State of the Shop: New Displays, Consignment Changes, Repair Delays

A lot has been going-on around here. If you've noticed that I haven't been posting "Local Flavor" selections of photos or getting any recording or mixing work done, well... that's why. It's been all-work, all the time, lately... and house repairs outside of that. I'm not insane yet but I'm getting there! I've been getting a little play in now and then, though, and practicing my archery with the kids, too. That's helped.

The first photo shows the new String Swing slatwall display rack I installed on the "main guitar wall" in the shop. I've been needing to do something like this for ages but I've been putting it off because I knew that it would occupy an entire "midnight passage" to get it done right... and it did. I'm happy to have it, though, because now I can fit 25+ guitars in about 14' of wall. I love that and it's also easier for my customers to grab gear and try it.

I've also added a bookshelf to hold the random electronics gear that's for sale and my selection of "lend-out, borrow-to-read" instrument reference books and magazines. The only one you can't take home to browse is Spann's Guide to Gibson, because I don't think anyone can remember all that factory order nonsense off the top of their head.

Inviting, right? I find myself taking them down to play while off-duty more now that they're in this format.

On the other side of things, I've now got the violins all hanging-up on the old guitar hangers and off the metal wire contraption I'd made to stow them. There are also some "as-is" cheapie guitars hung on the other side but I assume I'll be weeding those out and putting cooler kit over there as well as time passes...

I might have mentioned that there are a ton of amps in here, too. The Aguilar and Quilter are mine, but the rest are up for grabs. Both the Mesa 5:50 and the Fender DeVille are seriously good pieces. It's nice to have extra floor room, now, to set these guys out for use.

Considering the amount of gear waiting in the wings for sale, I might have to add a second, lower "full wall" rack at some point, but for now this is a comfy arrangement.

Meanwhile, in the house, we've redone our "useless room" into a small music-and-hang-out room. I still have to paint the grey of the floor but the rest is more or less done. I've got my recording gear hidden-away in the corner shelves and the arrangement works just fine for late-night tracking. I've noticed everyone in the family taking a seat on the cozy-topped dresser-base in the corner and snugging-up to read books.

This is the downstairs assortment of instruments and my most-played gear of late. We're still getting the art all back up on the walls but this should wind-up being a little bit overly-Victorian in nature by the time we're done, haha...

Rosie fancies herself my mixing engineer, apparently. Cats! Terror!

NOW TO THE NOT-FUN STUFF... sorry!

I'm changing my consignment policy. There's a $100 minimum fee for any consignment gear, now. I don't care if all I have to do is dust it off and hang it on the wall -- it will still cost you $100 if you want to put it here for sale, going-forward. This is purely recognizing that my time spent taking photos, doing videos, and hawking gear cannot be free.

The rest remains the same -- 15% consignment up to $1k, 10% consignment after that, or costs of repair if they happen to be more than the cost of the consignment figure... but not both consignment and repair. How does that break down, though? Let's do some quick math.

Say I have a guitar that's listed at $1500 with free shipping (because no one likes to figure-in shipping even if it's baked into the price structure). If it sells at that price, the credit card company takes ~3% or so and we're left with $1450ish if lucky. If we're unlucky and I've sold it on Reverb (as 1/4 of my sales are, these days) then another $75 is off the top and now we're at $1375. Shipping is an average of $50-90 if it's a guitar (to a lot more if it's an expensive guitar) so now we're down to $1300. I take $130 off of that so now we're at $1170 net to you and probably closer to $1150. Let's also consider this a "best-case" scenario. 

Cheaper instruments have the problems of a sale like this but in spades. Let's say you've got a cute 1930s parlor guitar for sale and it's worth about $450 fixed-up and shipped. Figure-in $150-175 worth of repairs and parts (average for these) and you're already down in the $275 range. Cut the shipping and fees in and you're now closer to $200 net. If the guitar was very cheap to you, that might be a good investment, but a lot of people will scratch their heads and wonder where the money went. It might be easier to just hawk that sucker on eBay or Reverb or FaceBook Marketplace personally and let someone else take the risk than bring it to me. I might be interested in trading for it, though, so perhaps there's that?

WHAT ELSE? ...oh yes, repairs!

I've been working non-stop and late into the night for months, now, and am still backed-up beyond measure and have no clear path into the future. I've made some decisions, though, and will be changing my schedule entirely from this point on.

The only "while you wait" repair day is going to be Saturday from now on as it's always chaotic and free-flowing on Saturdays, anyway. I'm calling this "Clinic Day" and it will be first-come, first-serve. I'm going to get a roll of tickets for Clinic Day, too.

For folks who don't have the time to wait, Friday will now be my "setups and light local work" day. I'll get a ticket system going for this, too, so that things are addressed in the order they come in for mild repair rather than by how many times I get called on the phone about it after I've forgotten it in a pile of other incoming cases needing similar work! I think this will turn the "local service" repairs into something less of a confounding mess and into a more logical frustration, hah hah.

Tuesday through Thursday I will only work on long-term, structural projects. These are the ones that have bogged-down completely while in-shop work and discussion has distracted me. I feel terrible about it both because these are the most fun projects and they're also my bread and butter work.

I'll get all of this stuff codified and up "in black and white" on the repair/consignment info pages as soon as I can.

ALSO... I've been chatting with various potential new customers for repair work and I've had a wait list compiling for all of you and I'm very thankful for that. Unfortunately, I'm going to probably have to bump everything I might have said would make it into this year's new crop back into 2023 at the earliest. That doesn't mean you can't try to bend my arm to get a big project with an interesting instrument off the ground, but it means the realistic timeframe for me taking on anything "serious" and new is going to be starting next year. My storage areas are chock-full and I'm trying to wrangle it all as fast as I can.

I owe too many people too many repair favors and projects and time-slots and I want to make everyone as whole as I can going forward. I'm not trying to be a jerk by putting you off and off, but juggling work and family and sanity and music is getting to be... tricky. Add to that the retail experience and you can see how this stuff spirals into madness. Fortunately for consignment customers, your guitars are all getting more expensive by the hour as vintage prices soar. How about that?