Often when you buy a piece of musical gear; the guitar you’ve always wanted, a drum set you had your heart on, that perfect bass… it is wrapped with emotion. Emotion is priceless. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t typically heed our emotions.
The value of what something is worth “used” is subjective to the market: volume, demand, rarity, condition, etc. Our emotions take a back seat to those forces.
What does that mean to you as a seller? It means you have to understand your market if you want the most out of your instrument. Which, we all do. A quick canvas online will give you a rudimentary idea. Here at Music Go Round St. Louis we use a pretty specific formula coupled with years of experience to value what you bring to us. Emotions have nothing to do with the transaction – though we know your gear will likely go to someone else who has new emotion they will feel on receiving your previous cherished pieces. Again – it is delicate. We ALL know that USUALLY a new purchase will depreciate. Some of us just don’t like to think it can do so as much is it does.
Now – the flip side to that is when you BUY used gear – you get the benefit of the previous depreciation. That unfortunate market squeeze that one soul had to endure becomes your capitalization. It is a very sound way to buy – especially if you like to play flipper, picker – or you just want to try out new things often but don’t have staff and storage like John Mayer to manage all your gear. We should all be so lucky.
G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) gets us all despite income status.
One good thing about Music Go Round St. Louis is that we care about the emotional value – because we deal in emotion all day. Used gear can be treated like a Pay it Forward instance in that regard. It was loved – and it will be love again. That’s rewarding to us well beyond just the dollars and cents. Yes, we are in business, and we need dollars in cents to be able to offer this gear to the next homes. But, no doubt about it – the smiles and glow we see when someone leaves with ‘that piece’ makes our days.
Check us out online or in store – we’d love to meet you and help you continue your journey and story.
