Each year, my wife and I book a nice hotel room (usually across the street from Disney Springs) in Orlando and go through our annual ritual – she shops at Disney Springs and I attend the Orlando International Guitar Convention, and then we meet up for dinner and some nightlife.  Orlando is 2 hours from where we live, so it’s great to have a nice hotel room to avoid the 2 hour drive home.  It’s nice in other ways that are none of your business.  If you’re a kid, ask your parents what that means.

If you live within 4 hours of Orlando, this is the ONLY guitar convention there is, so you need to support it.  The more people that go, the more vendors that show.  The people who run the convention do a great job.  Parking is free, and this year admission was $12.  Hell, that’s a large Coke just down the street at DisneyWorld.  Not really, but you get the point.  Regardless of my observations, you need to go and support this conference.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here are my observations from this year.  They say a lot about the used guitar market, and I’m comparing this year to last year.

  1. Last year the used MIM Strats were in the $350 to $375 range.  This year they were $450 to $600.  But I didn’t see them selling like mad.
  2. The Epiphone Les Pauls were also selling for $100 to $200 more than last year.  Again, didn’t see a lot getting sold.  I saw a thousand dollar Randy Rhodes Epiphone made for the Japanese market.  It’s a thousand dollar used Epiphone.  C’mon now.  That’s crazy talk.  I don’t care what marketing hype it came with.  Ten years from now they’ll be selling a Tommy Thayer Epiphone Les Paul for $1,500 or something.  Sheesh.
  3. Meanwhile, in the Gibson Les Paul Tribute/Studio market, things were different.  Actually, they weren’t.  Last year the range was $500 to $800.  This year the cheapest Tribute I saw was $800 (keep in mind this is used) and the cheapest Studio was around $900.  And there weren’t very many of them.  I’d say the price increase was about $200 from what I saw.
  4. The used pedal market last year had them priced comparable to Guitar Center.  This year, a lot of used pedals were priced a little MORE than you’d pay at Guitar Center.  And again, lots of perusal but not many purchases.  Used RAT pedals started at $125 and went up.  For a RAT.  Which I think sounds like a buzz saw.  But hey, the dudes on That Pedal Show say its great, so there you go.
  5. Guitar Builders – same couple of guys.  I didn’t talk to them this year (I should have) so I don’t know how they did.
  6. If you wanted an iconic Gibson Les Paul Standard in sunburst, you could get one for around $1,500 to $1,600.  That’s about the same as last year.  Interesting.

Looking at my notes from last year, there were a lot of great deals still to be had.  I even took pics.  This year I didn’t take a single picture.  This year, the great deals weren’t there, with a few exceptions.  I saw a Fender SuperChamp X2 combo (15 tube watts, 10 inch speaker) for $200.  That’s a hell of a good deal.  I didn’t buy it, because I just want the head, which I can get for $200 bucks most days.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  If I’d seen the head for $150 I’d have snapped it up.

Other good deals included a nice Tascam Portastudio for $150 (retro cool,) a nice American P-Bass for $750 (but was it real?  Who knows) and… the chicken fingers in the food truck weren’t terrible.

Once again, Guitar Center showed up with $2,500 guitars and up, and no one bought them.  My fave Tampa store, Replay Music, was there, and just like Guitar Center, they brought the pricey stuff.  I do understand why.  You don’t pay the expense of three days in Orlando and a convention to sell $100 Squier Affinity Strats.  But a HUGE percentage of that crowd is not there for the pricey stuff.  If I ever decide to sell off my collection at the convention, I’d sell out in an hour.  The crowd was super hungry for budget deals and there were very, very few.

The show seemed a little smaller this year – maybe 20 less vendors, maybe 20% down in attendance, but do NOT actually believe those numbers – I’m just a dude, guessing.  You HAVE to support this convention and go, if you live in the area.

Side Note – I played a few vintage strats from the 50’s and 60’s.  These guitars were going from $10,000 to $30,000.  As an investment, it’s probably a good one.  But in terms of playability, vibe, all that stuff?  To me, they felt like really old guitars.  Yes, they were cool, but they didn’t play significantly better than my own partscaster, which has a stock American neck.  Actually I like my neck better.  Musicians are weird.  Not too many carpenters are using hammers from the 1950’s.  We’ve got a tremendous amount of bullshit happening in guitar land.  Don’t get me wrong – they’re very cool.  If I were a millionaire, I’d buy one.  But John Mayer can plan any guitar in the world and he’s currently playing a $2,000 PRS strat copy.  What does that tell you?

Back to convention talk.  I went with $500, hoping to find either an excellent used Fender MIM Jazz Bass or a beat up American Jazz Bass with issues I could fix.  Not a chance in hell.  Yes, it’s a guitar convention, but there were plenty of basses there.  And there were a handful of cheap ones.  But I’m going to have better luck with my Tampa music stores.

Here’s the big takeaway from this year’s convention:  If you can still find a used MIM for less than $400, grab it.  If you can still find a Gibson Les Paul Tribute or Studio for $650 or less, buy it.  Prices are up and I don’t think they’re going to come back down any time soon.  Why is the market up?  I guess because a lot of people were snapping up good used guitars.  I do think that Gibson’s hiring of a new CEO and promise to improve quality control are both having an impact on the Les Paul market.  People want Gibson Les Pauls because other people want them.

And with the market rise comes the counterfeit guitars.  If you are in the market for a used Gibson Les Paul sunburst, I’d strongly recommend buying one used from a reputable dealer, meaning the big chains or a big music store that you’ve actually heard of or that has a great local reputation.  They don’t want to sell a fake and then get bad press.  And the big dealers and shops do show up to display at conventions.  But if you buy one on Reverb, um… did you know that there are fake copies of the Squier Classic Vibe series out there?  Yup.  So don’t assume anything is safe, because there are plenty of assholes out there willing to take your money.  It’s a small percentage, but how do you know?  Be really careful.

In conclusion, even though I didn’t find what I was looking for, I still had an awesome day at the convention.  Support your local music stores and your semi-local conventions, or they’ll be gone one day.