guitars @lemmy.world DLSantini @lemmy.ml 9 mo. ago

Inherited this mess.

Was planning to list it for sale somewhere, but no idea what to price it at. Any idea? Is it even worth someone's time fixing it up?

86 comments

It's nice enough that you can put some time and effort into it and end up with a really great guitar. It's not super valuable, so you probably won't make money on it, but it's not crappy enough that it isn't worth fixing.

As others have mentioned, the biggest question is the neck. If it's intact and straight (actually slightly bowed towards the fretboard), you're good to go. If the neck is cracked or warped, then it's probably not worth it.
You won’t believe how nice that will clean up, if done right…
I love the worn punk look. How does it sound?
- Without getting too deep into it...
  
  It has notable corrosion, especially around the pickups and the strings.
  
  Would you want to be electrocuted by testing a guitar with corroded pickups?
  
  Other obvious things, like lubricating sticky tuner knobs, needs new strings, needs cleanup, needs the truss rod adjusted for a warped neck, etc...
  
  It's not all as easy as you'd think. And looking at the corrosion on the pickups, I wouldn't wanna plug that thing in to test immediately, I'm not in any hurry to get electrocuted.
  
  Sure it might come out pretty damn nice, but it needs some professional work before anyone with experience would even dare test the sound.
  
  Edit: I love how I'm getting downvoted, when I have experience refurbishing both acoustic and electric guitars. Rust on the pickups? That's sat up so long you don't just randomly plug it up, unless you like short circuits...
  
  I'm not an electrician, but I really doubt the kind of electricity coming through a cable is enough do anything more than a slight ouchy. There are amps powered by 9 volt batteries.
  
  Responding to this comment chain as a whole.
  
  You can be shocked through a guitar (or mic), but not really by the guitar itself.
  
  Amps also rarely shock people as they have grounds in them that can protect from shocks, but some have ground lifts.
  
  Pretty much the only case we're you will get shocked bad enough that it'll be a problem, is in live sound.
  
  A guitar has lots of metal components that can have a current running through them including the strings themselves if they touch the pickup coils. Usually there's never going to be enough current in them to shock you. Passive guitars aren't going to produce any of that current alone. I have an active bass with a 9V battery and it isn't going to shock me playing normally unless that battery somehow becomes ungrounded and the stings come into contact with that circuit. Which is rare, and also weak enough not to do any damage or even be noticable.
  
  So a guitar (or mic) isn't going to shock you, but the equipment a guitar is connected to could provide enough current to noticably shock you. If that amp or whatever has a ground fault or had its ground lifted, it could be a shock hazard as bigger amps can hold a lot of voltage in their chassis.
  
  Some in this thread have said that you straight up can't be shocked by a guitar and that is blatant misinformation.
  
  An example of how to get shocked is in live sound, you'll likely have all your amps and stuff plugged into some kind of power supply or generator. That power supply is providing current to your amp. Let's say that power supply has a ground fault, If your amps ground is good, it's probably fine. The current in your amp that should be flowing to ground, is doing so. If you lifted your amps ground cause it was buzzing or something, that current from the power supply is now running wild in your amp. That current can and will travel up the 1/4in jack into your guitar and into the pickups. Making a circuit that electrifies everything as there are no grounds for that current to disapiate into. Now, when you pick up your guitar and press down on a string, that string potentially makes contact with the pickups sending current through the metal strings into your body and potentially through your body into the ground as you are now the only ground in the circuit. This shocks the shit out of you. And considering that a power supply can be very high voltage this could easily be fatal.
  
  https://youtu.be/xS_5K5YEYv8?si=__vaNi_33fAtSygB
  
  This video is good at showing how this works. Plus the guy uses an ohmmeter to prove that there is an electric current flowing from the amp into the bass in the first minute or so of the video.
  
  As a side you shouldn't really ever be lifting the ground on an amp with the expeception of maybe studio recording sessions. Ground lift switches are often there to cut out buzzes and hums in the amp. In live sound and practice sessions that buzz really doesn't matter, especially live it'll get washed out by all the other sounds. If it's actually an issue, then you need a new amp or find a tech willing to work on amplifiers.
  
  I heard that if pickup coils have gone really bad and lost their grounding they could potentially shock you, like the guitar itself shocks you, but I don't know anything more about that. Maybe that could apply to the guitar in question? If it's not active I doubt it. It's what amp you plug that guitar into that could cause problems.
  
  TLDR: That guitar in question isn't really an electrical hazard unless it's plugged into an electrical hazard. It should be looked over irregardless before selling it.
Absolutely. It's a perfect excuse to learn wiring, painting, fret replacement, fret leveling, setup. All the skills.
I buy, sell, and trade guitars. It's not worth more than a few hundred bucks. It's an Epiphone. A kid or touring musician might appreciate it.
As long as it’s a set neck neck and the neck is good and straight, it’s a decent guitar.

And no, the corrosion won’t cause a shock.
Ended up selling it for $200. Considering the fact that within about a few hours after posting the ad I had a good 30 different messages, many of them not even bothering to try and haggle(nevermind the low-ballers I would normally get), maybe I priced it too low. Meanwhile I have thousands of dollars worth of my electronics listed for sale at more-than-fair prices, and in two months I haven't gotten a single response from anyone that wasn't a scammer or an extreme low-baller trying to drive the price down.
Search in reverb for a comparable Epiphone Les Paul to get an idea of the value. My guess would be around 300 depending on the shape it's in. (Looks pretty rough but hard to tell from one picture)

You might be able to look up the year it was made etc from the serial number on the back of the headstock.

Cheers and Good luck

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