I have a few guitars my dad left me when he passed away a couple years ago. They’ve just been sitting in the living room gathering dust since then. I know next to nothing about guitars and was wondering if I brought them into GC would they A) buy them from me, and B) actually buy them at the price they’re worth? Like, would they reliably give me a price I can trust? Would a pawn shop be better? Is there another option?
The thing about guitar center is they also sell used gear so any price they quote you would need to be one where they could still resell for a profit. General rule of thumb is they resell at 50-60% of original value, therefore they give you 30-40% of its value. Now, these numbers aren’t exact just generally ballparking it.
In reality if you’re looking to maximize your monetary gain, the best avenue would be to find out as much as you can about the guitars you have, and then find similar examples for sale online and then to sell it yourself from there at a price point of your own determination. This however can entail a lot of research and usually takes a good deal of patience.
The thing that selling to a music store is good for is getting quick cash in your pocket for something you’re not using. In the instances that I’ve sold gear to guitar center it was just because I didn’t feel like dealing with shady characters through popular selling methods, and I also didn’t wanna deal with the days/weeks/etc that I could take to get a bite.
I hope that I helped some, good luck!
I've sold several guitars to them over the years. In my experience they will offer you 60% of what they plan to sell it for. Two different employees actually told me that was their formula for determining the offers. For me that possible extra 40% is a fair price to pay to save time and avoid dealing with random people through craigslist.
Edit to add: I disagree with the other poster about pawnshops being the same as guitar center. You will absolutely get screwed at a pawnshop. I'm sure there are decent pawnshops out there but I beleive their sleazy reputation is largely earned.