This page supports those buying a guitar sight unseen, via eBay.
You can find bargains on eBay. Occasionally, a good deal pops up. Sadly, some offerings are junk. You can sure drop a lot of money on one of these things. Now, if the seller accurately lists all of the problems and the price is low enough to include all of the repairs you will have to make for good playability, and the instrument will last another 10-15 years without collapsing, and if it is (or was) a quality instrument to begin with, then it may be a good deal. See the list below.
I am talking about "vintage" guitars made before 1980 costing more than $500.
It really is a bad idea to buy a guitar sight unseen. But if you are in California, and the seller is in New York, what to do? You can't just fly out there to check it out. In my opinion, you should be able to ask detailed, specific questions and receive honest answers. The most important thing to remember is that the seller no longer wants this instrument. Now, maybe they just had a baby and are selling a nice guitar because they need the money. On the other hand, maybe they are trying to dump a piece of junk.
I have purchased 8 vintage guitars via eBay. My experience was reasonable
but not consistent. Four listings were fairly accurate. Two were serious rip-offs.
Two were conservatively and accurately described: they were excellent buys,
well worth the time and money.
So, how do you avoid a rip off?
Here is a list of questions you should ask the seller. If the seller refuses to answer or gives you the run-around ("I don't know anything about guitars, my listing is written to the best of my knowledge and ability.") then don't bid on the guitar. If they know enough to state that it has great sound and is a collector's guitar having no issues, and is perfect, they know enough to answer your questions in detail.
If they won't answer questions in detail you should assume a major flaw or problem.
These questions are in descending order of importance:
| Question | Determination | Action or Value Reduction |
| Does the seller have any negative feedback(1) | If yes, may indicate confused or troublesome seller | Verify seller id, read the feedback, hesitate to bid. |
| Are there fewer than 30 positive feedbacks on small dollar items. | If yes,may indicate a scammer who has manufactured positive feedback | Verify seller id, read the feedback, hesitate to bid. |
| Does it have a reinforcing plate overlay? | Yes | Do not bid. This repair most often hides significant damage to the reinforcing plate. Overlays are tone-killing damage hiding, temporary repairs at best. |
| Is there severe Reinforcing Plate Damage (2) | Yes | Do not bid |
| Any Top Cracks Along the Finger Board Extension | If yes, indicates probable severe upper bout distortion | Do not bid: High Dollar Repairs in most cases. |
| Any Broken Braces | If yes for top or back | Do not bid |
| Any Bad cracks | If found on any surface, longer than one inch | Do not bid. Risk of significant impact damage. |
| Is there moderate Reinforcing Plate Wear (3) | Yes | Reduce bid by $300 |
| Is the bridge Cracked?(4) | Yes | Do not bid. |
| Does it have excessive top belly | Measured with straight edge below and parallel to the bridge. If the ends of the straight edge stick up above the sides more than 1/8 inch, the guitar was "ridden hard and put away wet". | Do not bid |
| Is there excessive top distortion | Top surface of bridge angles down towards the sound hole or there are bumps or humps where flatness or a gentle curve is normal. | Do not bid |
| Is the Bridge Pulling Up or coming unglued? | Yes | Reduce your max bid by $300. |
| Is the Action excessively high? | 5/64 inch or greater, high-E, at 12th fret | Even if you like high action, this is bad news. Do not bid, or be prepared to pay $250-500 or more for a neck reset or upper bout reconstruction. |
| Is the Fret Wear Visible? (5) | Yes | A complete fret job, aka a "setup" is $250-300 plus. Reduce your max bid accordingly. |
| Is the neck block cracked or shifted? | If yes, check for visible breaks or glue line cracks inside | Do not bid |
| Is the bottom block (where the strap pin goes) cracked | Visible damage inside or out | Do not bid |
| Is a Pickup installed or was an installed pick up removed?(6) | Either present or removed. | Reduce max bid by one third. |
| Any Neck fractures? | At any point on the neck or gear head | Reduce max bid by one-half. The repair may be perfect and quite sound; but it ain't original and it ain't vintage anymore, is it? |
| Any Fret Board Gouges? | Gouges in surface | Reduce max bid by $300 |
| Any Fret Board Cracks | Cracks are usually length wise. Cross-wise cracks are bad news to say the least!! | Reduce max bid by $300 depending on extent of damage. |
(1) Any negative feedback indicates a careless, uninformed, bull-headed, or unfair seller. If the seller is not interested in complete customer satisfaction, honesty, and fairness, he or she should not be selling. This is especially true when a $2000 guitar is involved. The seller should have no trouble selling correctly described, fairly listed guitars. If they are selling junk, they must describe it as junk. When I sell a guitar, I sell good quality and I guarantee complete satisfaction based on a detailed, completely accurate listing including detailed pictures. Now, if the buyer decides after the auction that he did not really want an accurately described, red Johnson guitar with a ding in the top, why tough toenails. But if I forgot to list a problem, I will negotiate a partial cash refund, or accept return (and pay for the shipping). I care more about the people I deal with than the damn money.
Beware that it is fairly easy to manufacture an eBay account with lots of nice positive but bogus feedback. When it comes to buying guitars, I prefer to buy from people who have sold many of them with no complaints. Beware of the guy selling his first $5000 guitar. This is not a hard and fast rule. There are plenty of people with one guitar for sale who will deal honestly.
(2) Let's define Severe Reinforcing Plate damage as holes large enough to allow any one string ball end to completely pull or sink into the reinforcing plate. This damage is difficult to repair correctly, though many luthiers will tell you otherwise. They often sell stop-gap repairs, such as a plate overlay. The new StewMac Bridge Saver tool corrects string hole problems nicely. Please see the Bridge Saver summary on the tools page.
(3) Lots of guitars have moderate reinforcing plate wear. The ball ends are less than half way sunk into the reinforcing plate. This is generally repairable, but you should reduce the maximum you are willing to bid.
(4) A cracked bridge often indicates much more severe or serious damage to the top and or reinforcing plate. Often, this is not repairable by other than major and expensive surgery which drastically reduces the value of a vintage guitar. In rare cases, the entire top needs replaced. Considering that you are buying this guitar sight unseen, this is certainly a very risky purchase.
(5) A setup involves all new frets, probably a new nut, probably a new saddle and often some degree of fret board leveling. This is a $250 to $600 job. (A complete refret by a skilled luthier is an amazing amount of work.) I define significant fret wear as any wear spots below one third of the fret from the fret top in any fret. Usually this is mostly visible on the first three to five frets. If the seller states: visible fret wear, that's OK, just reduce your maximum bid accordingly. Also, don't let a luthier tell you that they can correct the action at the nut without significant fret replacement and adjustment. You can't replace or adjust the nut and leave worn frets in place: you are just throwing good money after bad. Now, if you don't mind playing a guitar with intonation problems, or a less than perfect setup, feel free to bid if this is the only problem.
(6) Pickup installed or removed. In my humble opinion as a flat picker, no internal pickup on an acoustic guitar ever sounded better than horrible. I think they sound ridiculous. The preferred way to amplify an acoustic guitar is with a quality high impedance microphone. Just listen to the 40 plus year old recordings of Joan Baez performing live. Even on crappy old monophonic recordings, her guitar sounds great. That is because she always used a microphone. Once the lower bout block is bored out to accept the 1/2 inch plug jack, you no longer have a vintage guitar in original condition. In fact, with a pickup installed, you have a hybrid. Yuck! Reduce your maximum bid by one third.
By the way, I would never purchase a guitar from a seller who claims to be a professional musician: the poor thing is probably beat all to hell. These guys normally use medium or even (!) heavy gauge strings, which tend to wear out the top fairly quickly and irreparably. Do a web search for the seller's name to see if he is listed as a performing artist.
Just a note on my own preferences: I have a like new 73 Mossman Great Plains. That guitar will never see other than light gauge strings. That is; if I actually get up the nerve to tension the strings and play it. Great guitars, like Mossmans, don't need medium gauge strings. If the word "medium" appears in the listing, bid with great caution.