What's the best option here?

administrator

I tried to sell a vintage Conn 2B. It sold for $300 on ebay, but the buyer returned it, saying there were more dents on the bell than expected. Is my best option here to pay for the repairs and then try to sell again? Would that be a worthwhile investment?

J. Jericho

I've always made it a point to make sure any instrument I've sold was cleaned, polished, lubricated, and problem-free. A buyer can't complain about dents that never occurred or dents that have been properly removed. CYA is a good thing, and sometimes it comes at the expense of not making as much of a profit as one would like. Sometimes you break even, or you may take a loss, but you always end up with more money than you would be able to use if you kept the horn.

Relisting an item on eBay can result in a different set of bidders, and you may have the good fortune to sell this trumpet for more than $300 the next time around. Of course you might have bidders that question why you're relisting, or you might hit a lack of enthusiastic bidders. A reasonable reserve should protect you. Also, a BIN listing exposes merchandise to potential buyers for a much longer period of time, so that may be the way to go instead, and you can always reduce the price incrementally until a watcher decides to buy..

Unfortunately, shipping costs can prevent a reasonable sale in the first place, and lest we forget, eBay takes their cut of the total amount of the sale, including shipping.

I hope everything works out for you.

Dale Proctor

The bell flare looks to have a lot of ripples in it. If you have a really good tech who’s local, they could probably roll most of that out without costing you a lot of money. That is, unless it’s already been rolled and the metal was thinned and stretched. A nicer looking flare would certainly make for an easier sale and probably get you a higher price, too. Of course, the price ultimately depends on who’s bidding on it at any given time.

administrator

Thanks guys. I've decided to do 1 of two things, not sure yet which of these two I will do:

Hold onto it for now, repair it later.
Repair it now and sell it ASAP.

ROWUK

If the pictures really represented the horn, a buyer backing out is pretty lame. I think that it is a buyers market for a 2B and the condition (including the valves) would have to be exceptional to get much more than $300. Without knowing what other issues the horn has, I would suspect that investing will not match the returns.

administrator

@rowuk said in What's the best option here?:

If the pictures really represented the horn, a buyer backing out is pretty lame. I think that it is a buyers market for a 2B and the condition (including the valves) would have to be exceptional to get much more than $300. Without knowing what other issues the horn has, I would suspect that investing will not match the returns.

If that's the case, I think I'd rather just hold onto it. It plays OK and I can always repair and sell it in the future.