Guitar Center lately. Can you hold anything over $750??

Sure. Still annoying.

I get your sarcasm, but one of my pet peeve buttons has been pushed, so stand back ...

Who's willing to buy a brand new shirt with someone else's chocolate stains on it? Who's ready to overlook slightly overstretched sleeves because of careless and negligent fitting attempts?

Good, absolutely good, in fact GREAT, if they are taking higher dollar merchandise and safeguarding it to a degree so that the guy who actually ends up buying it is getting his money's worth.

It absolutely makes me SICK to walk into my GC and watch literal hacks literally banging away on shite that said hack, you, the sales guy, everyone nearby with a pulse, knows he is not buying or - even worse - not buying at that brick and mortar store and buying elsewhere.

I work in musical instruments and I want you to play my repairs, my restos and custom builds, even my personal guitars when you visit my shop, even if I know you're not buying or can't buy right now. I want you to experience what I do and cool shite in general with all five senses.

But you will sit up straight with your feet on the floor, and you will untuck your buttonless shirt to protect the backs of my guitars from belt buckles and denim rivets if you're handling my stuff. I'll put a towel between you and the guitar if I don't trust what you're wearing. Dangly wrist or neck jewelry, off it goes. And I will absolutely take guitars out of your hands if you do not treat it with the respect you should give them, me, or anything that is NOT YOURS.

Rant over.

MF, Sweetwater and I'm sure GC's online site a lot of times will run "blemished" sales, "factory reconditioned" sales, "factory second" sales, whatever, they get really creative with the names.

I'd strongly suspect most of those items were goods that were returned by buyers within their respective grace periods for whatever reason. The goods are new but because they left the seller's possession for a period, they aren't new from a manufacturer's warranty standpoint (voided). Plus they likely have some sign of being used, anything from pick scratching to removed tags and protective plastics, sealed packets being opened, etc. So they blow them out at a discount to cover their investments, release their liability as the seller and roll the inventory.

quote:

---

TheFretShack

---

I'm a lefty so GC has never had one single guitar I've ever been interested in stock anyway.

But buying a guitar should be like buying a boat. Want to test drive? Cash in hand then. Or at least that's how what they tell me.

quote:

---

And I will absolutely take guitars out of your hands if you do not treat it with the respect you should give them, me, or anything that is NOT YOURS.

---

Agree 100%

I remember having to go to Shreveport Music a few times when it was the closest and only option for me when I was in college in NWLA. I won't name him but I know EXACTLY who you are talking about at SM and yep, he was, um, quite opinionated, to put it politely. I remember walking in there with a very one-off custom order ESP from their NYC custom shop (this was the late 1980s) and he proceeded to bash the everloving shite out of non-American made guitars, guitars with humbuckers that were not Gibsons, Floyd Rose-equipped guitars, non-sunburst and non-traditional finish guitars AND every stereotype one could form associated with anyone who played anything close to what I described above. I figured it was because I was as young and long haired 80s metal as you could find and he was the exact opposite of me. Shreveport Music had some nice stuff but I never bought anything more that the bare minimum I really needed (strings and picks here and there, maybe a cable or two) because the guy was truly a jerk to me. I might have been his visual opposite and a little young and cocky in some ways, but I wasn't a prick by any stretch. And most of the other gimps who worked there followed his lead and were just as jerky - I guess they were moronic enough to think that the asinine arrogance display was some mandatory attribute in the musical instrument retail world. No way any of them were getting more than a few bucks from me at a time and more than five minutes of my time. They acted like they didn't want or need me so I reciprocated from a consumer's sense.

On the other hand, Mike at BeBop would let you hold and play (gently) really nice and really expensive guitars that were very cutting edge for the time. Again, me being the child of the 80s, Mike's shop first exposed me to high-dollar pieces by ESP, San Dimas Charvel and Jackson, PRS, Steinberger, etc. He knew I didn't have that kind of money at that time, but I eventually would in life. He also knew I'd physically treat a brief hands-on experience with those dream guitars as the privilege it was intended to be. Akin to letting a teen experience a performance sports car in a controlled environment. Just like with a fine car, it's one thing to look at it, it's another thing entirely to sit in it, to feel it idle and rev, the new car smell. Guitars are the absolute same way. Anyway, that kind of experience gave me a true A/B comparison with the starter guitars I had, and something to appreciate, to strive for and work towards. And you guessed it - I bought not only picks and strings and a cable or two from Mike, I also bought guitars and amplification, effects, etc.

Read all of my content on this thread again collectively and you'll get a VERY clear idea of why I think and act as I do as it pertains to music retail decades later. I wear my badge proudly.

I'm not going to name him either. Apparently he made his money dealing pianos so I guess he could be as shitty as he wanted to ordinary customers.

When I was in high school I got a great deal on a 1978 Les Paul Custom black beauty in the early days of eBay. I took it to SM for a set-up or something (I can't remember), and this guy just rips me. Asks me how much I paid for it, tells me I got ripped off, bitches about it having active pickups, on and on. By then I was probably 17, and I just though the he was crazy. I walked out thinking "this guy would put this guitar on the wall for 3 grand, and he's telling me I got ripped off?!?"