Trade #10

So here is Matt.  Matt needed cash for his upcoming nuptuals (yes, he's getting married this summer... congrats!) and he was selling some things to help with the costs.  I found him and his item on craigslist and if you could see under that yellow smiley face (Matt preferred to keep his face off the internet & that's cool with me), you'd know his real smile is just as broad because he was quite happy to take my $310.  His fiancee was happy too, and I'm glad my paperclip could help them begin their young lives together.  I hope they have an awesome marriage, truly.  May it last 310 years.

How I came by Matt's item wasn't as easy as I had thought.  Since my last trade I've been wracking my brain to decide what to buy with the cash I had collected. Following my own instinct and the advice of my followers I did indeed look at tools, computers, dirtbikes & 4-wheelers, and I even went to a pawn shop to see what was available.  All had their pros and their cons (the pawn shop was mostly con... it's not like that show on TV here in Allentown... sheesh! what a bunch of junk!), and I eventually had to step back and look at the big picture again and reevaluate my methods to achieving my goal.   What all this consideration eventually taught me was that I needed to buy something that would have a high demand. 

See, my last trade of an object for an object was with an X-Box system.  Now there was no doubt I got a good trade for it, but along the way I was thwarted by an unexpected hurdle: the demand for X-Boxes may have been high, but the supply was even higher.  Ah, memories from high school strike again... this time from Economics class and the rules of supply and demand.  Because the supply of X-Boxes was so high, people just didn't tend to make me good offers.  Getting a good deal took a lot longer than it could have and a lot more work on my part in the form of hunting through page after page day after day and sending and replying to email after email.  I'll do it all again of course because, well, I love my wife and she's worth it and she really needs that delivery van.  But all things being equal, I now realize I can save myself a bunch of work and stress by making sure to get an item that is in high demand but has relatively low supply.

So I went for an electric guitar.

My theory?  They retain or even increase their value over time, as a piece of electronic equipment they are automatically suspect to inherently higher value by the modern-day masses, and they're small enough to fit in my living room and be transported without having to rent or borrow a truck (hmmm... if only I had a truck-like vehicle I could use to haul bigger items around in).

And besides all that, they're wicked cool.

More importantly, there were a lot of electric guitars for sale on craigslist but pretty much none at all offered up for trade.  That means I could have a monopoly on trading one.  Anybody who wants one but doesn't have the cash will be pleasantly surprised to see one up for trade.  But probably just that one.  ;)  

So I researched electric guitars and found out a few things...
First, the Fender Stratocaster is the gold standard for American electric guitars.  Fender has also produced the Telecaster and the Squire, models that are lesser in value (though the reviews I read say the Telecaster is almost as good an instrument). The Strat I'd heard of, and if you can manage to find one from the '70s in good condition you can expect to pay several thousand for it. I had just $310, of course, and while I did find several for sale in that conceivable range, they were all used pretty hard or were recent remakes from Mexico which are still darned good but apparently don't have quite the same vintage "soul" to them.  This is something I came to appreciate even more once I talked to Matt... more on that later.

Secondly I found that the only real competitor to the Strat is just about anything made by Ibanez.  Ibanez makes guitars that look more like the ones you think of on MTV videos, is a newer company, and had rave reviews just about everywhere I looked.  Plus, they sell for a little cheaper so I'd probably find a used one that I could afford which would be in better condition.

Matt's guitar was an Ibanez RG370DXGP1.  It is also in 99% mint condition.  He bought it last December (so, just 5 months ago) and literally used it only once.  Coincidentally (or perhaps its not a coincidence at all but just further proof that these are the 2 quitars that really matter), Matt had been using a Strat in his band up until then and bought the Ibanez only to get a different sound.  Sadly, after just one gig the band broke up.  In Matt's own words, isn't that just how things go?

That I got a great guitar in great condition at a great price I knew going into the deal.  What I didn't know is some other stuff Matt explained, and I thank him for clarifying some things for me.  One is that it's pronounced "EYE-bun-ez", not "ee-BAHN-yez" like I had ignorantly assumed.  Another and more important is that the Ibanez has more of a grungey/metaly sound like what Metallica or Joe Satriani plays while the Fender Strat is more entuned to the melodic heart-wrenching moody Blues.  Now, I love the blues, but real grinder guitar bands have always been more my style.  Makes me wish I knew how to play.

But I can't, so I have to trade. 

What's even cooler than all that is I got more than just the guitar from Matt.  His sale also came with a gig bag, 2 guitar stands, 2 shoulder straps, an amp wire, and a whole collection of original paperwork that helps authenticate its right-off-the-rack condition.  These papers include an instruction manual, a limited warranty which I believe is still valid, an inspection card stamped by 4 separate Ibanez examiners, and a model # ticket.


Overall, I think this is the coolest trade yet.  I'm happy being out of the cash and small items business.  It was quite exhausting and carrying around all that money for so long was really beginning to bug me. I guess what was really hard was holding out for more sales so I could make a bigger purchase.  I still have the 4th item on the list, actually, but there are absolutely zero legit bites for all 3 times I posted it (at ever-decreasing prices), so I moved on and will continue to post the Sony Acid Pro 6 in the hopes of making a little extra cash to put towards the next trade, albeit I'm doing so at a restrained level.


FINAL THOUGHTS & LINKS TO IMPORTANT STUFF:
     -careful... your browser might lose this page-
>To see or forward my craigslist post to your friends who want a wicked cool guitar, click here. (This will be on craigslist for ~1 month or until I make a trade & delete it).
>To hear what an Ibanez RG370DXGP1 sounds like, click here, or here, or even here. And then... this one is from a different Ibanez, but it's pretty close to what mine could sound like... if you had mad skills.
>To see why my wife desperately needs a delivery van, click here.
>And finally, to start your own unique trading adventure, click here.

Thanks for reading.  Tell your friends to join my mailing list. 
-Keith