Instrument Sales on thesession.org
From a recent comment (and many more that preceded it), it seems that many people are annoyed by all the instrument for sale threads that occur in these forums. So I thought I would take a poll:
1. Have you ever bought or sold an instrument from someone that you found out about through these forums?
2. If you answered yes, was it a negative or positive experience? And if so, why?
3. Do you find the for sale threads to be annoying? And if so, why?
For myself, I don’t mind people selling things here, as long as it is a traditional instrument and a private transaction. It’s not like we’re bombarded with advertisements for music stores or anything (although, we had an instance of that recently). Like people always point out, you can tell what the topic of the thread is from the title, and there’s nothing that says that you need to read the thread! I don’t see that it’s necessarily cluttering up the discussion board (not NEARLY as many threads as the “Tune ID” queries, for instance - not that I have a problem with those threads either).
Besides, we’re a community that is firmly entrenched in a niche style of music which has instruments that are fairly specific to the music we play in a lot of cases. So it makes sense to be able to offer instruments for sale here, because it gets the word out directly to the niche. Often times, people will be instructed to try selling on Chiff & Fipple, Banjo Hangout, Uilleann Obsession, or other more directly related niche websites, which is good advice but it still does no harm to list stuff here… In fact, several times it has been suggested to Jeremy to make instrument sales a section of this site.
My answer to the poll:
1. Yes
2. I sold one bouzouki because of having listed it on thesession. But most importantly to me, my everyday banjo is one that I acquired through a forum post here. It’s a very rare banjo, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And it’s not like I can just find another one. I have yet to see one listed for sale anywhere in the world other than the one I bought. So I am indebted to thesession.org for giving me that opportunity!
3. No