classified honesty.


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Posted by Mark McMahon on July 12, 2001 at 14:32:04:

This is NOT a knock at anyone who currently has equipment listed for sale on this board or has sold equipment here in the past!!! This is merely food for thought...

I was thumbing through a "wheels and deals" magazine this morning and I ran across this ad:

"1988 Ford Bronco. 198K miles, stiff clutch, partially rusted exterior, some stains on interior, needs new tires. Unused since 1995, needs tune-up and tire allignment. Asking price- will sell for best offer."

I found this humorous as the seller is being brutally honest in his ad; however, it made me consider the instrument ads that we see all of the time. It made me wonder how much quicker instruments would sell if the ads that were placed for them were this accurate. For example:

"Mercedes Benz CC tuba. 14 years old. third valve tuning slide 15 cents flat when pushed all the way in. tuning of overtone series questionable. never played by any big name professional. never picked out of the factory inventory as "the quintessential" of this particular model. Price-negotiable."

Obviously, this might level the playing field quite a bit between buyer and seller. Prices would drop considerably, and buyers remorse would become almost neglegable considering that you would know exactly what you are getting yourself into.

Alright, I am now back to reality. I am not implying that this would be a very sound means of retailing instruments. That would be ludicrous. However, I have often thought that there has to be a better method by which instruments can be more accurately advertised for sale and re-sale. What should it really mean to me that someone like Warren Deck picked this tuba out of a thousand just like it when Warren is almost a full foot taller than I am, 100 pounds heavier, and plays with an orchestra twice the size of mine.

Aside: have I ever mentioned that I think Warren Deck is an awesome player?

Never-the-less, everyone including myself has sold tubas based upon random, meaningless....crap. I am beginning to think that the most effective and honest instrument ad would simply list dimensions, condition of instrument, and any other pertinent info such as fundamental key, number of valves, and price.

What do you think?

-Mark


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