PREPPING A MODIFIED GUITAR YOU PLAN ON SELLING #guitar #guitarist

Something you can tell about me from the channel is that I modify a lot of guitars. One thing you may not know about me is I sell about two to three guitars per week in my Reverb store.

I have found one indisputable fact from my experience. Most of the time it is more difficult to sell a modified guitar than it is to sell an unmodified guitar.

There are some exceptions to this rule. If you install something like Lollar pickups or some other high cost and highly desirable part in the guitar you will be able to easily sell the guitar with the modification. The issue though is should you sell it that way. This brings us to the next fact about selling modified guitars.

You will never get your investment back out of the parts you have put into the guitar. Meaning if you install Lollar pickups in the guitar you would think that you could take what the used guitar is worth in the current market and add the value of the pickups and this is what you would get for the guitar if you sold it. This is not true. I repeat – you will never get back the investment of the parts you have installed into the guitar. You will be lucky to sell the guitar for the price point of Mint or New with the high-end parts installed.

The truth is people really do not want a modified guitar and the second truth is people do not want to pay for what a modified guitar is worth with the new parts installed.

What I have finally concluded over the years is it is better to save the original parts that you pulled from the guitar and then when you are ready to sell the guitar pull the newly installed parts and reinstall the parts that were originally in the guitar.

This way you can more easily sell the guitar because it is close to being unmodified, and you will make more on the sale. Basically, losing less.

Then if you like, sell the parts you installed in the guitar when you modified the guitar.

Here is an example. Let’s say you have a Vintera II 50s Nocaster Telecaster that you install a set of Lollar pickups into. A mint guitar used will go for between $850 to $1100. A set of Telecaster Lollar pickups new is around $250. You are not going to be able to sell the guitar for an additional $250. It will move faster but you will not recoup your investment. But you can reinstall the original pickups and sell the guitar and then sell the used Lollars for around $185. Thus, losing less money overall. If you leave the Lollars in the Telecaster, you are basically giving them away.

The guitar in this video is a used Gibson Les Paul Special Tribute Humbucker model guitar. In the case of this guitar, I will actually have a difficult time selling it as modified. It has mismatched Seymour Duncan pickups, Kluson locking tuners, and a hodge podge of a wiring circuit. When I purchased the guitar, I was able to get the original 490r and 490t pickups from the seller.

I have a set of used Gibson Deluxe tuners that I will install in the guitar, and I will build out a standard 1950’s Gibson Wiring circuit with a 500k CTS long shaft pots and 022 uf Capacitors. The wiring of the pickup selector switch is salvageable but has one issue. All of the wiring is black. So, I will label the wires in the control cavity so a future owner can navigate the circuit. The entire wiring circuit will cost me around $25 to build. The only real issue in costs is I could resell the Gibson Deluxe tuners as a set not installed in a guitar and get $80 to $95.

I may or may not be able to use or sell the Seymour Duncan pickups I am pulling. I could sell each of the pickups on Reverb and recoup some of my costs.

Once done with undoing the modifications I can sell a cherry finished Gibson Les Paul Special Tribute Humbucker model guitar in Very Good condition on Reverb for around $880 to $1000 depending on how long I want to wait. If I had lef the guitar as is I would have been lucky to sell the guitar for around $600.

I leave you with these thoughts.

If you buy a modified guitar see if the person has the original parts and will provide them to you.

If you modify a guitar save the parts as you may need them if you decide to sell or trade the guitar in the future.

You will lose less on a sale of a used guitar if you can return the guitar back to its original condition.

There is a market for used parts where you can sell your parts you pull from your guitar.

You will never get your investment back out of the parts you have put into the guitar.