I had a 2008 Hollowbody II delivered on Thursday. It's about as plain-jane as a HBII can get--no piezo and a basic top and back. I hadn't been looking for a Hollowbody. What caught my eye was the date on the hangtag in the ad. This guitar was finished on the day I met my wife! How cool is that? I've not been one to seek out guitars built on a certain date. PRS got going long after I was born, my wedding was on a Saturday, and my son was born during the pandemic shut down--not gonna find a lot of coincidence there. But I'd wanted to get a Hollowbody at some point and the little woman was on board for it.
How the deal got done might be useful/interesting to some. We used escrow.com. The seller wasn't comfortable with shipping the guitar or doing something other than face to face for a transaction, but he's half a continent away from me. He wasn't comfortable with any of the modern forms of electronic payment. The only way he'd do it was with a wire transfer. I wasn't ok with wiring the money directly to him.
I did a little search for escrow services, and found escrow.com. It's super slick and not very expensive. I paid the escrow fees, which came to $87. The wire transfer to the escrow service cost me $20. That's about the same as PayPal's transaction fees. The way it works is that buyer and seller create accounts and set the terms of the deal. I wired the money to escrow.com. Once they receive it, the seller ships the item. When it arrived, I had a mutually agreed upon inspection period. The guitar is exactly what I expected. If it hadn't been, I'd have had the option to ship it back to the seller. I'd have been out the shipping costs and escrow fees. Once I accepted the guitar, they released the money to the seller.
I've rarely seen mention of anyone using an escrow service anymore, but this one seemed cost-effective and reasonable in how it works. I thought that it would be worth sharing, just in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation. I'll use escrow.com again, if the circumstances line up right.
As for the guitar--it's awesome! I spent Friday night getting it cleaned up, a setup, and playing it for an hour or so. It's so nice when a guitar is exactly as described and in great shape. It's barely seen any use, having been owned by a collector and then by the fellow I bought it from. He's a bass player, and doesn't seem to have played the guitar much. It's such a beautiful build and finish, with a great feel to it. The frets seem smaller than most of my other PRSs, and one of these days I'll measure and compare them. I'm just enjoying playing it for now.
How the deal got done might be useful/interesting to some. We used escrow.com. The seller wasn't comfortable with shipping the guitar or doing something other than face to face for a transaction, but he's half a continent away from me. He wasn't comfortable with any of the modern forms of electronic payment. The only way he'd do it was with a wire transfer. I wasn't ok with wiring the money directly to him.
I did a little search for escrow services, and found escrow.com. It's super slick and not very expensive. I paid the escrow fees, which came to $87. The wire transfer to the escrow service cost me $20. That's about the same as PayPal's transaction fees. The way it works is that buyer and seller create accounts and set the terms of the deal. I wired the money to escrow.com. Once they receive it, the seller ships the item. When it arrived, I had a mutually agreed upon inspection period. The guitar is exactly what I expected. If it hadn't been, I'd have had the option to ship it back to the seller. I'd have been out the shipping costs and escrow fees. Once I accepted the guitar, they released the money to the seller.
I've rarely seen mention of anyone using an escrow service anymore, but this one seemed cost-effective and reasonable in how it works. I thought that it would be worth sharing, just in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation. I'll use escrow.com again, if the circumstances line up right.
As for the guitar--it's awesome! I spent Friday night getting it cleaned up, a setup, and playing it for an hour or so. It's so nice when a guitar is exactly as described and in great shape. It's barely seen any use, having been owned by a collector and then by the fellow I bought it from. He's a bass player, and doesn't seem to have played the guitar much. It's such a beautiful build and finish, with a great feel to it. The frets seem smaller than most of my other PRSs, and one of these days I'll measure and compare them. I'm just enjoying playing it for now.
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