How to Buy a Used Acoustic Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Tom. This video is for Expert Village. com, and in this section it's part 2 on what to look for in a used guitar to save you money and get you a little bit more bang for your buck. Buying used means you're probably getting a little better quality than if you go into a store and used your hard earned money for a brand new guitar off the rack. Some of the other things to look for on a guitar is whether the neck is bent at all, and that's important because some used guitars have bent necks, just because over the years the neck will have pulled up with the tension of the strings. A quick and easy way to see whether the neck is bent is to take your index finger, press it on the second fret, and then take your other hand and, I don't know, somewhere up around here, put your finger and press it on that fret. And then what you do is you look at the string around the middle between your two fingers and see how far the string is off the fret. You should be able to slide a credit card between there, that's about it. If the gap, on say the middle fret here, is wider than one or two credit cards, even one credit card, the neck is a little bit warped, and I would stay away from that guitar. Tuners is another thing you can look for. The tuners is what holds the guitar up here for tuning the strings. You want to look for something that looks like its good quality. There's a lot of tuners out there. Some of them have open gears. If they look chewed, almost like nuts and bolts, if it looks like its stripped, stay away from it. Finally, the fingerboard. You're looking for a rosewood fingerboard. Some are maple, some are rosewood. It doesn't matter, but see if the neck is chewed up. Is there fingernail marks? Is it gouged? Then look at the fret, see if there's any indentations. Those are the things you're trying to avoid in a used guitar."