 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2003-03-05 22:31
A friend of mine buys guitars based on their potential re-sale value--so that if he needs/wants to re-sell them, he will re-coup his investment or make a profit. If I apply this theory to clarinets, it would seem Buffets (without cracks) are the best investment. Agree?
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Author: Bradley
Date: 2003-03-05 22:39
Yeah- I think Selmers have the worst re-sale value, and Leblancs ( although I play them) I have not seen too much for sale so I wouldnt know how much they can fetch used.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2003-03-05 22:57
A colleague recently told me that Guy Chadash has a substantial waiting list (and waiting time) for his handmade clarinets, and that potential buyers are contacting owners of Chadash clarinets and offering to buy them for a premium above the list price...GBK
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-03-06 01:33
I purchase items on that basis regularly, but I don't use them after I buy them; why take a chance on killing or diminishing the resale value of "investment" items?
If something I want to use has a good resale value, good, but those items I don't buy with the thought in mind that I'm buying them to resell at a better price later on, although I do hope for the best, and if you don’t buy quality, you won’t get any kind of a return, for sure, whether you use it or not.
The fact that you used it, alone, will diminish the resale value by quite a bit, and you never quite recoup what you put into it, so your "profit" is often the fact that you got to play it until you sold it, and often, the more you used it, the less you might expect to get for it.
I won’t buy a used item for my own use for more than half of its "new" value, or a used item I buy as an “investment” for more than 1/3 of its "new" value. And I do find such items at such prices regularly, but always exercising lots of patience.
Don't buy it just becasue it's there and available.
Items to be purchased for resale value are all over the place. I would say that, perhaps, any good grenadilla clarinet may eventually sell better than you would buy it for, considering the wood's shortages.
But then again, if the new polymers catch on, perhaps nobody will want a genuine grenadilla clarinet in the future, and those who do might take advantage of the fact that they are not selling well to get the price down considerably.
Think hard before you buy and make sure you can afford to lose that money, as well, if it comes to that. Sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and say to youself, "Easy come, easy go!"
Consider also what would happen if one or more clarinets split while you are storing them for future resale. Then you can kiss you investment good-bye. You would have to sell several instruments at a decent profit just to make up what you lost in even one single clarinet that cracked on you.
In another post, I just said that I recently sold several top of the line Leblanc clarinets and that one of them I had purchased "new" for $800.00; it had been a demo in a store that sells almost nothing but student quality instruments, so it was even hardly tried. I recently sold it for double the price I paid for it. They had originally wanted $1,200.00 for it and I talked them down. (In fact, it was Brenda Siewert who advised me to buy it at the time, if she might remember, and excellent advice it was, as usual. Got to love that lady.)
I’ve bought several hand-made Spanish Classical guitars the same way. When my youngest son wanted to learn to play guitar, I got him a guitar that was later appraised at a couple thousand, for $100.00! It was in a music store that has a reputation for screwing people and they did not know what this guitar was, which made the purchase all that much sweeter. (God forgive me that feeling!)
My Martin C Melody Sax was $100.00, with an original Goldbeck mouthpiece. The sax isn’t worth crap (it plays really nicely, but the resale value of all but a couple of C-Mels is not good,) but two days after I got it, I was offered $300.00 for the mouthpiece, and I’m up to $490.00 for it now. I won’t sell it though. That’s for me, so far. That was just dumb luck. (Actually, it was GBK ((my guru!)) who said, "Go for it!")
(They say that God protects fools and drunks. I don't drink...)
If you can find deals like those (and you can if you are patient and look for them) it can work out very well for you, but if you are buying at today’s regular prices, or close to today’s regular prices, I wouldn't bother thinking of your purchases as investments, because the chances of price failure are too great. Especially in the clarinet market. And if you are thinking Buffet: Most especially at the rate Buffets have been splitting in recent years.
If you buy something worth $2,000.00 for $800.00, even it you end up selling it for $1,000.00 in a depressed market, you still made money. If you buy it for $1,400.00, unless you sell it in a seller's market, there is too much possibility that you might stand to lose or, at best, break even.
Then there are the recognized collector's items and they are another story. Prices on collectibles are set by how much someone before you might have paid for a same or similar item, most often at auction, so that the prices are officially known.
So you have to be very careful to know how much to pay for something, and how it might appreciate, or not, in the future. Unless you can consistently find someone to buy these things from you who does not exercise proper caution and restraint in buying.
There are lots of people out there who will buy something just because they want it; more power to them, I love to sell them things, because they will often buy, even when you warn them it’s not a good deal for them, which I have done, because my thing is not to screw anybody for profit. Especially not for a meager, few hundred dollars. If they buy and get screwed, I want to be able to, honestly, say, “Well, I told you so” and, “I warned you, it’s not my fault you screwed yourself.”
I’m not trying to discourage you; I just want to ensure that you put this thing in its proper perspective. The name of the game is extreme patience.
Make friends with people at music stores. I have a bunch of such friendships and they are not interested in anything they can’t sell (blow out of the store) retail A.S.A.P. So, whenever someone walks in with some goody, they often call me, or get a telephone number where I can reach them, so I can take a crack at it. (Oops, perhaps crack is not quite the word I meant to use on a clarinet BB!)
Patience is the name of the game. No matter how badly you might want it, always remember what they say up home: “For every good deal you pass up, there are ten more coming down the pike right at you.”
When you negotiate these things, you have to do so under the premise, and acceptance of the fact, that the worst or best thing that might happen is “NO DEAL!” It’s a double-edged sword, but learn to walk away first, then learn how to buy wisely. You can’t do one without being completely at ease doing the other.
Good luck and enjoy!
Peter
Post Edited (2003-03-06 03:54)
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Author: jim lande
Date: 2003-03-06 04:01
A while back I collected eBay prices on Buffet clarinets. Don't take this too seriously because I had a small sample and in some cases I had to estimate dates. I concluded that Buffets got less valuable with age, all other things being equal. I think the change was on the order of $6 per year. So, I would not recommend buying new, retail priced Buffets either as a good store of value or as an investment.
If you are willing to work at it, you can make money buying and selling anything. However, you have to become an expert both in the item itself and the market. This is good if you like this sort of thing, but generally a bad idea for anyone who just wants to dabble. If you want to dabble, do it for fun, not for profit.
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Author: Eileen
Date: 2003-03-07 17:17
I think that the resale on guitars is very different from clarinets. A guitar has few if any moving parts and you do not blow moisture into it. The average maintenance costs on a clarinet (pads, corks, keys) are way beyond the average costs for a guitar. Even though both are made out of wood which can improve in tone over time, the high maintenance costs on the clarinet mean that older clarinets are worth less.
Another factor is the size of the market. There are so many more guitars and guitar players out there. And guitar companies routinely create special or limited editions to take advantage of a collector market. The used guitar market also has blue books published with the prices for used acoustic and electric guitars.
So far, though, I'm not selling or trading the Buffet, the Martin or the Stratocaster! Although I'm really tempted by the Fender reissue of the Pink Paisley and Blue Flower models ... Maybe Buffet should consider a Greenline in psychedelic colors. That might be an investment!
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2003-03-08 13:13
I've bought and sold both guitars and clarinets for the last few years. I've only lost money one time on a guitar and I can't even count the times I've lost money on clarinets. If I break even on one I consider it a triumph. I usually buy what I like, or because I really think the instrument is "sweet" and try to get a good deal on it then put it up for sale. Buffets are more likely to sell for close to what I pay for them--but don't buy a clarinet thinking you're going to get rich selling them. The online market fluctuates quite a bit. I've lost as much as I've made this past year. But, I don't do it to make a living--just because I love playing and enjoy finding good stuff for people. I would never consider buying clarinets a good investment--their market value will continue to go down as they age.
However, if you buy a vintage guitar--say a limited edition Martin, chances are good it will increase in value over the years. I have one at home right now that I would never sell that has increased in value about 30% since I bought it in 1992. I have also had success with PRS (Paul Reed Smith) guitars. I've never lost anything on them and have even made money when I've resold them. It's a different marketplace.
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