Well… I bought that axe I had been checking out. It’s the Ernie Ball Music Man Family Reserve BFR-6. I was really on the fence about this one. It’s a very expensive guitar, but encouragement from my friends helped. One of the things that pushed me over the edge was that everyone was having a President’s Day Weekend sale. I made the mistake of checking out Musician’s Friend last night to see what the price would be with the sale. As it turns out, I couldn’t apply the coupon code so I chatted with a guy and he said to call. I called and they said that Ernie Ball wasn’t participating in the sale, but that they’d do it anyway, but only on the black guitar since everything else was special order. I told him I wanted to think about it and I’d call back.
Since I believe in supporting the local community and businesses, and since one of the sales guys at Guitar Center let me play one about a month ago I headed up there this morning. I got there right after opening so it wasn’t very crowded. The guy I originally worked with wasn’t there so I worked with another guy. I was straight up and told him about my phone call and Musician’s Friend willing to apply the 15% discount because of the sale. I told him that since the first guy let me play I wanted to give G.C. the opportunity to sell me the axe. He said they’d apply the 15% discount, too. So I explained that I also wouldn’t have to pay sales tax from Musician’s Friend – about $200 on a guitar that was now just over $2,500. He spoke to the manager and agreed to sell me the out-the-door-price for a tick over $2,500 (basically what the price would be without tax). This effectively saved me about $700 on the guitar! Sold!!
Three advantages here:
1 – I could pick any color they had in stock for the price. Musician’s Friend would only allow me to apply the discount to the black guitar. This way I had a little more selection. The red one was the only guitar that showed the wood grain all the way through the axe, and that sold me on it. (see pic 04).
2 – Guitar Center has a 30-day return policy. Musician’s Friend is only 10 days after shipment. Not knowing when I’d receive the axe, I might not be able to return it from Musician’s Friend if I was out of town when it came in. This way, I can play it for a bit before making that final decision.
3 – I could take it home today! Not really a big factor in my decision, but it was nice to not have to wait 3 months to get one in my hands.
Everyone up at Guitar Center was great and ironically, though I never show my receipt, I was glad I did. The serial number was wrong on the receipt and they had to fix it. As an extra tid-bit of information this guitar, literally THIS guitar, was the same guitar that Guitar Center used in its photo shoot for their platinum lineup of guitars on the web site. The box even had the labels from the photo shoot on it.
So, this is my 40th bDay present to myself – a tad early. Not sure if I would have bought it without the sale, and encouragement from my friends, but that definitely pushed me over the edge. Will it make me a better guitar player? Absolutely not, but I should get a lot of enjoyment out of it. At least I hope to. I haven’t even played it, yet, since I brought it home. The tubes are warming up as I type….
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