Best turnaround guitar deal you've ever made

Walter Broes

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Not a guitar, but I got a '71 Fender Super Reverb with factory JBL D110's in almost mint condition for €600, and sold the amp with (much cheaper, but nice) new Jensen C10Q speakers for €1200, and kept the JBL's. I did spend a little money on having the amp re-capped. And for the "market" over here, the buyer still got a good deal.

Anybody want to buy a quad of JBL D110's? :lol: :lol:
 

silverfox103

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My turnaround story, not a quick one but here it is: In 1984 I bought a Martin 00-28C Nylon String Guitar for $450. Twenty six years later, this past spring, I sold it for $2400.

I wish I could find another deal like that.

Tom C.
 

rascalflats

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How about a 1972 Guild D25, just about mint, talked the guy down from, $150 which was a steal, to $120.
 

RussD

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How about a 1972 Guild D25, just about mint, ... to $120.
rascalf, you missed the point! You have to turn it to complete the story.
In the very truest spirit of LTG, I am offering to help you out by doubling your investment in that D25, therefore giving you the very best story on the thread! :D
 

jp

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My story isn't a quick turnaround either, but a turnaround it is. So in the later 80s, the prices on 50s and 60s Strats and LPs started to go through the roof, mostly due to interest by European and Japanese collectors. As a poor college kid, there was no way I could afford the mid-60s Strat I wanted. Instead I ended up with a '76 heavy natural Strat for $400 that I ultimately hot-rodded with stacked humbuckers, graphite saddles and nut, and some tricky push-pull wiring that broadened it's usefullness incredibly on stage. With thick strings and heavy-handed picking, it became a my No. 1 for many years. I discovered the merits of the big-head Strat tone and sustain that others have since learned to appreciate. It saw countless gigs from the stage of Cafe a Go-Go in Greenwich Village to the Monterey stage where Jimi burned and beat his own Strat. Never one for sentimentality and fueled by my infatuation with Guilds I sold it a few years back for $1600 to a local player who brought his 80-year-old mother with him for her approval. She just smiled and said, "Man, that's one funky gui-tar!"

I do think about it now and then, but since my Guild epiphany, I haven't looked back. Admittedly, my best turnaround was not really a guitar. I once bought an immaculate Ludwig Black Beauty snare, complete with fancy flower engravings from an old jazzbo trumpet player who was cleaning house. For my $25.00, I also got a drum throne, claves, assorted percussion mallets, and a set of brushes. The drum which I sold for $1250, paid for a ticket and spending cash for a trip to Europe.
 

Thunderface

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Thunderface said:
Q, I like the tailpiece on that Strat. How's this for a brand turnaround. At one time or another, I've owned 12 different Peavey guitars ...
Allpeaveys.jpg


... and I've sold all but two so that I could get these (including the '77 S-300 with the HB-1s, fifth from the right, that I sold to Plague)
AllGuilds.jpg


Me thinks I have a bit of a problem.

Note: Since I originally posted it, I swapped out the photo of the Guilds to represent the ones I still have, so the fifth one from the right is not the '77 S-300 that I sold to Plague anymore, but a '77 M-80CS. Just thought you'd like to know so some sharp-eyed member doesn't say "I don't see a '77 S-300" or "Hey, Dunderface, the fifth one from the right is an M-80CS, not an S-300."

Oh, and once I get paid, I'll have but one Peavey left.
 

dreadnut

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Well, I'm still waiting to turn this one around:

IMG_0089.jpg


It's even got an ohsc:

IMG_0091.jpg
 

TonyT

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I haven't turned it yet, but tonight I bought a '95 Peavey Predator from someone I knew. He swears it's been played less than 10 hrs. Still has the original strings. it's never been in a case, been standing up in the corner of his home office all that time cause he thought it looked cool there. Everything seems straight, and all the electric stuff works.

$35
 

TonyT

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A quick ebay check tells me that I could expect potentially as much as $53 upon resale. PROFIT!!!!
 

steffenson

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this story is soooo 90s :)

in the 90s when pre-CBS Fenders' prices were sky-rocketting, I bought a '73 strat (my year of birth!) in sunburst with the large headstock and bullet style truss rod and even an original 'ashtray' cover (indeed, who needs it...). It also had a 3-way switch (which had been replaced by a 5-way). Paid 875 euros for it (less than a new USA strat at that time), so now (with the dollar at 65 cents/euro, which wasn't the case at the time) that would be around 1200 dollars.

The sound didn't work out at all and it was in its case for most of the time. A couple of years ago someone wanted to trade his 73 tele thinline (with the seth lover PUs) for 'a nice strat' or sell it for 2500 euros (3300 dollars?)... So now I have this nice tele thinline full of mojo... which is in its case :)

In the same period I bought a Marshall Bluesbreaker 50W tremelo for 410 euros, left the house for 820 and financed my SF deluxe reverb :)

Indeed, I'm a sucker for: you sell it for that price? that's a steal! :)
 

brianeharmonjr

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Got a used Hamer Californian Elite from an online guitar shop for a little under $700 shipped and immediately turned around and sold it on ebay for $1500. Bought a blackface Champ amp at the local pawn shop for $59 and sold it on ebay for about $400. Those are my two best flips.
 

taabru45

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TonyT said:
A quick ebay check tells me that I could expect potentially as much as $53 upon resale. PROFIT!!!!

Those are actually decent guitars, but you gotta replace the tuners, and you could do the pickups. but, solid strat copies with USA finger prints all over it..They are like Guilds, Under appreciated....Steffan
 

MojoTooth

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for me it was the 1973 M65C 3/4 I bought for $700 then sold for $1000. As you can imagine, I still regret it to this day even despite the profit. That was one amazing little blues machine and I will have another one some day.
 

alpep

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well I did not flip them but I bought 4 microphones at a yard sale once

akg d1000
sennheiser 421
2x neumann km 84

asked what he wanted and the man told me $1 ea. I reached in my pocket and handed him a $5 he started screaming at me because he did not have any change. I just told him not to worry about it and walked away.


but a real flip
I bought a 56 martin 000-18 for $6 busted back sides and top wood missing from the top and sides.
sold it as is for $250 (this was in about 1985)

once I bought a RCA 77 microphone from a guy that did house clean outs. He thought it was a hand warmer but could not plug it in because it had a strange plug on it. $15
 

fronobulax

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alpep said:
once I bought a RCA 77 microphone from a guy that did house clean outs. He thought it was a hand warmer but could not plug it in because it had a strange plug on it. $15

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
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