Picked up a Digitech Grunge Pedal with the idea of a re-sale

[Platefire]

Been looking at pedals on e-bay with the idea of picking them up cheap and resale at a profit. This is my first buy to attempt that. I don't see much meat on the bone to be worth while. They go for $50.00 new and I picked this one up for $25.00 with free shipping. Probably most I would be able to resale for is $30. to $35. Even though I'm not a metal-head for sure, I will have to hook it up and test it out. If there is a up side to doing this is that you would get to try out a lot of different pedals even though the profit margin seems slim. Might be a better chance looking for a good deal on the higher end pedals like Fulltone Fulldrive or something like that. Platefire

[Platefire]

Will Levis and T-shirt do? Don't have schematics on most of my pedals but on the other hand, I don't plan on working on them. This pedal I will just test it out/jam a bit and if everything is OK, put it up for sale. Platefire


Here is a potential investment--Fulltone Distortion Pro--if the price don't go up too high!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/131210366477?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

[Platefire]

Well! If your oldest can modify a vintage fender amp for the sake of grunge, then I can play grunge in my jeans and T-shirt. I think that's a fair trade 

Hay I did get the grunge pedal in today. Like new condition and works fine. I've been jamming on it on and off all day. The distortion on this pedal starts where most pedals leave off and carries it to an to "Mayhem" level. The tone controls are very effective as you can dial in unbearably bright or Dark Mud  and all points in between. Something really fun is with the grunge up 100% and playing right next to your amp you can do pinch harmonics with controlled feedback that is really wild. I like treble at 9:00 and bass about 12:00 plus for a good thick wall of distortion. I was also able to dial in a good fuzz sound for the Stones, "I can't get no Satisfaction". It's way  more distortion than I need for my music. Somewhat usable for me at it's lowest grunge setting. Fun to play with though. When I've had enough I will sack it up and put it back on e-bay. Platefire

BTW-I believe if Hendrix would have had this pedal back in the day he would have been pleased with it
and we would have even more outlandish strat antics on record.

[alerich]

If there is a up side to doing this is that you would get to try out a lot of different pedals even though the profit margin seems slim. Might be a better chance looking for a good deal on the higher end pedals like Fulltone Fulldrive or something like that.

I am not a pedal flipper but I follow a few strategies to find good deals on pedals, which is the main goal in flipping. I avoid eBay altogether but that's just personal preference. Many people like eBay. Believe it or not Guitar Center uses recent closed eBay auction prices to price their used gear. That's why you find the same piece of used gear priced differently at different stores. Some of those sales dudes aren't real handy with the eBay search function.

I cruise Craigslist regularly. I look for ads advertising a group of items. Occasionally desirable items that are under priced lurk there and fall under other peoples' radars. A few months ago I found a vintage Boss CE-2 Chorus for $40 buried in a list of pedals some guy was selling. I kept that one for myself - it went straight to my board and likely will never leave it - but those pedals routinely sell for $100 - $150 all day long. Some people just don't do their homework.

I also look for package deals. Sometimes people will sell a whole box of stuff for a song but you have to buy the whole lot. Most people won't touch that stuff. That can often translate to a good deal. I bought a box of pedals and cables a while back. I only wanted a few items for myself but ended up having only $20 each in several pedals that routinely sell for $50 - $60 each. There was a brand new Dunlop Cry Baby that I gave to my girlfriend's son so that I could get my vintage Thomas Organ Cry Baby back from him. I traded two pedals to GC to get a Duncan Pickup Booster. I only got $50 in trade for the two but that was still a $10 profit. That was a good Craigslist score.

To make this effort worthwhile you have to find really desirable stuff pretty cheap or readily available stuff dirt cheap. The internet has made that really difficult. I remember being a broke young person and seeing incredible deals on vintage music gear in pawn shops. Nowadays I may as well be shopping at Gruhn's.

[Platefire]

I agree that most e-bay items are priced high regarding pedals where there is hardly no room for profit on flipping a pedal. A pedal like the "Grunge", you would need to pick it up for about $15 to make a profit. Like I paid $25 including shipping which is about what used is going for up to $35.

I'm not too familiar with the Craiglist or how it works. Do you look at items in your local area only or do you look at items nationwide? I've looked at items in my local area but the selection is very limited. How would you handle a transaction that wasn't in you local area regarding payment/shipping? Any help regarding that would be appreciated!

Har! Last night I slipped the "Grunge" in place of my "Joyo Ventage OD" on my pedalboard at church. At the lowest grunge setting I can kind of get some control out of the run away distortion by controlling it on my guitar volume. We'll see how it works out Sunday. Platefire

[alerich]

I'm not too familiar with the Craiglist or how it works. Do you look at items in your local area only or do you look at items nationwide? I've looked at items in my local area but the selection is very limited. How would you handle a transaction that wasn't in you local area regarding payment/shipping? Any help regarding that would be appreciated!

Craigslist is just an online want ad web site. You can do a google search for it. It has separate sites for many major cities in the USA. Dunno if it is active in your area. No bidding. People just post an item and the price they would like. You can look at any city far or near. There is probably some website set up to search for a particular item across the entire Craigslist spectrum although I am not familiar with any. Occasionally sellers will ship but not usually for low budget items. Shipping will also eat into/eat up your profit if you are flipping. I watch Craigslist here in Atlanta and also in Nashville since I am up there often and also have people there who can pick things up for me and hold them.

I'll use eBay for Buy It Now things. That way I know the price and I don't have to hassle with an auction. The average Joe is getting better about packing things but I have bought items on eBay that only arrived intact through the grace of God - not because they were packed properly. On eBay it's just too easy to end up bidding against the seller through some sort of shill account. I bid and won an item once. I really, really, really wanted it and I paid stupid money for it at the time. Now the market is catching up for that item. I am quite sure that I was bidding against the seller. So now I tend to avoid auctions and stick to BIN.

[Ed_Chambley]

+1 on Craigslist.  If you want to try out pedals, it is a good place to do it if you do not have a Guitar Center near you.  Guitar Center will let you return a pedal for any reason for up to 30 days.  I have one close and for stock pedals like Boss and Digitech it is a good way to check them out.


I buy lots of bulk things off craigslist as well.  I just got a beatup 4 12 cabinet with real greenback 12's in it for $160.00.  Nice speakers for $40 each.  Trashed the cab, but kept the hardware.  Sold 2 of the speakers on ebay for almost what I paid for the cab.  While I was there I asked to guy if he was selling anything else and he said not really but was thinking about selling an amp when he got it fixed.  That is where I got the Deluxe Reverb with noise problems.  Got it for $350 with the patch cord, a nice cord.


Problem is music equipment is getting cheap and a lot of guys are beginning to use software like Guitar Rig because it sounds pretty good and with an electric drum set you can jam with basically no volume.  Times they are a changing.  While it is not my bag, I have to admit it is cool to be able to jam at any time anywhere you want and not disturb anyone.  There are always tradeoffs, like mp3's for instance.  The quality is not as good, but you can carry a weeks worth of more of you music in your pocket.

[Platefire]

Thanks for the info on Craigslist. I did find a combined listing for "Cenla" Central Louisiana. That includes several town/cities in a 100 mile radius of me. I did see a TC Electronics Chorus pedal for $50.00 the first time I looked and when I went back to check again, the listing was gone. Guess someone made arrangements for it! I'll keep an eye on it now and watching for a good deal to come up.

I've been into distortion pedals lately. With you guys experiance, what is a real good distortion pedal out there? 
My current fav is my Visual Sounds Route 66 compressor/OD and next my Joyo Vintage Overdrive as I understand are tube screamer clones! I haven't really tried a lot of stuff out except lately with the Grunge and the Boss DS-1. I don't really need high gain, just good fat tone that is thick but still cuts through.

According to this review on attached link the top 5 distortion pedals were determined. The Wampler Triple Wreck came in first. Guess what came in second---Boss DS-1. I've been jamming on my boss DS-1 lately and am pretty impressed. The tone on my DS-1 is very good and has enough distortion range for my needs. The pedal sounds better than I expected based on a lot of negative comments I read on it previously. I thought it was too common to be good because there is about a million of them on e-bay for sale. Platefire
http://www.sonicstate.com/amped/2013/03/24/revealed-the-5-best-distortion-effects-pedals-of-all-time/

ED-I'm behind the curve on modern music gadgets/computers. I do have a lot of my music recorded on a Digitech Jamman that I can play back but it won't exactly fit in my pocket

 

[Platefire]

Used the DS-1 in my pedalboard at church this weekend. I really liked it. I see why it's an old standard. It did good on all aspects except when I was doing a high singing lead and got up on the little e in the upper frets, the note seems to die out to quickly than on my tube screamer clones. Maybe I needed to dial in a little more distortion? Anyway, I leave it on there a while. Platefire

[Platefire]

Well I'm going to put the "Grunge" up for sale. It was fun playing with but just not the kind of pedal I need for my music. Platefire 

[thermion]

what is a real good distortion pedal out there?

if you are not into seething gain, the cochrane timmy is good. visual sound vs-xo is super flexible and nice sounding to boot. i got an EHX soul food recently, it's a great value. i also have a voodoo labs sparkle drive that gets a lot of love.
hope this helps!

[Platefire]

thermion

Thanks! I'm watching them on e-bay. The timmy is the most pricey. No I'm not a high gain man. Just sold my "Grunge" pedal and have owned a Boss HM-2. I've been using a Boss DS-1 the last month--always wanted to try one. Either overdrive or normal distortion is my cup of tea. Platefire 

[thermion]

Yeah the timmy (and tim) could be tough to find, but easy to flip if you don't like it. By ehx's own admission the soul food is very much like a klon, I've never played a real one but this pedal sounds/ feels great and has a lot of range. 
maybe a danelectro cool cat, or
digitech bad monkey, or
joyo sweet baby?
happy hunting!

[Platefire]

I'm a little confused on the Dano Transparent OD. There is a range of slightly different Dano Cool Cat OD's from $40 to $90 bucks--some don't say the word "Transparent" and then there are the ones that say transparent V2 and the ones that are Transparent that don't have the "V2". Which one is a Timmy clone?

On the Timmy I been tracking the lowest price used one I could fine that started at $65 and is now at $112. Kind of hard to figure when I find them new on e-bay for $130. I would think it would be wise to spend just a few more bucks and get new.

My Son Greg as I recall has been using a Tim pedal for years and he is a lot more discriminating about his peals than me, so it must be pretty good! Is the Timmy just a smaller version of the Tim? Platefire

[thermion]

I think transparent v1 is the one you're after.
Paul quit making the Tim and only offers the Timmy new. I think this sums it up (from a post on tdpri):

"The Tim has the standard off/on tone, but it also has a boost mode that takes you over the top of the standard gain. You can go from just a slight pushed blackface to a bluesy crunch. It also has a built in effects loop, that you can plug in a EQ, delay, etc, and the loop only comes on when you turn the Tim on. Then you have a drive knob for the boost and a separate tone knob that only effects the boost circuit. And it has a pull knob that allows you to change the clipping stage by changing the order of the diodes, which gives more or less overdrive, the main thing is you still can hear the characteristics of your amp and guitar. The Timmy has all of the same tones but is in a smaller box and doesn't have the boost or the external diode switch."

FWIW Timmy also doesn't have the effects loop.