Guitar Shop Haggling

[nojmaster]

Ok, so I've settled on this guitar I think I'm gonna buy - the Epiphone G400. Now, in the local music shop (there are only three in this town anyway, and this is the only one with any serious range of guitars) there's a a G400 going new for £300. At www.gak.co.uk the same guitar is available for £180, also new, as well as prices around that range for the same model on ebay. My thinking is that I could go into the shop, give it a play, and then get down to business. I'm gonna offer the guy £250 for it, if he includes a case (case or gigbag?) and strap. Is this a viable offer? Can I go lower? Could I ask for more stuff? I'd rather not order it online, even having played the same model in the shop, just in case. However, if it comes down to it, paying £180 and still buying a gigbag and a strap and whatnot runs me around about the same as the £250 deal. Frankly I'd rather give the shop dude my money, but I'm not going to get fleeced financing the little guy. Advice?

[pk!]

Gak is an excellent shop - it's just down the road from me. If you're in London and not Carlisle, I'd recommend you get the train down and you'll still save money. If not, then print out the page from GAK and see if your local guy can match it. I have bought three guitars, two amps, a bass, half a drumkit, a Korg M-1, some guitar pedals, a couple of microphones, hundreds of strings and an Edirol UA-25 from GAK over the years and I haven't had a single problem. My mates have bought stuff there and haven't mentioned any problems to me.

In fact, that's a great deal, I might get the left-handed one.


[edit - for a fast, unethical way to make money, buy Squier guitars and bolt Fender necks on them, then sell them as USA Fenders. Caution - May not actually work in the real world.]

[Evil Superstar]

[edit - for a fast, unethical way to make money, buy Squier guitars and bolt Fender necks on them, then sell them as USA Fenders. Caution - May not actually work in the real world.]

Don't forget to sand the body for that 'vintage' look! :p

[Captain Colon]

Offer him 250 for the guitar and a set of locking tuners...grover, schaller, whoever, the epiphone tuners suck balls. My brother's got a G400 and it's a surprisingly nice guitar, but it goes out of tune as soon as you bend past a half-step.

Honestly, a squier with a decent neck is going to be a pretty nice guitar that would ALMOST be worth the price of a Fender, if it had better electronics and was made of better wood :p

[nojmaster]

Offer him 250 for the guitar and a set of locking tuners...grover, schaller, whoever, the epiphone tuners suck balls. My brother's got a G400 and it's a surprisingly nice guitar, but it goes out of tune as soon as you bend past a half-step.


As it turns out, newer G400's come with Grovers as standard. But I still paid the guy £250 for it, got a nice gigbag and a shitty strap thrown in. It's a very nice guitar, was suprised at the level of access to the higher frets, even with my gypsie sized hands. The sound is excellent too, sounds meatier in general than my generi-caster, especially with the distortion cranked right up. Clean isn't fantastic, but it's through my 15 watt practise amp and frankly, if I wanted a clean sound I'll play my bloody acoustic. All I need now is a decent amp and I'm well sorted!

Pic: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/nojmaster/S7000283.jpg

[Captain Colon]

Actually it'll probably still sound like trash even with a decent amp cause the epiphone pickups suuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkkkkkkk :lincoln:

[Evil Superstar]

Actually it'll probably still sound like trash even with a decent amp cause the epiphone pickups suuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkkkkkkk :lincoln:

Don't be silly

[Captain Colon]

I would know because my brother has one :(

[nojmaster]

In the land of expensive toys and student loans it'll do me for the next few years, until I get a degree, a high paying job and then the means to spend far too much money on what are basically compensations for my average yet insufficient-when-compared-to-porn manhood :p

A neat trick I found on it is that if you turn the bridge pickup's volume to zero and put the selector in the middle, you can use it as a sort of reverse killswitch. You press it towards the neck pickup without actually switching it and it still engages, and when you release the pressure it comes right back to the middle and silence. I feel like a cross between Michael Jackson and Tom Morello :panda:

[Captain Colon]

Yeah, that's pretty much the only thing I like about the two-volume knob setup on most of the Gibsons. But on my guitar I have no middle pickup, so I can just put the selector switch in the middle...I can even do bridge-kill-neck-kill-bridge-etc if I want :D

It's a pretty awesome guitar already, just needs a set of decent pickups and maybe some 1MOhm pots to give you a wee bit more high end (not really worth the money if you're doing it just for that, but when the current pots start to get scratchy, might as well put in some nice ones).