Buy one get one (almost) free?

Don't explain, just start crying floods of tears if it ever comes up and blame it on an anxiety attack brought about by the impending Christmas season.
 
Man up, in other words.

So I went back to GC today and after seeing that the same kid wasn't working, I went in to the Acoustic room and didn't see the Carvin. A sales guy came walking in and just gave me a nod, and I asked him about the used Carvin I saw last night. They had moved it, and he reached up and pulled it down, handed me a pick and said "want to use a tuner?" I told him no, I'd just harmonically tune it and he said "I"ll be right outside if you have any questions" and closed the door on his way out. I played for about 15 minutes. Just a real nice guitar. Great neck, balance and tone. There isn't a mark on it. I stood up and he walks in and I asked if it had a case. Yup, original hard Carvin case. I didn't even haggle and just told him to ring it up. He says as we are walking out, "I know the answers, but when we get to the counter I'm gonna ask you to buy some crap you don't want, okay?" So sure enough, he offers the Gold Plan and then he offers the humidifier, strings, strap, picks" The manager is standing nearby listening to make sure the guy gives me the whole spiel, and I politely declined the extras. All in all, an enjoyable experience. I got a nice Carvin Cobalt 850t in mint condition with a hard case for $299. Randy

 
I'm glad you went back. That is a good ending!! You're a better man than me. I would have told him, in the hearing of the  manager, about the other visit. Maybe not though, I am better than I used to be about letting things slide. I likely would have told him something like, "You know, you are the reason that I bought this guitar". Then let him ask why... etc.
You were graceful about it I though. You're a good guy. I hardly ever see any Carvin guitars here in GA. I'll see a 100-X or whatever the old head was that they reintroduced a few years ago. I sometimes think it is the same one poppint up in different pawn shops, lol. I'd love to play one of their guitars. They all look really nice and their catalog is very seductive... almost convinced me to buy one of their SS combo amps and the Bel Aire looks cool too, but I bet it sounds just like a PV classic. They make beautiful guitars but I wonder how well they keep their value. Most of my guitars go up in value, even the fancy one has.
Anyway... good story!
 
J
 
 

  Thanks J, I guess I'm mellowing as the years go by. There was a time when the first sales guy would have gotten a blistering on his ears at the minimum. At the maximum, I would have been on the news (again);) I'm enjoying this Carvin so far. Great Fishman electronics, and just a very playable guitar, with nice action and zero fret buzz. Very similar playability to my Strat, so it's easy on my fingers. I played for about 2 hours last night, which is much longer than I've played acoustic in a couple of years.

  The GC here where I live is decent. The people working there are knowledgeable.
 
 The main problem I have with that store is that for the longest time there were all of these kids in there working beatz in the keyboards section and plinking on all the guitars in the guitars section. Sometimes it will be quiet and I'll decide to try something out and within a few seconds one of these guys comes around close to me and starts up something. It is usually just too loud with all of that going on to hear what I'm trying to do.

 I understand it is a music store and they sell instruments but man noone has the decent common courtesy to let a guy try something out for a few minutes. The last time I was there I noticed they had the keyboards turned off. Maybe a few employees had to go insane first.

 I gave up using the tester guitars to try effects and such as they are junk and I usually can't hear anyways.

 When I go in there now I usually make a quick 5 minute sweep of the place with my wife waiting in the car. I know where everything is and what I might want. If it isn't there I don't waste my time.

rsp@odyssey.net

Bub

Randy (or any lefties) ... look here.

If you're interested, I'm willing to come down on the price.

Bub, if I didn't already have a Les Paul I'd take you up on this one.

There's always room for one more! :-)

It really is an amazing guitar if you're in to LP's. I'm just not in to them, and my hands keep getting stiffer by the year and I can hardly play it anymore.

It's at the store on display. Hopefully someone will buy it soon. I really need the money. This house we bought has ended up needing a lot more work than we anticipated.

I have some other guitars I'm going to be selling soon too.

I have a Korean made Baby Blue Strat. Beautiful guitar. 100% original, no mods. Got that in the early 90's. Like brand new.

I also have a Japanese metallic red tele. But it needs a lot of work. If it was in good shape, that thing would be worth more than the LP. Those Japanese Fenders from the mid-late 80's are fetching quite a chunk of change.

Anyway ... sorry to go off topic there.

As for GC's ... I was fortunate, the one up in Des Moines was pretty darn good. They were very professional, they even had business cards. The sales guy that sold me my HS-80's gave me his card and asked me to email him or call and let him know how they sounded. He had recordings he and his wife did and A/B'd them on all the monitors they had there and said he bought 3 pair of the HS-80's.

And that Sheraton I bought in KC, the guy there was also a guitar tech. The intonation was way off on it. I told him if it was able to be set that I would buy the guitar. He had it set up in 5 minutes, sounds and plays like a dream.

Glad you went back and was able to pick up the Carvin.

Went to both Guitar Center ans Sam Ash yesterday. I was looking for a "newly arrived" amp I saw on GC's web site. The Blackstar ID 15 (which looks totally killer for a solid state amp).

http://www.sweetwater.com...QCFQ_hQgodiz0ARw 

What I hadn't seen however was the fine prints - estimated shipping January 4th, as I learned after speaking to a couple of sales guys.  (Sweetwaters claims it'll ship on 12/9, but that's the same thing they say for all Blackstar amps.)


In fact they had only ONE Blackstar in the shop - a used HT 15. At $300, in absolutely mint condition, it was quite a bargain. I was ready to walk home w/ it when my wife brought my attention to a little puzzling note in the upper corner of the price tag - available for pick up 12/26. 

Seems that in Nevada, the law requires that second hand goods be kept for a 30 days period - in the event that it was stolen and is claimed. Bummer. I needed a little amp NOW.

The sales guy suggested that I might want to look at Line 6 amps, which were every where in the store. No thanks.

While we were there, my wife wanted to look for a short scale bass, preferably a Jaguar or a Mustang. Bummer again - they had neither.

Empty handed, off we went to Sam Ash. The sales guy there was a bit older and sounded more like a musician selling gear than just a sales person. We started discussing the Blackstar amps lineage  - and, yipee, they had a bunch of them in store. Off we were to see a couple of used Mesa Boogies, and then some cool little Marshalls. Overall, it felt more like discussing gear and tone w/ a fellow musician.

They also had the Peavey Vypyr, which looks really cool, but I'm trying to move away from modeling amps - I just wants some elements of it. The ID 15 will have this cool feature which allows you to switch between different type of tube emulation, but overall, it still looks like an amp, not a POD in a combo amp, w/ all the effects and whatnot.

Since I needed a bit more time to evaluate my options because the one amp I wanted won't be available before next year, I once again left empty handed. 

Went home and spent a few hours researching on the web. For a while, I did reconsider the Line 6 Spider IV 75, but eventually, pretty much settled for the little Blackstar HT-1. 

The one thing that bothered me was the lack of a proper EQ section, and I still have to try it for myself to see how that single knob ISF thingie works. 

But on the good side, it has real tubes, i can crank it because it's only 1 watt, and that mighty little bastard can even feed a 4 x 12 cab. And it has the speaker emulated output which I can use to record whenever I want.

So it looks like I'll be paying the folks at Sam Ash another visit today. :P