What we look for when we buy a collection
A collection arrives one of two ways: someone walks it into one of our stores, or we drive to it. Estates, downsizing, a garage that quietly stopped being a garage twenty years ago. We buy single instruments and we buy entire collections, and we make same-day offers on collections. Here is what our buyers are actually looking at, piece by piece, when we put a number on a lifetime of gear.
We come to you
A full collection or an estate is not something you should have to box up. Our senior appraisers travel for private, on-site acquisitions anywhere in the United States. We look at everything where it sits, we make the offer the same day, and we handle the packing and transport for the pieces we buy. You do not need to decide what is valuable before we arrive. That is our job, not yours.
A list helps, but it is not required
If you can email a list or a few photos ahead — models and serial numbers if you have them — we come prepared. But a lot of the collections we buy were never catalogued, and that is fine. Part of the work is the inventory walk: open the cases, pull the amps, count the pedals. We have done it hundreds of times.
The few pieces that set the tone
Every collection has a spine. A Pre-CBS Fender, a golden-era Gibson, a vintage tube amp that has not been plugged in since the seventies. Those pieces carry the headline number, and we go through them first, individually, with the same forensic bench examination we give anything we buy: potentiometer date codes, solder joints under magnification, neck and cavity stamps, and a look under blacklight for overspray, touch-ups, or hidden refinish work.
Then there is the long tail — the player-grade guitars, the amp that does not power up, the shoebox of pedals. The tail matters. We price it honestly, at what each piece is, not at a wishful average. A collection offer that quietly assumes every beat-up case holds a treasure is not an offer. It is a negotiation trick.
The three questions we ask about every piece
Is it original?
Finish, hardware, electronics, pickups. Modified does not mean unbuyable — we buy players and changed guitars every week. But it changes the number, so we need to know what moved and when. Honest disclosure from you gets you further than a clean story that falls apart on the bench.
What condition is it in?
We grade from Mint down to Fair. Checking on an old nitrocellulose finish is normal aging, not damage. A refret is wear. A headstock repair is damage history. Each one prices differently, and we say which is which.
Is it complete?
OHSC — the original hard shell case — is worth real money. So are hangtags, certificates, receipts, and the tremolo arm that has been riding in the case pocket since 1966. Cases get shuffled over the years. If you know the brown case is not the one your guitar was born with, tell us. We would rather find a mismatch than assume one.
Please do not fix anything first
The most expensive mistake a seller can make is cleaning up. No refinishing. No re-soldering. No swapping parts back on. No polishing out the checking. Original but worn beats fresh but wrong every time, and we see the work of a well-meaning screwdriver every month.
If you have original parts that came off a guitar, put them in a drawer, not back on it. We want them, and they go with the piece.
How the offer gets built
Once we know what is there, each piece is priced against what it is actually selling for right now — realized market prices, not a price guide from last year — weighed with its originality, its condition, and what we already have on the wall.
Then you choose the channel. A cash offer is paid on the spot once originality and condition check out, by bank wire, company check, or trade credit. A trade value against anything in our inventory is often the higher number, because the credit comes back through the sale. For select high-value pieces, consignment is also an option. Same-day offers on collections means the same day. You are not waiting on auction results, paying listing fees, or packing a 1959 amp for shipping.
What we are looking to buy
Guitars, basses, tube amps, pedals, folk instruments, and pro audio. Vintage is our specialty and the spine of most collections, but we also buy modern professional instruments, Custom Shop models, boutique builds, and clean used gear. One piece or five hundred. If it is quality musical equipment, we want to see it.
Getting started
Email a list or photos to ImperialVintageGuitars@gmail.com, call any of our four stores in Burbank, Sherman Oaks, Orange, or San Diego, or start at Sell your guitar. If it is a full collection or an estate, tell us where it is. We will come to it.
