Not so bad vintage price at GC

[telel6s]

While I agree that GC usually overprices it's vintage gear, I saw a piece yesterday in Fairfax VA that, while not a bargain, wasn't completely outrageous.

They have a '51 Fender Deluxe marked at $1250.

It had a newer (2000) Jensen P12. They told me it had been recapped. The one transformer I could see had a date code of 8xx so I'd question it's originality (I don't know enough about this stuff as to whether a 1948 part could be in a '51 amp). It also had been set up with adapters to run 12ax7s in the preamp.

But it sounded good and had no problems getting turned up to 9 or so on the volume. The tweed was a little ragged but at least you know it hadn't been recovered. As a bonus, it came with the original cover that, while having more than it's share of stains, was intact and usable.

Someone who know's about these amps better than I could probably put together a good argument based on non-originality to bring the price down. Of course, it's then up to GC to decide whether they want to deal.

But then there had to be a typical GC experience. The saleperson was just letting me play (cool), and he told me about the Deluxe but did nothing to push a sale (cool), but after about 10 minutes he said I should try the Blues Jr Vintage model. Huh???

I'm not a fan of Blues Jr's to begin with, but I plugged in just for the heck of it. It was OK, but nothing special and definitely not worth the SALE!! price of $499. Made the $1250 for the Deluxe seem much more reasonable.

[yegbert]

Telel6s, I was in that GC a few days ago. I wondered what was up with the low inventory, are they wiped out from holiday sales?

They had a nice '72 Deluxe RI Tele I played for a bit, I think I played it through a '65 Super Reverb (RI).

Carl, one of the older guys there, sold me my 50s Classic Tele late last year. He seems like a good guy to deal with, and made my GC experience there a positive one.

[benmeza]

Speaking of GC, I went into one recently and they had a Rhodes Student model 73(the classroom one for lessons) with the attached amp and a built in metronome. The price was actually a reasonable $800 and for a second I thought it might be a good buy. I played it and it had some of the most sluggish action on a piano you have ever player. The keys were stiff and the return action was horrible. The sustain pedal was broken(didn't work at all) and when I opened up the top, nearly all the hammers were desperately in need of replacement.

I said to myself, here is something that could be a cool little electric piano but not for the price. About that time the salesman walked by (while I was trying to coax the sustain pedal into working)....."Ya, you know those old Fender Rhodes - sustain pedals never really did much but that's part of their sound!", he said. I sneered thinking to myself that their "sound" IS that ringing bell tone that rings into the next chord - this isn't a clavinet.

Then he started telling me about how great the action was. "You can't get action like this on those digital pianos - this is the real deal for pro's - for people used to playing real pianos.".... I didn't know they put metronomes in "Pro" keyboards and furthermore, they don't have crappy action like that. The reason none of the digital keyboards had that action is because no one in their right mind would pay to have sluggish, stiff action - the only acoustic pianos that actually play like that are those beat up spinet clunkers you pay $100 for in the newspaper(the ones that lessons were taught on for years and have been sitting in a damp basement for 50 years).

I was just disgusted because I knew the salesman wasn't stupid enough to believe the crap that was coming out of his mouth - he was just trying to up his commision. I heard him give the same sustain pedal comment to a boy and his father looking to purchase the boy's first piano. What a sleeze...anyway, it's fair to say I will never shop there again....

[telel6s]

Yeah, the walls were maybe only 1/4 to 1/3 full of guitars. The front part of the acoustic room seemed to have plenty of Ovations and little else. But the stock of amps, pedals, strings (the reason I was there) appeared normal.

My guess is they are just rearranging for the new year or maybe they've killed deals with some vendors and made deals with new vendors so we'll see some new product in the next couple of weeks.

No concern to me. One reason I was playing the '51 Deluxe (aside from simply playing a Deluxe) is that I just bought a Mission Amps Deluxe-clone which showed up via FedEx today.....so I need to start saving pennies again before any big new purchases.