Anyone else despise flippers/dealers?

I abhorrently despise dealers who scourer Craigslist, FB Market Place, etc who buy gear and then relist it for ridiculous prices. Resellers on Reverb and eBay are probably the worst offenders. They have driven used gear prices through the roof. I support free trade and capitalism but these guys are just f'n trolls. For instance, Guitar Center used is typically fair in their pricing. They provide the customer convince by offering quick, easy cash, but that convince comes at a cost. They buy low and resell for profit; but their advertised prices are typically market value and often times less. The customer comes to them. The scum I speak of scour the general public selling venues, buy at market, and then price it through the roof. Often times these ass clowns want what an entire kit price for a single rack tom. Anyone else view these dealers as scum of the Earth?

Buyer beware.. You have to pay attention and be more slick than the sellers. Know your products and a range for price. Free enterprise at times sucks. I have used Ebay, CL, and Facebook Market Place for buying and selling. If I see an item that looks out of line I will let them know. I have the time to do this. Sometimes I get replies, sometimes not. My current set of Gretsch were listed for $900. I didn't want to pay that so I passed it by. Two weeks later they were listed at $700. I got them for $650.

While I can't match your passion and intensity, I have noticed that used prices are ridiculous. I've bought 90% of my drum gear new because used prices = new prices when you factor in tax and shipping. Might as well spend the extra $30-$40 for new condition, return policy, warranty, and customer service.

As for my local CL, I feel like nothing sells on there whether priced reasonably or not.

organworthyplayer337 said:

While I can't match your passion and intensity, I have noticed that used prices are ridiculous. I've bought 90% of my drum gear new because used prices = new prices when you factor in tax and shipping. Might as well spend the extra $30-$40 for new condition, return policy, warranty, and customer service.

As for my local CL, I feel like nothing sells on there whether priced reasonably or not.

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Yeah I normally dont have such passion and intensity, but this guy on Reverb was a real douche. I am four craft beers in so I figured I would rant.

csnow said:

Yeah I normally dont have such passion and intensity, but this guy on Reverb was a real douche. I am four craft beers in and figured I would rant.

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Reverb is the biggest offender for sure. I've pretty much stopped buying there. Used prices too high. Shipping prices, while probably accurate, are a deal breaker in a lot of cases. And tax on top? Nah

Hey, if someone with more money than common sense wants to pay ridiculous amounts of cash for something, they're free to do that. I won't stand in their way.

Being in the Los Angeles area, I know/know of quite a few of the dealer/flipper guys ..... say, from San Diego the Ventura. And for the most part ...... they're a good bunch. One guy is kind of a "chuckle head" ...... he was actually banned from one drum stores parking lot sales But the rest are just trying to make a buck doing what they do. Last count I had 8 kits (9 if you count the roto toms with an orphan bass drum) ...... so ...... it's not like "the one that got away" haunts me much

Agreed. I don't really 'despise' any one.
Prices are determined by the market, not by dealers. If you hike the price on a vintage drum and it sits in your inventory for years, then you aren't going to be a dealer for very long.
The reality is musicians are pretty low paid overall. People who have had well paid careers, like sports, tech and medical are often frustrated musos and are buying the gear they couldn't afford when they were 18.
The shame is when great instruments sit in a glass case and are never played, but I don't despise the people who collect. There has never been a better time to acquire high quality NEW gear at low prices.

Nope, don't care. If someone has something I want and is asking a ridiculous amount and wont budge, I'll buy it somewhere else. This is the age of the internet, that one guy can be circumvented with ease.

MrInsanePolack said:

Nope, don't care. If someone has something I want and is asking a ridiculous amount and wont budge, I'll buy it somewhere else. This is the age of the internet, that one guy can be circumvented with ease.

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Agreed. I'm a free market kind of guy.

However... Some of the EBay re-sellers are a bit annoying (leecountymusic, for example) as they have so much overpriced crap listed on EBay, it requires extra effort on my part to sort through. And since EBay doesn't have a tool to block sellers, they are basically spam.

Oh well; this is definitely a "first world problem."

I’d never really thought about it until I saw this thread…I’ll grab me some craft beers and get back to you.

I don't care. People buy and sell, I have no problem with that. I suppose if someone really wanted a particular type item fast they could get it by paying a high price. That's a good thing.

My frustration overlaps my other hobby and this one bled over. I collect and restore arcade machines from the early 80s i.e Donkey Kong, Galaga, Ms Pacman, etc. Dealersflippers entered the market and caused the prices to go through the roof. What made it worse, is they ripped out the original CRT monitors which are no longer being made and tossed them in the trash and replaced them with LCD panels. Those monitors are fixable since its usually just failed electronics on the board and not the picture tube. They then throw the original game boards away and put a cheap, Chinese multi-game board. The games on LCD boards look horrid and those cheap Chinese game boards are poor quality MAME bootleg ROMs. The "survivor" machines are being ruined for a quick buck and the entire hobby got displaced. Some unknowing, poor sap buys a machine at 4x the price and gets an awful gaming experience that is nothing like what they played and remembered growing up. It is, what it is, but it definitely ruffles my feathers.

How many of us need something so badly that we'll over-pay for it? The buyer has the final say on what something is worth, not the seller.

Now if something is painfully rare and you don't expect to find it again, you may justify paying the price. But if you want a 20" Zildjian crash from the 60s, there are undoubtedly hundreds available at any given time, in a wide range of prices. Simply avoid the higher-priced listings.

I am about to become a 'seller' of sorts, gradually liquidating the bulk of my collection. BUT... I didn't acquire those items in order to flip them, and I will be asking extremely reasonable prices. I will be surprised if anyone has the guts to try and bargain further. I recently sold a few cymbals to a friend who's an artist for the brand (let's just call it the "P" company...) and no argument from him whatsoever on the prices. While that means I'm not asking enough, I also know I'm on the right track to move stuff.

I don't know what dudes are doing with their used prices. It's been a mystery to me. Fees have made the life of a flipper a LOT more difficult.

As a lifelong buy low/sell low guy, I have to say that Reverb has been making it harder of late. You find a cymbal for $300 and you buy it. Well, now, add $20 shipping and 8% tax and you're up to $344. Then if you don't like it and you go to sell it you're going to have to charge $344+ 5% + shipping to break even. So then the next buyer is buying the cymbal for a total of $390 and the original buyer hasn't made a nickel. That makes the math of the whole thing a lot tougher. Someone's got to lose a little money in the process.

If Rod Morgenstein was selling these, I’d sell a kidney to buy them!! I saw a set of Prem Resonators in this exact finish (with standard chrome hardware) in a London drum store (Footes I think) whilst shopping for hi hats back in 1992 but I couldn’t afford them back then…I’ve never seen a set on eBay, but if I did I would seriously consider overpaying for them…

I don’t see an issue with it. I used to look for second hand stuff all the time to “turn and burn”. I’ve posted this before where my wife and I were both out of work for well over a year and dropping like a rock financially. We sold off everything to survive, then I did the much despised turn and burn to make ends meet. I could have gone on the government nipple and whined about my circumstances like I see so many do. Instead, I went to work scouring every opportunity to buy and sell things. I’ll make no apologies for buying low and selling for higher. It was my job at the time. I actually had two. I was offering IT services to small businesses where I could, attending chambers of commerce meetings and marketing myself the best I could, then hitting ever avenue I could think of to buy and sell. They were 15 hour days and some of the toughest work I’ve done. I kept that up for several years after finally finding work to pay off the debt still accumulated during the time. The only reason I’m not doing it now is because of the time and dedication it takes to find and resell stuff. It’s a ton of work hunting and gathering.

Now, if the OP despised those who stole things and sold the goods then I’d be all in with the hate, but as it sits, more power to them. I wish I had the cycles.

csnow said:

Yeah I normally dont have such passion and intensity, but this guy on Reverb was a real douche. I am four craft beers in so I figured I would rant.

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Just wondering why you pointed out they were craft beers?
Maybe Reverb could charge sellers more for how long their ad is up, a reflection of its ridiculous price and/or use of space.

I'm a buy low/sell low. I might lose $100 on one deal and save $800 on the next. I like trying different stuff and I can afford to do it. It's for my OWN enjoyment. If I break close to even in the long run that's a win. Mostly because I consider the time I was able to play an instrument as a benefit. Very rarely do I ever "regret" buying something (Yamaha Strange Custom?) in that I usually know what I'm looking for or I see deal that I can't pass up. Too many of the latter usually.

My take on money: It's pieces of paper with little guys' pictures on them that enables us to not have to kill each other in order to get something to eat.

Darth Vater said:

Yamaha Strange Custom?

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Your love for SC’s knows no bounds @Darth Vater !

As a buyer, I research to determine realistic price of gear, so I don’t overpay for more common gear. But, sometimes there’s a specific something I’m looking for and I have to weigh how much it’s worth to me.

I don’t sell a ton of gear but I do the same research to competitively price it.

My biggest peeve with flippers is the dishonest spinning of unnecessary tales they weave into selling and buying. I sold a vintage set of Gretsch to a guy who told me how he was looking for a vintage set for his recording studio and couldn’t wait to get to recording with them. I had already figured out he was a reverb flipper through basic online searching, but he was paying enough for me to move the drums. Sure enough, I checked his reverb store days later and he had em up for significantly more than he paid with fabricated tales of the set’s history.
I’m leery of any of the tales that come with gear. Unless, it’s from a reputable source.