If you are buying locally many sellers are flexible like Niki said. When i bought my Tiesco off a guy on craigslist, I didn't feel comfortable with him having my address, and he must have felt the same way. We ended up meeting at a restaurant parking lot not far from my house(he got there in like 5 minutes so not far from him either,) he brought the guitar and a crappy little solid state amp (also very old, maybe from the sixties too,) and we plugged it into an outlet in the parking lot, so i could try it out. The amp was part of the deal.

So wierd stuff happens.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

If Ninja Man is talking about buying all this stuff locally in addition to personally knowing the people then we are not talking about the same thing at all.

Nah I've been all over the country shopping like that. The 50th anni deluxe was 100 mile away, the customshop 50. The JCM was in Hastings some 130 odd miles away. I insist on playing before buying. Money talks and it says its not leaving my side unless i'm 100% happy. Whats so hard to understand about it. Its plainly obvious to anyone that isnt some petulant adolescent that obviously enjoys thumbing their nose at their betters.

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No no and no

I'm talking about buying guitars on the internet from complete strangers that live thousands of miles from you and don't know you from Adam. You're talking about something different.

Yeah I simply wouldnt do that. Its a fruitless unenjoyable activity and a proven way to end up with a bad guitar. Hence your alledged 57 hotrod, though every other owner seems to love them. So who's right? The buyer with guitars he loves and cant fault in any reasonable way, or the person whining about the poor fretjob on theirs.

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No no and no

I've got a 62 Hot Rod that's the best Strat I've ever owned. Gotten on Ebay. Ups and downs is the way of life. Peaks and valleys.

And the best guitar I own (by far better than any productionline guitar btw) I found on ebay, approached the seller, negotiated a fair price, tried the guitar, paid cash (£1000, you cant buy a hotrod for that much, let alone a customshop) into his hand (so no rip off ebay fee's to compensate for) and walked away happy with no wait for delivery time or aggravation. I was a lot happier and so was the seller when he realised I'd saved him £50. So much so he bought a mesa off me.
Ebays crap and its expensive. Their are too many risks buying sight unseen without a physical address to go to should you need to. I dont know about you but I'm a man who when he isnt satisfied wants someone to feel my dissatisfaction in the most uncomfortable of ways. Thats why all my guitars have always been exactly what I wanted from them from new, except the ESP and Vintage I did buy online. The ESP is a £700 guitar that plays like a woolworths. The Vintage wasnt far behind it, but through my skill and knowledge it soon got put right. I gave the ESP away.

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No no and no

I haven't bought any big ticket items on ebay but what I have bought was of good quality and price except for a Phonekings Clyde pot that was supposed to be a replacement for a Vox or Crybaby wah,when it arrived I saw it was a flimsy piece of excrement,for $15 I should have known better.BTW there's currently a shyster selling an Epiphone that costs $350-$400 new for $950 it's also a factory second'he's also selling a supposed Les Paul Jr. for$2500,and it's obviously an Epi.He has been reported to Ebay for possible fraud.I guess there'll always be someone ready to prey on the uninformed or unsuspecting.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

i just bought my first fender on ebay a american deluxe ash strat it was brand new and still in the box from fender. it is most impressive and i saved over 700 dollars.the seller had over 500 sales with 100% feed back and he has sold tons of guitars. do your homework and save some money.

Well there is a downside to eBay as well for the sellers.
I just sold one of my guitars yesterday, and the guy who bought it, lo and behold has not paid for it yet, he registered with eBay yesterday and has 0 feedback. So it doesn't take a Brain surgeon to work out that this guy is obviously getting his kicks from doing this kind of thing. He must be one hell of a sad individual I must say. Trouble is apparently according to eBay I have to give him 4 days before I can dispute it with them, and all this is wasting my time and money as I was going to use that money to pay for another guitar so I wouldn't have been charged by paypal to withdraw the money.

All I can say is that on the whole eBay is good and my experience has been largely a good one with everyone I've dealt with bar a few, but there are just a few people who make it an unhappy experience. And what's more is that eBay seem to care very little about sorting out these problems. I mean how hard would it be to put a ban on anyone bidding on anything until they've been registered for a week, or a limit to their spending till they have received a certain level of feedback.
For the money that the seller has to pay to eBay, they really could do a bit more to help them out.

I've been dealing on ebay for 10 years. All my experiences have been good. But it's like anything else...you have to know what you're doing. It's not a place for the naive.

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Fender Stratocaster MIM (5)
Fender Stratocaster, Squier Series MIK
Squier Affinity Strat, purple, modded
Gibson SG Standard, Her. Cherry
Epiphone Inspired by Lennon Casino, Vin. Sunburst
..and several acoustics