Selling Guitars: need some advice

[Confuzzled]

Hey all,

I have a few guitars I'm looking to get rid of to make room for our new arrival (baby girl). I've been holding off on selling them because I can't for the life of me figure out how to deal a few things:

Shipping: Who's the most reliable shipper in the US? UPS? USPS or is a guitar too big for them to handle?

I figured on shipping a box inside a box with lots of packing material (I'm retentive that way), but here's the next question: Where does one get a box? My local music stores tend to be douchebags when it comes to giving shipping boxes away.

I'm thinking of doing the pick up only option on Reverb but then I don't want to deal with creeps coming to my home either.

[DRodriguez]

Offer to buy the boxes from the guy at the front. He'll likely be in the mood to make a little extra cash.

Reverb.com sells some boxes for guitars.

As far as shippers, just get quotes for each and go with the cheapest insured. I like ups just because they refund me whenever I overpay.

If you're doing local pickup, arrange pickup at a Starbucks parking lot or other public location. Some police precincts will encourage craigslist deals in their parking lots to encourage safe transactions.

[Confuzzled]

Offer to buy the boxes from the guy at the front. He'll likely be in the mood to make a little extra cash.

Reverb.com sells some boxes for guitars.

As far as shippers, just get quotes for each and go with the cheapest insured. I like ups just because they refund me whenever I overpay.

If you're doing local pickup, arrange pickup at a Starbucks parking lot or other public location. Some police precincts will encourage craigslist deals in their parking lots to encourage safe transactions.

Thanks I have offered. I probably need to go into brooklyn or jersey and try another dealer. The starbucks/police precinct is a good idea.

I wish I had a guitar center close by. I've had friends meet folks in there under the guise of trying an amp and doing the deal outside.

[waltdogg]

Offer to buy the boxes from the guy at the front. He'll likely be in the mood to make a little extra cash.

Reverb.com sells some boxes for guitars.

As far as shippers, just get quotes for each and go with the cheapest insured. I like ups just because they refund me whenever I overpay.

If you're doing local pickup, arrange pickup at a Starbucks parking lot or other public location. Some police precincts will encourage craigslist deals in their parking lots to encourage safe transactions.

Thanks I have offered. I probably need to go into brooklyn or jersey and try another dealer. The starbucks/police precinct is a good idea.

I wish I had a guitar center close by. I've had friends meet folks in there under the guise of trying an amp and doing the deal outside.

Love doing that.

[DRodriguez]

More importantly... What are you selling?

P.S. Congrats on the little one!!

[doommeow]

If you're shipping a bolt-on - take off the neck! It'll probably be easier to find a box/boxes, and cost less - possibly even if you're shipping the neck and body separately.

Thanks I have offered. I probably need to go into brooklyn or jersey and try another dealer. The starbucks/police precinct is a good idea.

I wish I had a guitar center close by. I've had friends meet folks in there under the guise of trying an amp and doing the deal outside.

Uline sells guitar shipping boxes, and for less than most shops in the city.

And I'd rather do a CL deal in a public place and get mugged than go to the Guitar Center in brooklyn.

[K2000]

USPS won't accept a full size guitar box. UPS will pick up a package, if you have their shipping form filled out (it might be just as easy to go to one of their locations - they're inside Staples and Kinkos too, I think)

[rot gut]

make sure you pack the shit out of the case

[insubordination]

USPS won't accept a full size guitar box. UPS will pick up a package, if you have their shipping form filled out (it might be just as easy to go to one of their locations - they're inside Staples and Kinkos too, I think)

Is that a recent development? I shipped a guitar in a full size box to Sweden using USPS about 4 years ago with no problem.

[Strange Tales]

I tried shipping a guitar USPS a few months ago, they wanted like $115 or $150 to do it and fuuuuck that. I ended up shipping UPS for ~$50 and everything got there safe. I bought a box from Reverb and just loaded that shit with packing peanuts.

[hbombgraphics]

Just don't use fedex
they subcontract their drivers and those dudes don't care
my poor nelson spent the night under someone's car port 4 blocks from my house
(Driver forged my signature so he could leave it)
He then acted mad when I drove around and found it.

Boxes shouldn't be too hard to track down, I know U-line has every shape under the sun and does sell low volumes as well.

and I totally agree, meetups are the way to go don't bring peeps to your home.

Also: What are you selling???? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Seance]

If you're doing local pickup, arrange pickup at a Starbucks parking lot or other public location. Some police precincts will encourage craigslist deals in their parking lots to encourage safe transactions.

I wish I had a guitar center close by. I've had friends meet folks in there under the guise of trying an amp and doing the deal outside.

I bought an amplifier in this way. We met up in a small mom-and-pop guitar shop.
The guitar shop didn't mind the transaction happening there because the seller took
the money I paid him and turned right around and bought some PA equipment in the store.

So it was a win-win-win situation.

Guitar Center might not be as accommodating. But they're also bigger, and might not notice.

[Confuzzled]

Thanks all for the comments! I have a bunch of stuff in my closet that I need to clear out: Oil rubbed Gibson "The Paul", a domino vox phantom 6, teisco del rey et-20?, hawaiian kona wood uke, a tenor uke, yamaha classical, and probably more. I need to dig around and see what I have.

Oh yeah, a very "metal" looking old west tone with a custom made dimarzio humbucker

[lost in music]

REVIVE! Hoping you guys can help me think through my current guitar shipping problem, because I've only shipped guitars twice before and the last time was 4 years ago.

I've got an as-is "project" guitar that I want to list on Reverb. Before listing it though, I decided that I would try to get a quote on shipping so I could have a solid number to list as the shipping price instead of just estimating that it'll cost $50 and then having that come out of my pocket later. So I packed the guitar up using my best known practices: using a guitar box (bass box, actually, because this is what I had laying around), lots of big bubble-wrap at top and bottom of box, body secured in a gigbag (bolt-on neck is currently separate from body, because that's part of the as-is nature of this thing, but is also mummified in bubble wrap), with enough newspaper filler surrounding to keep everything from moving.

So I took it to UPS yesterday to get a quote on whatever the highest price would be to ship it in CONUS. The lady measured and weighed the box and quoted me $120 to ship it coast-to-coast, with an extra $5 for insurance. This is WAY more than it had previously cost me to ship guitars, which had previously come out at much closer to $50 each. Like, I could eat $10 if it ended up being $60 bucks, but $120 just seems stupid. So here are my questions I'm trying to iron out:

1.) Is this close to what I should expect to ship a guitar for these days?
2.) Could the bass-sized box be contributing significantly to the price?
3.) Is newspaper a heavier filler? In my previous experiences I had used styrofoam peanuts, but didn't have any on hand this week. Not sure how they compare.
4.) Since I'm dealing with a separate body and neck, would I be better off just chopping the box in half, forgetting about the gig bag, and positioning the body and neck side-by-side in the half-sized box?

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.

[Jwar]

Everyone does stuff different but here's what I've done in the 30 or more instruments I've shipped. I calculate UPS shipping and packaging into the cost and offer free shipping. People like free shipping even if you really are making them pay but it says free.

Then I'll go to UPS and make them box it up. Why? It's because they insure it and it's on their ass if they fuck up. If I box it, they'll insure it but if I don't have it packaged perfectly to their specs, they won't cover it. I know from experience here.

Fed Ex can eat a dick. They are terrible at insuring things.

For a bass, it usually costs around 120-150 for shipping. If I'm selling something that's 2k, that's worth it to me. It gets there safely and I've never had a problem doing it that way.

If you ship with your own box. I highly suggest packing peanuts as a filler. Don't use bubble wrap unless it's around the instrument. You need protection inside the actual shipping box. I've had so many people ship things all fucked up. I've been super lucky with that so far but I've gotten messed up shit too or things that you know if they would have been handled a little rougher, they wouldn't have made it.