Stoffeltoo
A friend invited me today to lay some eyes on a guitar that has been in his family for 40 years with the intent of selling it.
It is a Korean made Samick 6 string dreadnought. Jis this guitar was beat up as it had been to hell and back.The guitar was bought in Rhodesia, Salisbury for a neat sum of 34 Rhodesian Dollars.
The scratch plate was missing with some remnants of glue on the soundboard and the machine heads were of different types. The bridge plate has different screws to hold it in place and the wood shows signs of lifting off the sound board. No warping on the soundboard and the heel shows no sign of parting from the body. Some scratches here and there but no dings with structural scars.
The neck still looks pretty true and the strings are somewhat tarnished. The guitar is of medium weight and a sunburst colour with a dark fretboard with diamond shape inlays on frets 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12 and 15 (rather unusual) (after an internet search it seems like a copy of a 1969 Gibson Dove. Very similar in detail.
I tuned up and was pleasantly surprised at the sound of this old timer. The guitar projected well and the sound rang clear as a bell. No fret buzz and as soft as a baby's butt. Well looks are deceiving and the crisp sound compensated for the poor state of repair.
Any idea what to offer on such a guitar? No case and no bag
Keira-WitherKay
to start off ...a huge YES to your comment of "don't judge a book (or a guitar) by it's cover
a lot of old beat up guitars are absolute gems for players .....
and a popular school of thought on the subject is that if the guitar/instrument in question as the old beat up survivor from 40 yrs ago was NOT a good guitar it would have been trashed years ago .... so moral of the story is when you see an old beater up for sale ...take the time to check it out it just may be a gem ...and often it is NOT ...but worth checking as you have done here ........
ON THE OTHER HAND ... many of these old beaters .... unless they carry the desired logo of Fender/Gibson/Martin ect are not in demand to collectors so the financial value is usually really really low no matter how good they play or sound.....
so financially it's worth whatever you prepared to pay for it ...and that the seller will accept....
and my last word on this subject is...don't overpay for it or spend money on major repairs /refret ect unless you 100% sure it's a keeper as your money will NOT be recouped if you ever want to sell it at a later stage .....
so price wise i see a lot of similar samicks /korean acoustics selling for 1k or less at pawn shops.... so i guess my 5c worth is look at 1k as a base price and add value to it if you really want it or offer less and see if the seller bites at R600...
