i do not mean to threadjack BUT...
to say that you 'Will not allow testing as it is BRAND NEW, and want to retain its perfect condition for the buyer' is plain silly.
you played it for at least 10 minutes, didnt you? having said that, could it still be considered 'brand new'? essentially, it is BUT technically, it isnt. no matter how 'new' any item is, if someone else had owned it and USED it prior to having bought it, it is no longer BRAND NEW. you may say that its previously owned, only in brand-new condition.
you dare say you wouldnt allow testing of the guitar to preserve its being BRAND NEW when clearly, you've tested it yourself when you 'played it once for 10 minutes'. you wont allow it to be 'tried' with so you can keep it 'brand new' when you have played it yourself. no matter how short 10 minutes can be, giving you the full measure of the benefit of the doubt that you only used the guitar for no more than that, you still owned the guitar- used it and kept if for a significant amount of time. it aint that brand new.
under your close supervision, in your own turf, would it really hurt for someone to gently test it?
is it under warranty? if so, had it been writen under your name? if there is something wrong or spoilt with the guitar's electronics or mechanisms, will you refund the buyer his/her cash? or will you suddenly go MIA, cannot be reached by call/SMS, treat the deal like its leprosy not wanting to have anything to do with it or turn into the infamous bully Ah Beng seller and say crap like 'you so cheap you buy 2nd hand - you wan walanty you go peninsula o swee lee!!!'
(note: the following scenarios are just my own mussings and does not reflect verified facts. just open possibilities. no way im i accusing the seller that it is what i think it could be).
for you to have taken a mere 10 minutes and say this isnt the guitar you're 'looking for', its either:
1. you got this guitar, and since you now realize you really dont want it anymore, you are selling it and get as much as you still can from it by saying it has been barely used - for ony 10 minutes.
for someone who got this as a gift, you are selling it like you're afraid to lose money from it. here in soft.com, ive seen guys who bought gear, treated it like their baby, keeping them in MINT condish. some even have put in insane amounts of cash to upgrade them and yet still sell it with a considerable loss. while you received this as a gift and yet selling it so close to how much one would sell in bgw.
you might say that it doesnt follow that if you got something so cheap (in this case, for free), you ought to sell it cheap as well (they say whay you get for free, give it away freely). i somehow agree. but i guess its a general notion that people hate it that others would get so much for so little they put in.
perhaps it was someone close who bought you this, could be a wife who wanted to surprise you but chose the wrong guitar. now you are wishing she wouldve told you so you could have chosen the guitar yourself not to mention, she couldve gotten a better deal because she bought from an expensive store, being uninformed and naive she is. but then again, it was a gift and meant to be a surprise. nonetheless, you would act pleased and show her youre happy and tinker with it, once or twice for a total of 10 minutes then keep it in the case, under your bed or in your closet. now the wife sees you arent really using the guitar and practicality sets in. she agrees to sell it.
so again, for someone who got this as a gift, you are selling it like you're afraid to lose money from it. perhaps because it was basically your money too that she spend to buy you this. her money, youre money. same difference.
2. you dont really play.
which explains why you expect people (and say it like its a usual/common/acceptable practice) to buy from you a $2000 guitar without having tried it. a true guitarist would (and i think even every budding guitarist should) hold it and feel if the neck fits right with his hands, tune the guitar to see if the tuning machines turn smoothly and afterwards strum a few chords unplugged, listening if the wood sings while checking if the frets are leveled and there is no buzzing.
would it lose value to plug the guitar in and check whether the switches and pots arent yet scratchy and still move smoothly after just lying inside the case, untouched for a year? Or at the least, to know if the pickups are working at all? how about playing a few licks with some bending to see if the guitar holds in tune (no, im not saying you try a van halen dive bomb with it)?
ok now. back to the facts.
i am aware that you are not compelling me to buy your guitar so it shouldnt concern me, right? yes. and not exactly.
it is your guitar and you have every right to price your item. however, the question is if it will sell or must you reconsider? that is beyond me. i have enough strats and im not about to shell out a month's wage for another one (or any other strat for that matter).
what gets me is this thou-may-not-test-the-guitar-les-it-spoil-its-perfect-condition condition you have implemented on your sale. and again, it is your item and that is your prerogative. hell, you can add 'must wear a hazmat suit if you wanna try the guitar, to avoid contaminating the guitar's prestine condition - bring your own hazmat suit (borrow from civil defense)' and no one may object. however the question is not whether someone can get their hands on a hazmat suit so they can test your guitar but whether its right (fair and reasonable) to make it impossible or not at all for an eager and gas-induced person to test the guitar before buying it.
even music stores allow it. why wont you? you may say youre just an individual selling his personal stuff. but thats mainly the reason! if the guitar suddenly goes kaput, will you give their money back? even stores wouldnt be so kind to give you back your money right away and offer to repair or look into it (although if its a defect and still under warranty, you can demand for your money at some degree). how much more a mere individual like you?
and this is a MUSIC web community. yes this is the buy/sell section but this isnt just the classifieds of another site - its a site for musicians and music lovers. taking that with a grain of salt, the welfare of the musician should always come first. also, if you wont allow some sort of testing, it will never be about the music. People would never grow out of the idea unreformed newbies fall for and get stuck into - that just because its a FENDER and its a DELUXE, it HAS to be good (or Gibson, PRS etc). Although it might be true that it would be hard if not impossible to find fault with a Johan Gustavon, still, it might not be the guitar for you. You wont and cant know that for certain unless you've actually held that guitar in your own hands and heard it with your ears. Even online shops offer the return option in case you wish not keep the thing. A reputable pro-musician shop should.
Some will say let them learn by trial and error, like most of us did. We've all had our share of stupid buys and lost cash on purchases we made with merely hype-induced GAS. Im not saying this guitar is all but hype. But buying it without having trying it is - unless of course you have no better use for a couple of thousand dollars and want to store it under youre bed or as an expensive conversation piece hanging on your living room or perhaps a cool backdrop for your next video blog, i dunno.
Isnt this a learning process? Being in a music website, shouldnt we be telling people to seek out for their own tone so they wont just end up amassing gear so they can write every single one of them down on their signature and show on every thread below every post they make? We buy gear and eventually sell them to get whats 'better' coz our tastes have changed and has elevated to another level. But at the moment of buying, we were convinced that 'that' was the 'sound' and 'vibe' we wanted.
Im not against gear and having them. But when it has gone to the point where the gear has totally overshadowed what its supposed to create, i believe something is wrong. Plain silly.
OK. Rant conluded.
