The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hello,

I am new to Aria Pro II guitars and have recently registered here although I have been reading this forum for quite some time

However I have years of experience exchanging guitars in diverse markets and I'd like to offer some info about how to determine what a guitar is worth - Aria Pro II or any model

When people ask what is a guitar worth I often see people recommend to go to eBay or Reverb and see what price people are listing them for to get a good assessment of what they are selling for

This is only partially correct

We are in a buyers market right now and due to a number of factors including the fact that the yen has now dropped in value to the extent where one dollar buys ¥121 versus under 80 not too long ago, ... Prices have changed...

The yen weakness has made the overall market go down although certainly there are some models where demand has increased to the point where the price has Easily outstripped the downward pressure due to currencies

The prices people ask for any guitar on eBay or reverb are often quite detached from the prices these guitars are actually selling at!!! true of any guitar - MIJ or not

So if you look at the prices that guitars are listed on eBay or reverb you can get a very inaccurate estimate as to what the average prices are or the price you can expect your guitar to sell at

The first metric many sellers use to price their guitar is to remember what they paid for it just a few years ago. Of course considering the above Currency changes and other factors that can be wildly ambitious in many cases or undervalue it in some cases

You often read descriptions like " I bought this guitar three years ago for $500 used and I've cleaned it up a bit and it's been a great guitar and in just as good condition plus the cleaned fretboard and I'm just looking to sell it for what I paid for it"

That's groovy but the market doesn't care if you break even or not nor does it know or care how much you paid when you got the item nor is it relevant to what the current going price is

So all this blather aside, search these auction sites for the prices that the items actually sold at in completed sales - whether 'buy it now' or competitive auctions (reverb doesn't even have competitive auctions just listed prices and offers) not the prices people are listing them at because again depending on the model and for various reasons I won't get into the Two numbers are often quite disparate

Either way it can be difficult to assess a fair current price for Aria Pro II's because depending on the model you are selling it may be hard to find a single sale let alone a fair sampling

However either way the point holds true that the best assessment for what a guitar is going for in a given forum is best determined by seeing what they actually sell for not what sellers tend to list them for

Lastly I am not at all suggesting what price you should offer!

you can offer at well above market or below market or at market depending on a host of factors and who knows? Exchanges happen occasionally well above or below average. This is capitalism - price as you see fit. As long as you describe accurately, it's your choice

I'm simply saying this is the most accurate method to determine a price that is at the middle of the range of recent actual sales and will let you best determine what price you want to ask based upon your timeframe, ambition etc

You may have a point, but this forum does not have a "private sale" section... so for Aria guitars you will have to go with the eBay (or other auction) sales value.

The for sale section has opened up but it will be under close scrutiny.

The prices can in no way be indicative of that model's value as the seller sets the price. I can post a PE-150 for $1200 but in reality it is probably only worth a fraction of that. Of all the forums on the net this site would probably be the worst to post an unrealistic price.

Well yes. This site has educated buyers

eBay et al are chock full of low information buyers and recreational buyers

Sellers would be best served selling in a site like this if they were selling a guitar that was rare/unique where an educated buyer would have insight into the added intrinsic worth and be willing to pay a fair price in recognition of those factors

Do you put it in conventional terms this would be a more rational market with a more informed price discovery process

The other forums mentioned tend to have a substantially large standard deviation in closing price for many guitar models and thus offer pretty good surplus return potential for a savvy seller especially with a longer time frame

When talking about what a guitar is worth the distinction between what it would be priced at in a truly rational market or the reality which is what it's priced it in our truly irrational market where many assets are substantially undervalued and many are substantially overvalued due to a host of factors we have no control over

To be blunt Arias are absurdly undervalued in the market large when you consider how much bang for the buck you get it is truly ridiculous but no matter what these guitars are worth in a perfect world the reality is that price is ultimately opinion and opinion is often detached from underlying reality

My OP is simply a way to assess where the market is

Arias happen to be very illiquid which throws a wrench in the process as well

I disagree. eBay is by far the best indicator for what a particular model will bring. Reason being those who buy Aria, Aria Pro II, and such are specifically searching for them.

Forums have a nasty habit of collecting for sale posts from members who never post again. They are simply there to flog their guitar.

If someone joins this forum, posts only once in the for sale, within two weeks the account is considered inactive and removed due to inactivity. (Although I have not had a chance yet to go through that forum to weed out the stale posts).

One other thing is more often than not for sale posts ask more, sometimes much more than what that model will sell for on eBay.

I've been at this 15 years now. I don't know anything about Gibson, Fender, or any of the others. Only those made by Matsumoku.

As eBay is a global market and had an estimated 162 million active users in the last quarter of 2015 no single niche site like ours can hold a candle to it.

It is actually harder to sell a guitar here at the same price it would command on eBay. We know what is rare and what is not where these guitars are concerned. We also remember the days when prices were much lower for these guitars. The existence of this site actually did us in. For a long time anything Matsumoku brought higher prices than they did previously. The fad has since waned and now models that would have brought a respectable price are garnering much less.

Yes my entire point is that the price of the guitars sold on eBay not the price they are listed it is a reasonable metric bring what you can get for a guitar with that is primarily true within only a range of markets

But eBay is full of low information recreational buyers and there are plenty of sellers who are fleecing eBay buyers

They are listing guitars not in their inventory but that are in stores in Japan

I've seen them frequently use the actual pictures that the stores use under listings and I have even bought guitars from the Japanese stores that unrelated sellers on eBay marked up a few hundred bucks to sell it to a low information buyer

It is easy to recognise them because in addition to them copying the pictures from the stores website and asking a higher price if you ask them for a picture of a control cavity or something they make an excuse

It's easy for them to wait for a buy, then trot down to the store, pack it up and ship it

Some people are ignorant that you can buy direct from Japan and thus pay too much and others don't want to deal with perceived hassle or received risk

VIVA CAPITALISM

The market will bear those prices because again it is irrational and full of buyers with different timeframes and different levels of information
It's pretty absurd but if people are gonna pay $300 more so be it

I can also say based upon the prices I've collected that the standard deviation for many models and eBay is much wider than in many other markets

There are also some excellent deals there of course

Reverb has a more educated base but arbitrage happens there too

Either way my point stands that what an asset actually sells for is a much more predictive price of what you are going to get for it then what people generally tend to ask for it

Some sellers take a while to capitulate and just keep relisting at a lower and lower price until they finally get a buyer

Others and I've seen this on craigslist is well and reverb will just keep whisking and Westing at listing at some absurd price and never sell it

If you incorporate their asking price into your scheme for deciding what value where's your numbers will be skewed because that's a number nobody is paying

There is a guy on my local craigslist who has a baldwin era Gretsch for sale for at least a year and it's an absurd price he will never get but he just keeps resisting it and I guess its the triumph of hope over experience

These outlier price points should not be included in an assessment of fair value because they are simply pipe dreams

Like I said. I as well as a number of members here have been following the Matsumoku made guitars for many years (15 myself). I have been a member of eBay since 2000.

I know what I am looking at when I am looking at it on eBay. I specifically search for makes and models in line with my interests.

Most looking will be as I am, knowledgeable in discerning. I have bought literally hundreds of guitars, and that is no exaggeration.

Sure people are duped. An uninformed or uneducated bidder is a sucker waiting to happen. I hate to say it but is true to a fault. Ignorance on the seller's part is the buyer's advantage. Many times I have taken advantage of this. There are also those who purposefully misrepresent a guitar. Again, 99% I know better and if I don't know, I don't blindly bid, I RESEARCH. The problem is there are thousands like me also interested in Matsumoku made guitars. It is those of us who determine the value of a guitar. Not the seller.

Your reasoning may apply to mainstream but mainstream is essentially the opposite of the Matsumoku made guitars.

No forum on the net, or CL and KiJiJi for that matter is going to give a real world current value to ANY guitar regardless of manufacturer or model.

If a model truly IS rare it will command a fitting price. If it is truly unique it applies as well.

And I'm not going to pay shipping from Japan unless I get an outrageous deal on the guitar (next to nothing).

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Quality service since 3:00 last Tuesday

I say the price is greatly affected by demand and offer , the rarity of the model and quality. What a buyer is ready to spend for that said instrument. Musicians are very emotional and might spend ore on a particular model just to have it... I would not base price from Ebay since where I live, instruments can be found very easily, so price tag is less.

Just my French 2 cents !!!

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MAA Member since June 29th 2009, taking one baby step at a time..... and failing miserably!

You are probably right about regions where availability is limited. My Supra would go for more in Japan than it would here but oddly many of the other models are less expensive there as opposed to here where Aria Pro II is concerned.

Here I am lucky. I can often see what a model recently sold for here. I can also decide whether it is worth the shipping to buy from out of country.

I am one of those people who are unaffected by vintage and rare bug. It sure would be nice to have that hard to find model, but I've always bought guitars as instruments first. A 58 Burst sure would be nice but at those prices I no longer have even a passing interest. It was nice to have had some of the more hard to find models, but oddly the only ones I've kept don't fall into this category. Up until recently I kept the great players and let the others go. With arthritis I was no longer playing them so I sent them off to players who would play them again.