THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
FENDER TOM DELONGE MODEL STRATOCASTER
I'll make this one quick because I really just bought this guitar to resell. I found it in a pawn shop near my house that was having a half off sale for the last week of the year. I haven't made my way into too many pawn shops lately because A) they mostly just have a bunch of second rate crap these days, and B) they want MORE than retail for the decent stuff they do have. For the life of me I don't understand where they get their pricing. I have ranted about pawn shops on this blog before and got quite a few comments supporting my view. So, I'll leave it at that for now. This time I guess I got lucky.
When I walked in I spotted the Daphne Blue Strat hanging amongst the usual crap. It stood out. I immediately noticed it was a Tom Delonge model. These are easy to spot because they have one pickup and one knob. That's it. Blink-182 style all the way. Now most people would say that this is a lame concept. But I actually like the idea. I'm not the most amazing lead player in the world, though I'm not a bad rhythm player. I usually find one pickup setting on a guitar that I like and pretty much stick with it. That's just me. So, if I could design my own guitar, I'd probably do the same thing...find a pickup I like and connect it to a volume knob and be done with it. BLASPHEMY! Whatever.
So, I asked the lady how much the guitar was and she said it was $700...but they were having a 50% off sale. So, $350 (duh).
I knew this guitar HAD to be worth more than that. She told me that they had actually sold it on eBay the week before and then the guy that won it emailed them asking if he could make payments for 6 months. Who does that?? So, they just wanted it sold. I came home quickly and looked up previously sold Tom Delonge models and figured out that I could make a few bucks by buying it and posting it on eBay. I actually tried to get the lady to come down to $300 but she was a tough cookie. She knew she had me by the balls and she ran with it. I finally agreed to pay the full $350. I asked what kind of case it had and she gave me that typical pawn shop answer..."oh, there's no case with it." Right.
There's never a case that comes with a guitar at a pawn shop, yet miraculously there are tons of cases sitting around in plain sight.
I knew I had a nice spare Fender gig bag at home, so I didn't even get into it. I brought it home and cleaned it up. Amazingly they were trying to sell guitars at this shop, but just left them dirty and sticky and very unappealing. They actually had a decent black MIM Telecaster I could have picked up for $200 but it had sticker residue all over it and the tuning pegs were coated in grime and knobs were missing...it was just too easy to see that this guitar had not been cared for in the least. Once I got the Tom Delonge all cleaned up and looking good I posted it on eBay and put a very reasonable (but still nicely profitable) price on it. I think it turned into a great deal for everyone. The guy who bought it today is a big Blink-182 fan and also owns one of the Gibson Tom Delonge hollowbody models as well. So, he's happy. I'm happy. We're all freakin' happy! And now I can try to buy that blonde Fender Blues Junior on Craigslist I saw this afternoon.
It's always something!