Asking price versus actual price

[Remster]

Folks

 

A friend of mine has a reconditioned Wheatstone that he'd like to sell and I'm interested in buying. A local expert has told him he should be 'asking for £1500'. In this instance, what should I be offering and what should he be accepting, according to concertina etiquette? He inherited it and doesn't play, and I've been learning on a borrowed instrument, so we're both clueless. Neither of us is interested in taking advantage of the other.

 

Any advice would be welcome.

 

Thanks

 

Remster

Edited December 4, 2011 by Remster

[Dirge]

Folks

 

A friend of mine has a reconditioned Wheatstone that he'd like to sell and I'm interested in buying. A local expert has told him he should be 'asking for £1500'. In this instance, what should I be offering and what should he be accepting, according to concertina etiquette? He inherited it and doesn't play, and I've been learning on a borrowed instrument, so we're both clueless. Neither of us interested in taking advantage of the other.

 

Any advice would be welcome.

 

Thanks

 

Remster

All completely understandable, but don't forget that by buying it with no fuss and bother you are saving your mate considerable trouble; concertinas are not quickly or easily sold for top dollar so don't forget to factor that in to the balance. I'd knock a bit off for that, and explain why.

 

What would the expert pay? I bet it's a lot less.

[David Levine]

Dirge, your advice is based on unfounded assumptions. It could be a 1926 Linota worth four or five times the asking price. Or a crappy old 50s Mayfair worth a lot less. We need more information, or at least a picture. Not knowing what kind it is - Anglo or English - and the age, it's impossible to say anything with regard to the price.

[RAc]

where are you located? chris algar will give you a good estimate for little money, but you'll need to factor in the shipment to him...

[Dirge]

Dirge, your advice is based on unfounded assumptions. It could be a 1926 Linota worth four or five times the asking price. Or a crappy old 50s Mayfair worth a lot less. We need more information, or at least a picture. Not knowing what kind it is - Anglo or English - and the age, it's impossible to say anything with regard to the price.

Don't think so. We're not being asked about the price. The way I see it we're given an expert value and asked how to proceed with the bargaining. If Remster wanted to challenge the expert valuation presumably we'd have been given some information to chew on and asked the appropriate question.

[David Levine]

Ah, right you are. Assuming the expert is really expert, the question then was how best to negotiate the sale, given that the concertina really is worth £1,500. If it is worth that, and the deal is going down between friends, shouldn't the presumptive buyer be advised to pay that much for it?

 

If neither is interested in taking advantage of the other then why the OP is asking how best to negotiate the sale? Why not just pay the £1,500?

[Jody Kruskal]

It's an interesting question. The OP asked about "concertina etiquette" and I would suggest that there is none really. However, in general, a sale between friends does have different rules than one where a dealer is involved. Because Asking Price is generally higher than Getting Price, I would suggest that the 1500 be reduced by the % that a dealer would take from the sales price. What would that be? 10% to 20% I would guess... or am I off the mark there?

 

David, how about you? What % over your cost are you satisfied to sell an instrument for?

Edited December 2, 2011 by Jody Kruskal

[Wolf Molkentin]

Because Asking Price is generally higher than Getting Price

Wow, the unclear clarified in a short clause, a ray of light cuttin' thru the dark...

[David Levine]

What % over your cost are you satisfied to sell an instrument for?

 

I don't have a fixed percentage in mind. I generally don't think about buying and selling instruments on the secondary market (i.e., not a standard shop-front retail operation) that way. I used to own an oriental rug shop in New England. I would travel overseas to buy fine rugs that are still being made just as they were made 150 years ago - with hand-spun wool and natural dyes. After rent, insurance, advertising, etc, had been paid we figured that we made about 25% profit. So the profit on a $1,000 rug would be about $250. This doesn't consider travel expenses, which were considerable, even though we didn't stay in fancy hotels where we'd be under threat of kidnap. We dressed in shalwar kameeze and stayed with tribal weavers and workers. That was a standard retail operation and things like mark-up and profit were pretty clear. It was a fascinating, cut-throat, adventurous business. It was divided up between Whites and Ethnics (Persians, Turks, Indians, Pakistanis, and smaller tribal groupings: Hazaras, Turkoman, Baluch), with very different cultural values and business practices.

 

But rugs are different than musical instruments. And I don't have the expense of advertising, marketing, shop upkeep, travel. And selling concertinas is a very different thing. A good concertina is more of a necessity than a good rug. At least to my way of thinking. So if working class parents are looking for an instrument for their wonder-kinder it's a different ball game than when a heart surgeon came into the shop looking for a rug for his play-room. It really is more of a sliding scale.

 

I knew that a local friend here was looking for a good Jeffries. When a friend of Mark's brought one over from the UK that had just been restored, I paid the price and sold it to the friend for what I paid. A deal between friends doesn't have to involve profit one way or the other. And I didn't have a $10,000 investment that took several months to clear. I didn't have to hold on to an expensive instrument for a year or longer.

 

If it is a high-priced instrument then the percentage of profit gets lowered considerably. This is the case with most instrument dealers. Is the lucky person who finds a bargain obligated to pass that bargain on to a stranger with a pocketful of cash when the time comes to sell it on? I bought my Jeffries in 1989 for a lot less than it is now worth. If I sold it now I would want a lot more for it than a 20% profit. The answer to the question opens up more questions about the ethics of doing any business involving one of a kind or collectable objects. It gets really interesting when you consider a Japanese collector of bluegrass instruments who pays $300,000 for a 1921 Lloyd Loar Gibson mandolin. Super patriots object that a distinctly American instrument is leaving its home base and becomes unavailable to aboriginal musicians. But is it any different than a fine Italian fiddle that is bought and kept safe by an American collector of fine instruments? Sooner or later a collectable instrument comes back on the market and the invisible hand will determine its value without regard to markup or percentage of profit.

[Theo]

A local expert has told him he should be 'asking for £1500'.

 

If you trust the expert's judgement and market knowledge I suggest asking him/her what would be a fair price for a private sale between friends. "Value" is not an absolute. As the question implies it depends on the context, and anyone claiming expertise in the valuation process should be aware of those factors.

 

Another approach would be to look at prices being asked by dealers for similar models, and to look at completed sales on ebay for similar items. Then share that information with your seller friend and decide between yourselves on a figure you are both happy with, and that will leave your friendship in good shape.

[Jody Kruskal]

My mother had a small viola that she valued because it was small and so was she. That made it easier for her to play. It had a great sound. Parts of the instrument were clearly old and might have been by Amati but the scroll was newer and the instrument had been cut down from it's original proportions. When she died we had it appraised by a hot shot New York string dealer who thought we could get a bundle for it. After several years languishing in his shop unsold I took it around to some other dealers who had various ideas but all thought that the value proposed was way too high. Perhaps they could find a buyer at 10% of the appraised value or perhaps not. Experts do not agree on instrument valuations and antique instruments are only worth what a single buyer is willing to pay.

[Colin Ablitt]

What an interesting topic

 

I very much have the impression that 'found in the loft' concertinas are running out. The price is definitely going up. Whatever the price now I feel it may seem cheap in a year or so.

 

Nevertheless the price less a dealers commission sounds fair.

 

Love the idea of concertina etiquette. Topic on its own?

Edited December 3, 2011 by Colin Ablitt

[Randy Stein]

I very much have the impression that 'found in the loft' concertinas are running out.

 

I used to go into pawn shops and even sometimes antique and junk stores and find a good bargain. No more. Even the dealers know what they have.

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[SteveS]

I very much have the impression that 'found in the loft' concertinas are running out.

 

I used to go into pawn shops and even sometimes antique and junk stores and find a good bargain. No more. Even the dealers know what they have.

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There was a time when junk shops had some good bargains - nowadays the good items end up on eBay selling for much more than they'd realise in a shop, while the junk shops are now filled with - well - junk.

 

I recall seeing a bass EC in a junk shop when I was student 30 years ago - having only just started out playing the concertina I didn't realise the significance of that instrument. I regret today not buying it (even if it had meant no beer for a whole term!).

[Geoff Wooff]

AHHH! The days of the junk shop finds... lament lament. I vividly recall buying a 48 treble Wheatstone for £9... in 1975, in a secondhand musical instrument shop (mostly electric guitars and amplifiers) in south east London. That was an exception even then. Another shop in the next suburb had a 30 key Jeffries nailed to the wall with a sign saying "Everything on these walls is not for sale".

Still there are good instruments coming out of Granny's attic but we rarely get a chance to buy them at less than the current 'going rate'.

[Remster]

Dear All

 

Many thanks for taking an interest in my thread. I'm sorry for taking so long to revisit it: I thought I had my account set up to send notifications of replies to my e-mail address, so I assumed no-one had replied.

 

The concertina in question is a 1910s Wheatstone English concertina.

 

As Dirge points out, my problem isn't with the valuer's expertise. It's that the valuer told my friend what amount he should be asking for if he were to put the instrument on the market, and not how much my friend could expect to sell it for eventually (my friend didn't think to make the distinction).

 

As it happens, I'm probably going to go for an 1890s Lachenal that another friend is trying to sell on behalf of someone else at £750. As a relative beginner, I'm thinking a £1.5K instrument might be a bit excessive.

 

Thanks

 

Remster

Edited December 4, 2011 by Remster

[Mike Franch]

 

"As it happens, I'm probably going to go for an 1890s Lachenal that another friend is trying to sell on behalf of someone else at £750. As a relative beginner, I'm thinking a £1.5K instrument might be a bit excessive."

 

Whoa! This introduces an entirely new topic, I suppose, but I think this is another one of those "it depends" things. Are you far enough along that you know that this concertina interest will work out for you and that you're likely to continue? Would the more expensive instrument work with your finances? Over the long haul, depending on your answers to the first two questions, you might want to go for the better instrument, assuming that "better" means something helpful, such as ease of playing, response, etc. A better instrument won't make you a better player, but I think it will help you become a better player more easily than an instrument that wasn't as good.

 

Of course, one risks others muttering about how some fine instrument is wasted on a novice with money But sticks and stones ....

[Remster]

I can cope with sticks and stones. What I can't cope with is the fear of spilling a pint over a £1.5K musical instrument!

 

I'm sure I want to continue with the concertina, but I've no idea in what context. I've been playing for only a couple of months. The Wheatstone wouldn't really fit in with my finances: it would be by a long distance my most expensive possession after my home.

 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I was close to buying a 30-button Scarlatti for £180. How do you like them apples?

Edited December 4, 2011 by Remster