Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on February 19, 2010 at 5:47am

Stan , see the other post where a lot of what your asking is explained."How to sell" type stuff
One thing I will say here is that I've NEVER had much luck trying to sell out of retail stores where I'm not there to push it. . The problem with that is, they SEE the instrument but dont know what it is, nor can they hear it played.In my experience they HAVE to hear it.
The general public does not know what a cigarbox guitar is,when they SEE ONE but dont HEAR one they think its a toy.
Thats your problem ,letting them know its a real instrument and part of our history.

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Permalink Reply by stan bryars on February 19, 2010 at 9:02am

I have an advantage at the one cigar store that is definite and the Asian store
That store is down the street from my house and the manager and two salespeople play, they want mostly to fill the down time between sales
My wife works at the Asian store and her boss is a good friend of mine who also plays, he just doesn't think that American cigars will interest his clients and wants me to give them an Asian slant if I can

But I see your point.
Without someone there to show what they can do they look like wall art to the uninitiated

Roger Martin said:

Stan , see the other post where a lot of what your asking is explained."How to sell" type stuff
One thing I will say here is that I've NEVER had much luck trying to sell out of retail stores where I'm not there to push it. . The problem with that is, they SEE the instrument but dont know what it is, nor can they hear it played.In my experience they HAVE to hear it.
The general public does not know what a cigarbox guitar is,when they SEE ONE but dont HEAR one they think its a toy.
Thats your problem ,letting them know its a real instrument and part of our history.

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on February 24, 2010 at 5:22pm

If all those guys play you DO have an advantage!
Good Luck and dont forget to have fun while your working building and selling!

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on February 25, 2010 at 2:52am

Have you tied to sell to your local guitar store? The one by me is a small privately owned store and the owner love odd stuff. I sold my first sale to him and he wants more. Go to were the music is.

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Permalink Reply by Wichita Sam on February 25, 2010 at 6:42am

Don't give up on the festival/fleamarket.... maybe you can get a little shelf space for the few that you have for consignment or trade....

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Permalink Reply by stan bryars on February 25, 2010 at 12:53pm

A brother of a friend is a die hard fleamarketeer and has asked if I would be interested in taking up a booth with him
I think he sales that stuff that Mr. Cunningham shills for these days
Also found a couple of monthly gatherings of old car nuts that another friend goes to

My son likes old cars so he will go to that with me and he is an excellent player, but a snob that thinks our stuff is cute

Gonna try all that out along with the Ebay routine

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Permalink Reply by Wichita Sam on February 25, 2010 at 3:52pm

Show that snob son some of the killer youtubes and he'll change his tune....
check out Moreland and Arbuckle for a a mainstream blues/rock
and of course Shane Speal for cutting edge stuff....

Then challenge him to match their playing on a "cute" instrument...

Sooner or later you need to get your playing up to speed, there will be plenty of times it will be you and the CBG and a possible customer... you will need to show'em what it can do..

stan bryars said:

A brother of a friend is a die hard fleamarketeer and has asked if I would be interested in taking up a booth with him
I think he sales that stuff that Mr. Cunningham shills for these days
Also found a couple of monthly gatherings of old car nuts that another friend goes to

My son likes old cars so he will go to that with me and he is an excellent player, but a snob that thinks our stuff is cute

Gonna try all that out along with the Ebay routine

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Permalink Reply by stan bryars on February 25, 2010 at 9:21pm

Red Dog has a vid on youtube "what three strings can do for your playing"
All it got was a blank stare and one of those "that's nice" that makes you want to spank them

I have a fake Les Paul he and his equally snobbish made fun of and an Ibanez factory guitar that they both dismissed as cheap
They came over one day an my son habitually picked up a guitar that was sitting near the couch
After playing it he couldn't believe that a cheap $300 guitar could sound that good
Then I pointed t the head stock label
It was a $69 Kona I picked up in a pawn shop
I also have an old Kay or Harmony archtop that i bought for $25and have been offered $250 for before I sat on it

Still can't get the snobbery out of his head

His older brother would be a whole nother story but I don't get to see him as much

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on February 26, 2010 at 5:07am

Hey Stan,,
Ask your son what he would be playing if he lived back in the old days when what he considers a "REAL' guitar, was either unavailable altogether, or completely out of reach money wise?
Ask him to imagine himself wanting to play desperately, but with no guitar tp play. Would a cute instrument not be ok then?
We love our CBG's and DB's and we sometimes get frustrated when people dont get what we're doing.
But if EVERYBODY built CBG's would we still get as much fun out of em as we do now?

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on February 26, 2010 at 6:25am

I've got a really nice electric my wife gave me and 2 cheap electrics and 1 $5.00 acoustic from a tag sale. To me there all fun in some way, but the cbg's are just cool, especially if you build it yourself. Kids are just brand concious, oh well what can you do.

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Permalink Reply by stan bryars on February 26, 2010 at 4:43pm

I take the blame for my son's attitude
His older brother was born when I was 18 and had to grow up with very little the second came along 10 years later after
His mother also grew up poor in the NY projects
I guess we felt guilty and tried to make up for what the first didn't have by giving it to the second

Life has been handed to him , at 2 and 3 he was wearing Air Jordans and the trend just continued

On a better note
I took a few over to a cousin in law today that has a similar opinion of CGBs
His father was a pro musician all his life and his older brother is a musician and avid collector of "serious" instruments

I only asked him to play one to tell me if the action was too high (I already knew it wasn't')
2 hours later he finally put the thing down
Now he is wanting one and was coming up with some really good marketing scheme and ideas

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Permalink Reply by Wichita Sam on February 26, 2010 at 5:03pm

That's the story... if you can get a good playing CBG in a musician's hands....

I had a guest (friend of friend) in my shop last weekend... he stayed and played for 2+ hours....
After trading several emails, he buys two and takes the third in trade for demo work and to be my "playing professional" (my CBGs will go in his show and he'll hand out my business cards)....

Playing will change the attitude a lot....

the best,

Wichita Sam

stan bryars said:

I take the blame for my son's attitude
His older brother was born when I was 18 and had to grow up with very little the second came along 10 years later after
His mother also grew up poor in the NY projects
I guess we felt guilty and tried to make up for what the first didn't have by giving it to the second

Life has been handed to him , at 2 and 3 he was wearing Air Jordans and the trend just continued

On a better note
I took a few over to a cousin in law today that has a similar opinion of CGBs
His father was a pro musician all his life and his older brother is a musician and avid collector of "serious" instruments

I only asked him to play one to tell me if the action was too high (I already knew it wasn't')
2 hours later he finally put the thing down
Now he is wanting one and was coming up with some really good marketing scheme and ideas

• ▶ Reply

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