Post Your Best Guitar Store Experience

[noah330]

I enjoyed the worst guitar store experience but we should probably focus on the other side as well.

What was your best guitar store experience? To me, it's a much harder question because I seem to remember things that went wrong vs when things go right.

To me, it would be back when I first started playing. I had a paper route but I (obviously) didn't have a license. There were some really great stores out of town but getting the chance to go there wasn't easy.

A friend of my parents' son was 19 (I was probably 13) and he played keyboards. He would pick me up once in a while and take me over to a store on a Saturday.

One of my best memories was bringing about $30 with me one day and buying a bunch of stuff. I got a free set of Ampeg strings for demoing that Lee Jackson Ampeg with the key on the front (which seemed insane, as I would have played that thing for nothing!) a cable, a bunch of picks and a copy of Guitar Player.

The people at that store were really cool and I spent about three hours being a total PITA playing Rickenbackers, Kramers, Martins, Gibsons and Fenders. I played through Rivieras, Marshalls, Ampegs and probably some others.

I was super loyal to that store for a lot of years but I also worked there teaching for about a year when I finished college.

How about you?

 

[beagle]

1996: Walk in, spot a new ST54 Strat hanging on the wall, play ST54, buy ST54, walk out.

2019: Walk in, spot a new CV50 Tele hanging on the wall, play CV50, buy CV50, walk out.

Nothing much ever changes around here...

 

[noah330]

I remember Guitar Center in Boston had one of those ST54s hanging in a special spot back then. Super cool guitar! Do you still have it?

 

[notmyusualuserid]

1996: Walk in, spot a new ST54 Strat hanging on the wall, play ST54, buy ST54, walk out.

2019: Walk in, spot a new CV50 Tele hanging on the wall, play CV50, buy CV50, walk out.

Nothing much ever changes around here...

I think in the States it's compulsory for the prospective purchaser to beat the salesman down to at least 15% off the ticket price of a new guitar. I've never had much luck with that. I haggled a free, cheap, lead and a packet of Rotos once...

 

[Mike Eskimo]

Regular guitar store or topless guitar store ?

Because that would affect my answer...

 

[deytookerjaabs]

The atmosphere in the vintage shop I took lessons at back in the 90's was so cool. In the lesson room over the oriental rug laden walls hung a big collection of hand made 1800's to turn of the century instruments by a Chicago luthier (bowlback mando, bariton mandos, parlor guitars, etc). The amps we played through during lesson time were a couple "junky" old magnatones.

In the main room towards the back the center floor was lined with vintage fender amps & cabs of all colors..browns/blondes/tweeds/etc. Then at the base of the wall all the other American brands of amps Gibson/Supro/etc. The walls of the main room were full of vintage ES's, Epi's, Rickenbackers, quirky vox guitars, flat tops and other in that vein. In the front room was more "modern" stuff like 70's Gibson/Fenders, newer acoustics etc.

In the hallway behind the front counter was the stacks of cases, this is where all the Pre-CBS Fenders and McCarty Gibsons sat waiting for inquiring minds.

Anyways, the place died off like others of it's kind when the owner passed and the kids took over having to sell the location & top end vintage gear. I also taught there later on.



My best single experience in terms of customer service was at Chicago Music Exchange. I sold them a silverface pro reverb but accidentally left the speaker cable from a brown bandmaster inside it. I went back a day later thinking I'd have to plead & plead that it was an accident, but they were cool enough to just swaps speaker cables on the spot and "got it."

 

[TigerG]

Southpaw Guitars in Houston shipped three J150/J200's to me in Nashville to test out and pick the one I wanted to keep. Southpaw paid for all the shipping, including the returns. The shipments were in succession, but the third was sent to me before I returned the 2nd so I could compare them side by side. Also, the third one was ordered to my specs, and nonetheless Southpaw was willing to let me end up with the 2nd if I preferred that one in the end.

 

[D_W_PGH]

1996 - walked into Link's music in hanover, pa. Lusted over an Ibanez Jem 10th. The owner there was real laid back, got it down, let me play it - I was afraid to damage it. I bought it and then sold it five years later for a grand more after putting a bunch of play wear on it.

For whatever reason, two years before that, a friend and I who had little money to buy anything with, went in and saw a large ampeg stack (it was a loud shrill amp! not like the 70s ampeg stuff), and asked about it "it's cheaper than a marshall, is it any good?". I was lusting over a marshall half stack because we were playing in a led zeppelin cover band together in high school and getting paid (and probably thought at the time that $300 a gig was going to turn in more ...foolish, but you're invincible when you're 16). The owner of the shop handed us his personal les paul (not a large shop and other people in it) and pretty much said "play it as loud as you want". It was a harsh sounding 80s kind of thin sound, and it would've taken a real man to stay in the same room with it and crank it. I couldn't.

Back then, most stores wouldn't let minors get anything off the wall in the first place, unless it was cheap used stuff. the place where I took lessons had a guy who shadowed me when I looked at the guitars while waiting for my teacher to come out from his prior lesson. I'd bought stuff there, but it didn't matter - they didn't want kids touching anything. Fairly sure they made most of their money on lessons, band rentals and sheet music. They did stiff me on a LP custom that they had on a rack (used, they weren't a gibson dealer). It was marked $1700, I had $1200 at the time that I could've blown on it (from selling an ATV) - I asked them if they were willing to deal and told how much I had. they blew me off, and sold it to an *adult* later that week for $1100. He must've had compromising pictures of them. Who knows, maybe he conned one of the salespeople there into believing there was something defective on it.

Strangely enough, both of those stores are still in business last I checked. The local stores here have all come and gone (moved 200 miles west after college), except for 1 that I can think of.

 

[Recce]

View media item 39693I was in Bailey Brother’s Music in Birmingham about a year and a half ago because I wanted to compare the 68 and 65 Princeton Reverb Amps along with the VOX AC15C1. Listened to them and went nice then I started looking at Guitars. They had a 2017 Gibson SG Standard marked down. Played it. It played great and it followed me home 57 Humbuckers and all.

At Thanksgiving they marked down the AC15C1 to a used price and I drove back down from Huntsville and it came home also.

 

[noah330]

I think in the States it's compulsory for the prospective purchaser to beat the salesman down to at least 15% off the ticket price of a new guitar. I've never had much luck with that. I haggled a free, cheap, lead and a packet of Rotos once...

When I was a kid and dealt mostly with Mom and Pop type stores the general rule of thumb on new stuff was to ask for no tax and a pack of strings. One place would do it if you paid cash or wrote a check directly to the owner, so he could say it was private sale.

Sometimes you could bring in a MF or AMS catalog and get a price match. Sometimes you could bring in a business card from another store with a price quote and they would do it but usually not.

I remember sometimes with a pedal they would throw in a patch cable. I remember those short cables (and long ones actually) being crazy expensive, but that may be because I was a broke kid. I also remember guitar strings being more expensive than they are now. One place did 2 for 1 and one set was $9.99. $5 a set was a pretty good price. If you needed strings on a Sunday they were $10.00 at Sam Goody - GHS Boomers or Gibson Brite Wires.

 

[beagle]

I think in the States it's compulsory for the prospective purchaser to beat the salesman down to at least 15% off the ticket price of a new guitar. I've never had much luck with that. I haggled a free, cheap, lead and a packet of Rotos once...

With the Classic Vibe. I said "How about a gig bag then?", he said "I'll get one from the back"...

 

[beagle]

I remember Guitar Center in Boston had one of those ST54s hanging in a special spot back then. Super cool guitar! Do you still have it?

 

[omahaaudio]

1984.
Guitar Center in the San Fernando Valley.
New Yamaha SG3000 on sale for, wait for it, $399 (including hard shell case).
I bought it, sold it a year later (in England) for $1200.
I really wish that I had kept it.
I really, really wish that I had kept it.

 

[Bob M]

Believe it or not my best experience involved a non-purchase. I was on business in Chicago and had an afternoon to kill. Took a cab to the Chicago Music Exchange. Even though I was very clear that I wasn't a buyer that day they let me have the run of the place. I played old Martins, Fenders-anything was available. Nice people. Expensive-YESSSS! But the day I was there they had a half dozen D-18s from the '40s to the '60s and they encouraged you to play them. I'd like to go back.

 

[noah330]

That's one thing that happened with GC. They would list guitars about $50 cheaper than anyone else then they would make you buy the case.

If everyone was selling American Strats (for example) for $599 they would sell them for $550 and then try to sell you some generic GC POS case for $45 or something.

Once I remember walking over to the brochure rack (which was something stores had back then!) and showing the salesd00de that the guitar came with a case. He told me if I wanted to pay MSRP I could have the case for free, which would have made no sense.

The only good thing about that is on the sale days (which were legit back then) you could walk in and buy really, really nice cases that hadn't been purchased really cheap.

 

[Shuster]

The day I walked up to the door of Guitar Center, and a note said Closed.

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

A few years ago we were visiting the Finger Lakes, so I made sure that we visited the old Rumbleseat Music in Ithaca. The store was glorious, filled with every vintage guitar and amp you could imagine. I hate wasting other people's time so I told the sales guys that I was just there to look and wasn't in the market for anything (nor could I afford most of what they had). They were super cool and told me to enjoy myself and just let them know if there was anything that I'd like to play.

After we walked around the store three or four times I asked a couple of questions about things I had seen, and they insisted that I not leave without playing a few vintage guitars. I tried to beg out of it, reiterating that I didn't have the cash for anything, but they said that one day I might have the cash, and if so, they'd like me to remember them when that time came. Plus, they gave me a free t-shirt because they said my enthusiasm was a good advertisement for their business.

And its not just because of my radiant personality. When my brother was a touring musician he had the same experience a few years earlier.

That was my favorite day on that vacation. To cap it off we ate at Moosewood that night.

 

[Bergy]

I have gotten spoiled living near so many good stores. Wildwood Guitars, Old Town Pickin Parlor and the Denver Folklore Center are all pretty close. Now that I think of it, I have had nothing but good experiences in all those places. That’s not even counting smaller ones like Colfax Guitars and individual luthiers that are doing good work out here also. Got a pretty good store for pedals in Denver, too (Flipside). If one possesses a sincere but non-annoying love of guitar, most decent non-corporate music stores are fun, IME. Heck, I even enjoy a lot of the corporate ones as well. You just hafta brace for the fact that you WILL hear competing amateuresque renditions of Littlewing as soon as you open the door.

 

[gitold]

In November of 1970 I went into Joe Fava’s music store on 8 mile in Royal Oak Mi. to buy a new 1970 Tele. Mike Bloomfield had one on the back of the first Butterfield album and Joe Walsh was using one in the James gang and if I remember correctly they were $229. My mom had heard me playing on my brothers tiny Gibson acoustic and was shocked that I could play it. I had just been teaching myself blues licks but I knew I needed a electric guitar to really pull it off. She agreed to go to Fava’s with me and sign for me on a monthly payment plan. We walked in I told the man what I wanted and he pulled a (new) Jazzmaster off the wall and said that for $4 more a month I could get Fenders best guitar. Why would I want a plain old white guitar when I could get a guitar that looked like a rocket ship. Well I took that guitar home and within a few days I was informed by my older brothers and freinds that the guitar had been on the wall at Fava’s for years because nobody wants a Jazzmaster “It’s a surf guitar”. But I didn’t care I loved that guitar. I played it 8 hours a day and learned how to set up the crazy bridge for light gauge strings and half pop the neck for truss rod adjustments. My brothers friend lent me a Ampeg Gemini 6 so I learned how to play clean, talk about headroom! I had it for 3 years then I traded it for this wacky plastic guitar that Glen Campbell was advertising. It was electric and acoustic. At the same time. WOW! Never did like that Ovation and I ended up trading it for a ES 335. Years later when people started careing about such things I realized my Jazzmaster was a 65 because it had dots and binding. It had sat on that store wall for 5 years! Pix or it didn’t happen.

 

[GGardner]

1992 - I walked into a guitar store (I can't remember the name) on the Main Line outside Philly. Back then, big amps and pointy guitars were still in. I found a 1965 Vibro Champ that was literally being overshadowed. The salesperson warned me that I would be plugging it in at my own risk because the decades-old 2-prong power cord was torn and frayed. He noted that the speaker was ripped too. I forgot how much I paid for it--but it was in the $100 neighborhood (and I remember the young salesperson being pleasantly surprised by the sale). I put on a 3-prong power cord and swapped in a Weber. if my house ever catches on fire--or there is a flood--I will be running down to the basement to grab my Vibro Champ.