This isn't a guide that I'm writing. Its more of a rant in response to a problem that I think is getting out of hand. Ever since my start on ebay (2001), I've been noticing a large increase in the prices of guitars, both new and used. I believe this is all of our faults. People keep buying more and more guitars, and putting outrageous bids on guitars that shouldn't be costing so much, causing the prices to go up.

 I bought a brand new USA made fender standard strat back in 2002 for $450 with a case, and that was the average price (around $500) back then on Ebay. Right now its gone up so much, and there is a large occurence of vintage guitars on ebay for outrageous prices as well. Import guitars are now costing upwards $1500, when they are only worth $500 and would have been worth less a few years back. Japanese fenders are now costing upwards $700-900, and these sellers are misrepresenting the guitars most of the time, saying they are the best, and so forth, to squeeze out that extra dime.

Another trend I've seen develop into something big, is people gutting guitars (most of the time they are perfectly good guitars) and selling the parts to get as much $$$ as they can, and some of these sellers aren't even guitar players. Now we have tons of luthiers on ebay and the internet claiming they can make the perfect vintage strat, not to mention the increase of counterfeit guitars, claiming to be the real thing, charging up to $2k and more. And the sad thing is that people buy them!! Many people are talented, and many people are also crooks. The best place to be a crook is on the internet, and includes instances where sellers lie about their items they are selling and making false claims, saying they dont know the history of the guitar or saying "I dont know much about guitars, and I'm selling this for a friend",and is being sold as "as is". Charging $2k for a guitar that is a clone (much lower resale value), or counterfeiting guitars and passing them on as the real thing for thousands, has ruined the ebay experience and is very unethical (this doesn't mean that the name brands are the ones to buy, but at least you have the resale value).

Companies study these things, and this led to the increase of prices from manufactures and to the sudden drop in quality, because they know people will pay up. US fender guitars and Real gibson les pauls aren't near the quality they used to be, and their prices have increased. However, people not only respond with just buying one, they buy 2 or 3. They then write glorious reviews and this causes Jim or Joe to go out and do the same thing, and the effect amplifies. When there is more demand, prices go up. And theres the issue of nitro vs. poly, which people claim the only way to get good tone is to use nitro, so they can sell there product. You can get good tone either way, and neither sounds better than the other, and the wood is dead and doesn't breathe either; whatever the reasoning behind it, it leads to lots of unnecessary spending on vintage clones because of this.

Another rant of mine is the massive increase of guitar pedals on Ebay and their outrageous prices. Why would I ever spend $300-400 for a distortion pedal, delay, chorus, or a booster, etc. Its a metal box with some components. Where is the justification to this. Just because Eric Johnson plays it, or Eric Clapton, does that mean you have to charge $300-$400 for it? I've even seen pedals go for $600. Because of all these new and expensive clones and boutique pedals, manufactures intercepted the signal and now manufacturers are charging stupid prices for something sonically simple known as a guitar pedal; and once again, people are paying these prices. And the biggest blow is to the music. Players are just spending more and more time and money on guitars, and building them, or whatever, and forgetting about the music. We all started playing for the music, but somewhere along the way, we have all come to believe that we can only sound good if we buy the best and most expensive guitar(s) (or supposedly the best in some peoples heads (Ed Roman)), the best tube amp(s), and the best and most expensive guitar pedals. And the fact of the matter is, most of these big spenders aren't even that good.

If they want to sound good, or better, they should practice more. I can see that it would be ok for big money making musicians to spend large sums of cash on gear and experimenting with them, but not the hobbyists or weekend giggers. I was one of these people, spending more time looking for deals on guitars and gear, instead of practicing and getting better. At one time I had as many as 14 guitars, and didn't play all but 2 of them. I learned my lesson, and my punishment is that I'm not as good as a player as I should be for the amount of time I've been playing. I've managed to get great tone using a fairly decent guitar, a decent tube amp (pignose), and decent guitar pedals (bad monkey). I think thats it for me. Ive sold most of my expensive gear. I'm not saying you guys should do so too, but I'm saying be more buyer conscious and to determine if the item you are buying is really necessary, and/or priced right. In business school, you learn that consumers determine the price of goods based on the amount of demand they create. We drove the prices up, we can lower them too.