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I had a guy come in today trying to trade an old aria Pro II accoustic for one of my guitars. It's at least from the 70's but I can't find anything on it. It's got a dove on the pick guard and is in decent shape, but it's got some fret buzz after the 7-8 frets. the model # is PW-35. He wants about 600 for it in relation to a trade on a fender.

Japanese & mass produced

Their electrics were OK and range from £50- £200 on ebay.( thats $1-400) never heard of or played an acoustic Pro 11

the PW-35 was made 77 & 78

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New Aria acoustics are selling for just under $200 in Japan Translaed Japanese Page

That being said, it appears that Aria was making Gibson clones back in the '70s and the PW-35 were supposed to be "professional" series guitars.

The best you can do is judge the guitar by what you feel you can get for it and its current condition.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

I don't know what retail is on this Aria (although I suspect it is a LOT less than your customer thinks it is). But I'm going to assume that you are in business to make a profit rather than to provide a free instrument exchange service. If that assumption is wrong, you can stop reading.

When you take an instrument in trade, you are buying it. If you want to operate a retail guitar business at a profit, you should not be buying cheap plywood guitars for more than half of retail, tops, and then only if they need minimal setup work and are easily salable models. You will often find customers are outraged that you want to value your guitar at retail, and theirs at only half retail. This is because they think you are like one of their buddies doing a swap, rather than a business person with overheads to pay and a profit to make. This attitude is commonplace among guitar customers, especially with lower priced instruments. I doubt that this guy expects a used car dealer to give him the retail selling price of his car as a trade-in, or to sell him a car for what it cost the dealer to buy it.

With higher end instruments (that are popular, salable, and with a well-established market value) you can afford to operate on a lower margin.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Aria Pro II PW-35 "The Dove" was made between 1977 and 1978 it shows to be hand crafted meaning hand assembled not necessarily luthier built. All were solid spruce topped but later ones were laminated back and sides. I believe the MSRP on these were $450 in 1978. I can find no reference to current resale value or any inference that there is a vintage market for them. If in your shoes I would only offer $100- $150 off a new guitar as trade-in .


Actually if in your shoes I would tell the PROSPECTIVE client I only take upper end vintage used guitars on trade-in as i do not run a used guitar store and the stocking of slow turn used guitar is just not worth the effort to me.

Sorry I miss stated! I am not sure of the MSRP in 1978 but the average retail prices in 1978 was $450 in general the MSRP is 20-30% higher. So I would guess the MSRP was around $600

Hi there
Aria Pro are in general considered to be starter instruments at best in this neck of the woods... along the lines of El Degas and similar lines of knock off instruments - however Id rather have an EL Degas any day...
Id get a cash commission from him and he can sell..
it if he thinks its that valuable it should be no problem...
Cheers
Charlie