friend at a fair price..
Thanks much in advance..

You're too nice. Try to get it from a friend at a great price.

[mandotool]

i'm not that nice really ..its just that he was adamant that he'd take the going rate ....of course i have my own opinion but i reckoned i would do diligence and get an average...
so average away and take it easy will ya! yer killin me with this 150 stuff...its a cover not the whole enchilada..fer cus sakes

[Peter Kurtze]

take it easy will ya! yer killin me with this 150 stuff...

Martin knows whereof he speaks . . . you asked the question

[Vernon Hughes]

Last cover I recently bought cost me 125.00

[mandotool]

yes...i'm kidding of course...
thanks to all for weighing in..

[thunderfingers]

I,m looking for one so if you have any extras I,ll gladly pay you $125-150

[mandotool]

will do

[Joe Dodson]

I,m looking for one so if you have any extras I,ll gladly pay you $125-150

I'm looking for one too. Feel free to PM me if anyone has a line on one.

[barney 59]

For which model? An a-jr or "0" used a waverly "cloud" tail piece easily obtained as they were also used on a number of different flat tops and bowls from that period and some of those can be had (the whole mandolin) inside that $150 price tag. The others with "The Gibson" etched into them are vintage items themselves and only come up when someone drives over their case. There are probably fewer loose tailpieces kicking around than there are whole Gibsons with tailpiece attached. I think $125/$150 is probably a bargain if it restores an old vintage item to it's original specifications. It would increase the value of the instrument (most likely) to more than equal the cost of the tailpiece. Makes you think you could buy a beater A model on ebay put on new hardware from Stewmac and get a pretty good percentage back on your purchase price by selling the parts. You'd end up with a non original "players" model vintage Gibson. I, years ago, changed out my tuners on my A model Gibson because the old ones gave me trouble for some 24/1 Shallers that made it work much better. "Vintage" never came into the decision, staying in tune did.

[mandroid]

An overlay of ebony epoxied to a generic cover gets the job done , I did that with a James I got from
Cartwright's, Ken got some with his name on it, I am off the Ponderosa Ranch guest list anyhow,
so the overlay made it mine again.

[Jack Roberts]

I was called upon to estimate the value of an F-4 about 3 years ago. A lot of research went into the tail piece, as the one on the instrument was damaged, and not surprisingly, I also came up with $150. Barney59 is correct: it would add more than $150 in aesthetic value to an instrument in great condition other than missing the tail piece cover.

[sp.trout]

50 bucks and you can get a decent repro from greg boyd's

[danb]

yes, $125-150 is the going rate. Either cover alone or entire assembly. Pineapple ones go double or more, Loar ones almost never are sold but fetch $$enormous

[paul dirac]

What's the going rate for this tailpiece? I've got an offer to straight swap for a cloud for this Jr. Thanks.

[Jeff Mando]

I would keep this one on the Jr. It looks cooler than a cloud, IMHO.

[pheffernan]

What's the going rate for this tailpiece? I've got an offer to straight swap for a cloud for this Jr. Thanks.

I paid several times more for that tailpiece cover than I did for an entire Cloud tailpiece assembly.

[paul dirac]

Thanks, all. That's what I'm trying to figure out- whether I should just sell this whole tailpiece separately and acquire a period correct cloud. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get opinions over in another thread as to whether or not this tailpiece and a two-piece bridge might actually be original on this late A-jr.

[pheffernan]

While I can't say definitively that the bridge and tailpiece are replacements, I haven't seen them on other A Junior models. Were I in your position, I would look to sell those pieces (the tailpiece in particular) to subsidize the acquisition of an original Cloud tailpiece assembly and fixed bridge.

[Jeff Mando]

It looks like 2 of those tailpieces recently sold on eBay, one for $255 and one for $261, so that seems to be the price these days, at least for a quick sale. I think you could find a cloud tp for about a third of that or even less if you see one on an old period project mandolin (not Gibson, but having the same tp) on eBay for cheap -- I see 'em all the time and sometimes with tuners, too for $30-40 bucks and you can resell the tuners and the husk and keep the cloud and you'll probably make money, but you've also just made work for yourself.

FWIW, I recently bought a late 80's USA Fender Strat at a pawn shop for $250 tax and all, because someone had modified it with a Floyd Rose, spray painted it some godawful color, changed the pickups, but actually upgraded them with BETTER Fender pickups and the pawnbroker threw in a non-original hardshell case. Well, if the guitar was an original 80's USA Strat in good used condition it probably would be worth around $600-800..............I parted out his junker and got $850 for it when it was all said and done. But, again, a lot of work, but fun work.......