Buying guitars online can be an uneasy pastime, particularly when you’re dealing with high-value instruments; there seem to be increasing numbers of scammers out there across various platforms who are targeting musicians.
There’s also the hassle of regularly checking multiple different websites to find your dream guitar.
Even if you do find something genuine, last minute, lightspeed-quick bidders getting in at the final nanosecond of an auction can be devastating if you’ve got your heart set on something special.
The process of selling guitars can be worrisome too. High fees, lowball offers and lots of tyre-kickers make it a lot of hassle for often not much reward.
Aiming to alleviate these worries and create a much more transparent, fairer marketplace, comes new UK company Grailpieces. The UK-only platform provides a space for users to match their personal guitar collections with people who are looking for what they’ve got.
Among its key attributes, Grailpieces ensure that all users are vetted and verified before they are able to list anything for sale on the platform, and there are minimal 5% fees for using the platform - a notable low for this sector.
Recently formed by two brothers, we were keen to find out more about how Grailpieces can help those of us with extensive collections shed our load, and how we can use the website’s unique GrailMatch function to intelligently scan for those long hungered-for axes of our dreams…
Guitar World: Hi there guys, thanks for speaking to us today. It seems a key USP of Grailpieces is security and safety. Can you explain to us how you ensure that?
Grailpieces: “First, we verify all users using a similar process as most banks in the UK. This means that the people you're dealing with definitely exist and are not out to scam you. There are so many scams on eBay, Reverb, Facebook, Insta etc and we wanted to do whatever we could to prevent them from taking place on our platform.
“Second, what we set out to do was to find a way to tap into people's guitar collections without them having to explicitly list something for sale.”
Guitar World: That sounds like a really interesting way of sharing a vast array of guitar collections, what motivated you to build the platform in this way?
Grailpieces: “Well, we all have something in our collection where we'd say 'I'm never selling that...well, not unless someone offered me £8,000 for it'. As a result, you're probably not going to put it up for sale. Equally, we all have something (at least one thing) that we’d class as our 'holy grail' instrument that we've been searching for our whole playing careers. You know the thing, the perfect guitar that will transform you into the player you've always wanted to be, the one that will mean you don't need to buy any more guitars, ever. Honest.
“So what we've created is a platform where you can upload your collection, and put in whatever prices you want, which only you can see - as well as create a wishlist of those holy grail items, including what you'd be willing to pay; again, these prices are kept hidden from everyone else.
"Our unique GrailMatch algorithm will then match wishlists with inventories and tell you how close a match there is. If it's of interest, we enable you to then make a deal with the other party.”
Guitar World: Can you explain in a bit more detail about how GrailMatch serves up these results - and what the next steps in the process would be if you found your sought after axe?
Grailpieces: “So, for example, if you want a 1965 Lake Placid Blue Strat for £10,000 and someone has one but wants £15,000 for it, we'll show that as a fairly close but not perfect match.
"Similarly, if someone has a 1965 strat but in candy apple red, that will also come up as a close but not perfect match. We have a visual indicator of how good a match it is and then you can click through to see further details and decide to make a deal.
“If you do make a deal, we charge the buyer a 5% platform fee which covers our costs - think of it as a finder's fee. The seller doesn't pay any fee. We then connect the buyer and the seller so they can arrange the payment of the agreed price directly and arrange shipping or collection of the guitar.
"This is something a couple of other (non-guitar related) specialist platforms do and we think it works much more effectively than us taking the money from the buyer and giving to the seller, which obviously also adds costs to the whole process.”
Guitar World: Sounds pretty fair to us. Another intriguing - and unique - aspect of what you guys are aiming to do is ‘sealed bid’ auctions, could you talk us through how these are going to work?
Grailpieces: “[Sealed bids] are a different kind of auction, where you only get one bid. So you have to make it a good one if you want to win!
“There's no last-minute (or last nanosecond) sniping; the auction runs for 30 days and the highest bid wins, simple as that. The bids aren't shown so you won't know until the end whether or not you've won.
“We think this makes the whole process both fairer and more fun. Again, we charge the buyer a 5% fee and the seller won't pay a fee unless they've set a reserve.
"Reserve auctions tend to result in fewer bids so we charge the seller a 3% fee if there is a successful sale, that is, the reserve is met. If it's not met, then we don't charge anything. Some specialist guitar auction platforms charge 20 to 30%, which is, to our mind, a bit ridiculous.”
Guitar World: That feels like a solid system, have you got anything cool coming up to kick off the sealed bids?
Grailpieces: “We will have some exciting guitars coming up on this sealed bid service, starting this month with a Gretsch Princess guitar and amp set from 1963 and a 1969 Fender Mustang in Competition Burgundy - just like the one Kurt Cobain had. We suggest keeping an eye on the website and signing up for email updates, as well as following us on Instagram to see pictures of what we’ve got coming.
“Grailpieces members can submit their own guitars for sale by sealed bid auctions as well, which we will schedule in once they've been reviewed and approved.”
A final note is that Grailpieces features absolutely no on-site advertising. Nor does it use tracking cookies to monitor users’ behaviour. Which is a refreshing change.
Grailpieces has only just started to get the ball rolling, so we recommend heading over to the website now and, if you’re in the market for something new - or want to offload some of your collection - then we recommend you get your profile set-up today.
