Snooze and Lose

If you ask me, Long and McQuade's Boxing Day sales have been getting worse as the years go on.  It isn't surprising given the ever eroding margins in retail of any kind, combined with what must be approaching near market saturation for ownership of electric guitars, thanks to lower entry level price points.

A few years ago the featured deal was an American Stratocaster with maple board, in red (Hot Rod Red maybe?), for $699.  I wasn't interested - I'm in Japanese territory at that price point - but I recognize that it was a pretty good deal.  I could be wrong, but I believe that each store had a reported minimum quantity - kudos to L&M if that were the case.  I'm sure there were more than a few kids (and adults) who took all their Christmas money, lined up on Boxing Day, and left with an American Stratocaster.  A good Christmas if you ask me.

In 2013, perhaps in an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle again, L&M put a couple of Fender Guitars on sale. This time, instead of US instruments, we got a Mexican Carbonita Telecaster and the Squier Classic Vibe Straocaster in Fiesta Red.  The first, a cool production take on a custom shop instrument, and the second a very well received model, in what was probably the least popular colour (so either Fender and L&M negotiated a good price from the factory, or L&M fired a buyer that year and was selling overstock with Fender's MAP blessing).

As you can see from the flyer, saving $50 on a Classic Vibe wasn't the incentive that the American Strat promotion was, but they no doubt sold a bunch, and they'restarting to show up on Kijiji.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to predict that in a year or two, we'd start seeing them on the secondary market.

I've never owned a Classic Vibe Stratocaster, but by all accounts they're excellent instruments for the price, especially if you're willing to make a few simple upgrades. I've been on the lookout for one for the right price, and figure that a Fiesta Red Maple board is the most likely (given the sale and that maple boards are always less popular).  I'd bet that the two tone sunburst would go for $50-$100 more than the Fiesta Red on the secondary market.

There have been 3 posted with reasonable distance in the past 2 weeks, all at $300.  4 days ago, the nearest one was lowered down to $200.  This is right about where I think the price should be given the earlier sale (and ignoring the falling Canadian dollar raising the price of new instruments - convenient but hey).  I'm not big on paying out of pocket for anything, and lower end buys like this requires moving something else beforehand.

In this case, the Orange Micro Terror went on the block (you can see it in this post).  I posted at $150 for the head and cab, and immediately received responses, which is usually an indication that the price was too low.  I checked what they were selling for new, and at over $300, I was off the mark at $150.  I edited the post to raise the price to $200 and have received a number of replies, which is great, except...

The Fiesta Strat was sold.  If I had taken the first offer at $150, I would have quickly been on my way to Fiesta territory (I had sold a set of GFS pickups for $50 early in the week, so the guitar fund was not empty).  Instead, I didn't research before I posted, and then got greedy.

You know how this goes though - I'm almost single mindedly focused on adding a Fiesta Red Classic Vibe Stratocaster to the collection.  Hopefully, I can talk one of the other two postings down to $250 and add a little Fiesta, instead of siesta...

Which is a terrible play on the title.  Snooze?  Siesta?  Terrible.  Just terrible.

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