Do Guitar Shop Workers Take Guitars Home?

[H165]

Strumometer!.

In the store where I worked we didn't take new stuff home.....the old stuff was far too interesting to us. We were allowed to take things home for a test drive. It was definitely a perk of working there. I saw dozens of Martins and almost as many Gibsons traded in across that front counter.

The fairly well known southern CA guitar trader Randy Snoddy used to loan out guitars, banjos, and mandolins, (all vintage) on a regular basis. Sometimes for performance, sometimes for recording, sometimes as favors, and sometimes.....for years. I think everyone who knew him and traded with him was fine with it. Hope so anyway.

[SuperB23]

In this video a lot of retired Martin employees get interviewed that worked there in the 40s 50s and 60s and they share some fun stories about certain instruments getting built on the side and getting snuck home on the DL. The stories are worth your time!

https://www.namm.org/library/oral-hi...vbCGtEMer4GFrg

[bufflehead]

Originally Posted by catndahats

There should be perks to each job, happy employees are hard to come by.

Unless you're a teacher, of course. No telling what would happen if we let those folks take chalk home overnight.

[BluesKing777]

Hmmm, suspicions confirmed!

The car salesman I mentioned in the first post sells high end used cars, not new. The feeder road must have 5000 cars going past and around whatever he parks there, some people go up and down 4 or 5 times, and the beautiful cars he drives home are...obstacle courses. BMW coupes, Jag coupes etc, etc....and he must keep driving them until they are sold....5 years or so that I know of, I have been driving around them.

And guitars ...I know a brand new guitar. And that isn't one that has been handed around the place and shop for a year! I usually buy very used these days, and prefer vintage. I have a great mechanic! Honest breakage! 35 00-17 or something....next...


BluesKing777.

[MaurysMusic]

Originally Posted by BluesKing777

As I drove around a BMW 630i, very expensive, that a car salesman drives around a while then parks out front of his house on this very busy feeder street...this car is for sale and the next owner buyer would probably die with his leg in the air if he knew the goings on.....

So then it occurred to me - guitar shop workers probably do the same! Play it at home until it sells, then move on to the next? How would you know in these days of internet sales?

Comments?


BluesKing777.

I don’t take anything home, but that’s mostly because it’s just easier to play one of our guitars at our store. Humidity is perfect all year round, it’s quieter and so much unnecessary risk is eliminated. Between our 3 YouTube live shows every week, I end up playing more guitar at work than I do after work.

[Dbone]

Originally Posted by Mark Stone

A "Strumometer"?

If it's a small mom-and-pop shop I imagine a guitar may go home with the shop owner from time to time.

You should patent that Mark!

[Jeff Mc]

Originally Posted by Roksbug

Several years back I had a similar experience with buying a new Ford vehicle. I told the salesman that I needed to transfer the money from one bank to another so I could write him a check. The salesman and manager said “no problem just take it and come back in a couple days when you are ready.” I could have easily put a thousand miles on it and that would have affected their selling price if I decided not to buy it.
BUT….. that is one reason we have become return customers and have purchased several vehicles from them.

When I am car browsing, I have numerous sales people offer to let me take it home to show my wife or sometimes to take it home for the weekend. I think the theory is that once you drive it out the door you will feel more obligated to buy.

[BluesKing777]

When I went by earlier, the car in the thread was gone......

Sold to the man with the gold?

Or crumpled to pieces by a fast moving Fedex van delivering..... Or the postman from Funny Farm....

He parks the spiffy cars in such an awful place - if it was a guitar it would be leaning on the front shop window.

And cheers to Maury......couldn’t imagine him doing anything sneaky!


BluesKing777.

[SingingSparrow]

Originally Posted by MaurysMusic

I don’t take anything home, but that’s mostly because it’s just easier to play one of our guitars at our store. Humidity is perfect all year round, it’s quieter and so much unnecessary risk is eliminated. Between our 3 YouTube live shows every week, I end up playing more guitar at work than I do after work.

are you hiring?

(sounds like the perfect place to work! sincerely glad you get to spend so much time doing what you love to do!! )

[gmel555]

Maybe used ones, but I can't believe they're taking home new guitars. Of course they play them at the stores, so do customers. The better shops capable of giving advice to players looking for a certain sound need to play them so when customers like many of us call, they'll have direct experience they can advise us on. One shop I know well -and have bought from now for over 20 years- told me that after seeing how they can operate by "appointment only" due to COVID, they're not likely to go back to "walk-in" trade. The reason is too many customers insist that any slight shop worn mark should yield a discount; and too many walk-ins don't handle their guitars properly. Hard for me to imagine that shop is taking home guitars. A car is a totally different animal; it has an odometer which tells an objective tale; and once they're put into that service they're intended to sell as demos.

[Bridgepin]

I would think that a small shop might let a long term employee try out a trade in at their home....I would hope at least. And who knows if the owner of the shop know the person is responsible and he knows you can't play it with a pick.

[Zissou Intern]

I worked in a high-end acoustic (mostly) shop. (Martin, SCGC, Collings, Gibson, Nugget, B&H, Old Wave, Pogreba, Bourgeois, Lowden, Guild, Deering, Tacoma, Fender, PRS and lots of vintage) There were five or six of us on staff. We, with respect and care, took instruments home all the time... for an evening or weekend. There was a small recording studio run out the shop. Shop inventory was often carefully used in recording sessions.

The boss used a new OM21 as his lesson guitar for well over two, maybe three years. A guy came in looking for an OM one weekend. He played everything we had, but couldn't find the right one. I told him to hold on a sec while I ran downstairs to the lesson room and brought up what looked like a used OM21. It sounded great after being played about 30 hours a week for all that time. He loved it. When I told him it was actually a new Martin with a warranty, and if he gave me an hour, I could clean it up and restring it for him, he was thrilled. The boss was surprised when he came in Monday and his lesson guitar was sold... at a normal retail price. (Guess where he sourced the next lesson guitar.)

Not all of us need a new car with <15 miles on it or a new guitar that is untouched by human hands before we buy it.

[catndahats]

not sure I get the correlation, but as a retired teacher I chuckled.
FWIW: I never took chalk (or dry erase markers) home, but sure did buy a lot and freely distributed it to kids at school.

All I know is that I once bought a "new" guitar that looked like the one someone posted about being used for 3yrs worth of lessons (and a few concerts and possibly as a skateboard ramp) and paid full retail---still fume about that online/sight unseen bad purchase.

Originally Posted by bufflehead

Unless you're a teacher, of course. No telling what would happen if we let those folks take chalk home overnight.

[ewalling]

Do Guitar Shop Workers Dream of Electric Guitars?

That has a certain ring to it!

[zombywoof]

I know store owners who would on occasion take this or that guitar home. But they were always used guitars. As they had paid for the guitars it was not a big deal. I do not, however, know what rules their employees lived by. It just never came up during the course of various conversations. There was one store owner though who would let me take anything he got in used home to give the tires a good kick. He knew me well enough to know that was the best way to sell me a guitar. Did it work? You betcha.