How to Sell Used Music Gear (For More, Without Getting Burned)

You have gear you don't play. A pedal that lives in a drawer, an amp you outgrew, a second interface from before you consolidated. It's worth real money, probably more than you think, but selling it usually means a week of "is this still available," a parade of lowballers, and the low hum of worry that the buyer paying by app is running a scam. So the gear sits there, depreciating, while you tell yourself you'll deal with it later.

Selling used music gear well isn't complicated, but it does reward doing a few things in the right order. Price it from real data, clean it up, shoot it honestly, list it where the right buyers are, and close the deal without getting burned. Here's the whole process.

Price It From Sold Data, Not Hope

The most common mistake is pricing off what other people are asking. Asking prices are fiction. Anyone can list a Tube Screamer for $200, that doesn't mean one has ever sold for it. What you want is what gear actually sold for.

• Check sold listings. On Reverb, use the Price Guide or filter to sold listings; on eBay, filter search results to "Sold Items." Match your gear's exact model, year, and condition.
• Use the 55 to 75 percent rule. Gear in good used shape typically fetches 55 to 75 percent of its current new price. Beat up, discontinued, and low-demand pushes you lower. Vintage, rare, or currently hyped pushes you higher, sometimes above new.
• Price with a little room. Set your number slightly above your true floor so you can knock off a bit for a serious buyer and still hit your target. Mark it negotiable if you're open to offers, and firm if you're not.

Know your floor before anyone messages you. If you decide the amp is worth $350 and you won't go below $300, you'll hold that line instead of caving to the first person who says "would you take $200 cash right now."

Clean It, Fix the Cheap Stuff, Then Shoot It

A twenty-minute cleanup can add real money to the sale, because buyers price on what they see. Wipe the dust, restring the guitar, drop a fresh battery in the pedal, coil the cables neatly. If a quick, cheap fix (a new jack, a knob, a setup) turns a "project" into a "ready to play," it's usually worth doing.

Then photograph it properly. This is where most listings lose money.

• Daylight, plain background. Near a window, against a wall or a sheet. No dim bedroom shots, no clutter.
• Every angle. Front, back, headstock or brand logo, control panel, and the serial number. For guitars, get the neck and frets.
• Honest close-ups of the flaws. Buckle rash, worn frets, scuffs, a chipped corner. Showing the wear builds trust and kills the "not as described" dispute before it can happen.

Real photos of the actual item beat a stock image every time. If you're selling on Bandry's Market, you snap the photos right in the app, and it downsamples them and strips out the hidden location data (the EXIF GPS tag baked into phone photos) before the listing posts, so selling an amp never quietly tells strangers where you live.

Write a Listing That Answers Questions Before They're Asked

A good listing prevents the endless back-and-forth. Put the answers up front so a buyer can decide without messaging you five times. Include:

• Exact model and year. "MIM Fender Player Stratocaster, 2021," not "Fender guitar."
• Honest condition. Describe the wear in words, not just photos. Note anything that doesn't work.
• What's included. Case, box, power supply, manual, extra strings. "No original box" is fair to say up front.
• Your price and terms. The number, whether it's firm or negotiable, and whether you'll ship or it's local pickup only.

Sell Where the Right Buyers Are

The best place to sell depends entirely on what the gear is.

• Small, valuable, easy to ship. Pedals, mics, small interfaces, and sought-after items do well on Reverb or eBay, where the buyer pool is national. Just remember the fees: a selling fee plus a payment-processing fee comes off your total, and you own the shipping risk.
• Big, heavy, or fragile. Amps, cabinets, keyboards, drum kits, and PA gear are a nightmare to ship and often cost as much to box and freight as they're worth. Sell these locally for cash.
• Anything, to people who get it. The frustrating part of general marketplaces is that most contacts aren't musicians. They don't know what a boutique overdrive is worth, so they lowball, or they flake. Selling inside your own scene fixes that. That's what Bandry's Market is for: you flip the feed from the Bulletin over to Market, post the gear as sell, buy, or trade, and it sits right next to the bandmate and studio posts other local musicians are already reading. When someone wants it, they tap the link-up button, your contact goes to them, and you handle the deal directly. No listing fee, no cut of the sale, no shipping label forced on you.

Bandry keeps you to three active listings at a time, which keeps the board fresh and stops any one seller from burying everyone else. It's a marketplace of musicians, not resellers, so the person messaging you usually already knows exactly what your gear is and what it's worth.

Close the Deal Without Getting Burned

Most gear sales go fine. The ones that don't tend to follow the same few scripts, and they're easy to sidestep.

• Local: cash, in person, public spot. Meet at a music store, a coffee shop, or another busy public place. Let the buyer test it, take the cash, done. Never accept a personal check or a payment app "sent" via a screenshot you can't verify.
• Shipping: payment clears first, insure it. Only ship after the money is actually in your account, not "pending." Insure the package for full value and keep the tracking number. Photograph the item boxed up in case of a damage claim.
• Know the classics. The overpayment-and-refund scam, the fake payment confirmation, the chargeback after delivery, the "I'll send a courier" for a local item, and the deposit-then- vanish. If a stranger is in a suspicious hurry or offering more than you asked, that's the tell. Walk away.

Selling to musicians you can find in your own scene removes most of this risk on its own. It's a lot harder to run a scam on someone who can see you're a real player two neighborhoods over, and a lot easier to just meet up, hand over the amp, and take the cash.

Turn the Drawer Full of Gear Into Money

The gear you're not using is only losing value the longer it sits. Price it from sold data, spend twenty minutes cleaning and shooting it, write a listing that answers the obvious questions, and put it in front of buyers who actually know what it is. Do that and the pedal in the drawer becomes cash toward the piece you actually want. Head to bandry.app to list your gear in your own scene and see what's for sale near you.