gilded said:
Bikerdoc,
I just studied the prices on eBay, under completed items, for Gibson Songwriters. I think you were offering them a good trade!
I don't know if your guitar has a cutaway or not, but there were non-cuts going for $1200 bucks. One guitar went for $855, but the rest were over a $1,000.00. Still, there's no accounting for that store's selling strategy, or what it's based on. For example, they might need $1000 in a really bad way and might also have a lack of confidence in their ability to move your guitar quickly (given their six-year track record with the D50).
Still, you might print off the completed sales list on eBay and show it to them. Good luck.
I live in a fairly economically depressed area of NW Ohio; smaller mom and pop manufacturing that use the temp services and bachelor's degrees are required for a $9/hr job. Folks around here don't buy "high-end" anything. I was lucky enough to find a decent wage in a 140 mile commute and even luckier to get laid off this year(after 10 years)before the gas prices would've forced me to quit.
I guess it truly didn't matter about the trade. The shop most likely wouldn't have been able to sell the Gibson. I'm sure they wouldn't have felt right putting a $1,000 price tag the Songwriter and probably felt, as many of you mentioned, it would be easier getting that grand out of a 6 year old/new guitar.
Also, coastie, I don't think I got derailed at all. America is in as much a consumer struggle as the rest of the world. Sure, we HAVE had it pretty good by comparison but we (citizens) have also drawn lines in the sand as it were. As consumers Americans are tenacious and insatiable; or pompous and spoiled depending upon one's perspective. :wink: But hey, I'm heading toward a political/cultural area here and I'll be quiet before I go that far. But we DO fight a consumer's battle here and I'm pretty confident that Americans, not politicians, are going to prevail. :lol: :lol: We're pretty arrogant about that sort of thing ya know. :lol: