When buying second hand gear.
Mint
Mint minus
Excellent
Good
Fair
Well used
Broke but still usesble
A write offš¤£
How low would you go?
Fair as long as parts are available.
Good for unobtanium parts
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Ideally.
Good with box
Possibly lower if price is cheaper than normal (Ā£150 sort of impulse buys)
For vintage gear: just factor in the repairs cost, add it to the original price. Last year I bought a beat up synth for $53 and repairs may cost up to 10x its price (still donāt have the money to fix it). Thatās still okay given that itās a 106.
For modern gear: cosmetic wear is okay, any issues are not okay. Most modern gear, while being way more reliable, is also way harder to service and repair.
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I donāt mind the odd scratch here and there but other people do, so thereās resale value to think about, seeing as I always seem to sell everything in the end. Same goes for having the original box (but thatās a separate and already existing thread haha).
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If itās an in person deal and I can put my hands on the thing then itās just an equation of condition vs price and based entirely on my own judgment in the moment. If itās an internet mail order deal then it needs to be proven to be pretty goddamn convincingly āmintā before Iām much interested. If the seller is a native English speaker theyāll get a lot of mileage out of having good spelling and grammar. Itās just a thing I have. Not trying to get into mail order business dealings with weird illiterates. But I only have the one language and canāt wield any others at all so Iām willing to make concessions in the communication department with folks for whom English is not the first language.
Iām not fussed as long as I either know what Iām buying or I get a good enough deal that a few nasty surprises can be accounted for.
I bought a DX7 for Ā£100 off @Chinchilla a couple of summers ago. Didnāt really matter what state it was in for that price, but it turned out to be a good one, albeit a bit less than showroom fresh. Only cost me Ā£30 to put a new battery in it and fix a few keys and it was pretty much fault free fun from there.
My Polivoks was cheeeeeap, so when it turned out to have a dodgy filter envelope, no big deal, as thereās enough āequityā left in it for a wee trip to Synth Prof for repairs.
Not sure how Iād feel though if I forked out a couple of grand on an MD and it turned out to be problematic.
People do care about cosmetic issues though. I didnāt give a shit when I traded some gear for my tatty A4, but itās proven pretty difficult to shift it, but I donāt have the box either, soā¦
My soldering skills are pretty limited these days, so itās rare I take on a fixer upper project, as most repairs would have to come out of my pocket now.
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As long as the description matches product Iām good. The worst is decent gear but filthy. Grody!
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There seems to be this new craze on eBay for people marking a product as opened - never used, which is bullshit probably 99% of the time.
Whenever is see it I move on by.
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Opened, never used and one pic of the box. Cāmon man!
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depends.
the lowest so far was Ā«broken but still useableĀ» Command Station.
bought it for parts, but managed to repair.
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I genuinely have 2x pieces of gear for sale that are opened but never used.
Iāve bought gear on a whim (it was on sale / rare item etc.) and then never used it.
I would look to their other listings to see if their other items are honest.
As long as price matches condition Iām good.
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Same here, alcohol plus internet shopping is rarely a good mix
I usually go for excellent because there is so much out there, why settle for less?
Iāve seen a couple on the local craigslist very recently which claimed ābrand new in boxā and featured pictures of it outside of the box. That is some sort of special mental disconnect.
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But why open the box if youāre not going to use it?
Genuine question.
Any kind of ābutton occasionally sticks / encoder is a little cracklyā spiel that assures me itās an easy, five minute fix. Iād be more inclined to buy it if you told me the fix was a massive pain in the arse you couldnāt be bothered with because the parts have to be ordered from America and you donāt have the right kind of screwdriver, or would rather spend the money on Blu Rays. I can empathise with that, and youāll have formed a bond. You lazy man.
Hereās an example, I bought a Pulsar-23 and tried to set it up. I quickly realised it wouldnāt fit in my studio and I also realised I didnāt need another piece of gear to learn. So it went back in its box and only came out to photograph when I finally decided to sell it.
I think a listing comprising of just a photo of a box looks suspect. Iām also fairly sure both eBay and Reverb require a photo of the item outside of its box to be listed.
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In general I would list those items as mint and explain in the listing the info. I think thatās fair.
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