Karla News

How to Buy a Guitar Off of Craigslist

How to Play Guitar Chords, Learn to Play Electric Guitar

Craigslist is a great website to find deals on local guitars. Here’s a guide for buying your first guitar off of Craigslist.

1. Look on Craigslist for guitars in your area. In a second tab, go to a website like Musician’s Friend and check the prices on the guitars you’re viewing. When you find one that has promise, contact the seller immediately. Don’t promise to buy the guitar, but see when the seller is free to meet and let you look over the guitar to see if it’s worth buying. Unlike eBay, Craigslist doesn’t hold you to a buyer’s contract, so you’re within your rights not to agree to buy the guitar right away. In fact, you’d be a fool to agree to buy a guitar without playing it first.


2. Arrange to meet the seller at a guitar store.
As with any Craigslist transaction, you should always meet the seller in a public place. A guitar store such as Guitar Center is a great place to meet, because you’ll be able to take the guitar inside and make sure that everything checks out. You can also find a guitar of similar make and model to the guitar you’re buying and see how the Craigslist guitar compares to the fresh-off-the-assembly-line version in the store. If you’re worried that the guitar store won’t want you to check out the used guitar on one of their amps, just tell them that you’re trying to compare the sound of different guitars to see if you want to buy new. If the guitar store thinks that there’s a chance of a sale, they won’t have any problem letting you test the used guitar on their equipment.

See also  The 6 Best Websites to Write and Get Paid

3.Check out the guitar. You’ll want to hold the guitar up and look down it like you’re sighting a gun, and make sure that there’s no bow to the neck or curve. Move the volume and tone knobs around to check for any bad noises, if the guitar is an electric, and inspect the body for scratches or issues with the finish, especially signs that the guitar may have been mistreated or kept in an unsafe environment (heavy rust on the strings, for instance, might indicate that it was kept somewhere humid).

Most importantly, play the guitar. See how the action is, and see if it’s a guitar that you’d want to play for hours and hours. If it’s not, you’ll have to tell the Craigslist seller that it doesn’t check out. Thank him for his time, and be on your way. If it does check out, hand him the cash and celebrate your new guitar.

Have you ever bought a guitar off of Craigslist? Share your experience in the comments section below.