I was skeptical and wary of it, too. Years later, I gave it a try as a user, and I think I've either bought or sold things a handful of times over the past couple of decades.
I'm not sure e-bay would have functioned on Trust without Paypal, which goes a long way to ensuring trust, by paying when someone sends you junk and credit cards have similar services. Having said that, the number of scammer that I dealt with over the years wasn't terribly high, about the same amount of people who shoplifted I suppose. (I sold thousands upon thousands of guitars on e-bay and bought a hundred or so to, that I fixed up and resold from there as well.)
I'm reminded of a story a friend told me about being in Saudi Arabia during a robbery that turned into murder. The murderer stole from a gold chain shop, the owner was in the back having tea and came out and surprised the robber who stabbed him to death.
The murderer was stabbed to death with the same knife two days later by the shopkeeper's Son in the middle of the town hall after his very short trial. Leaving your gold unattended normally works fine in stores in that country because they could usually Trust the shoppers, the shoppers knew that stealing would get their hand cut off. This thief was from another country and couldn't be trusted because he hadn't had the same upbringing and didn't really know the rules. (Having real enforcement of laws, certainly makes things more efficient., there isn't much need for security in many nations like this. )
Having steady rules that everyone understands will be enforced, because they will get caught and the book will get tossed at them, goes a long way towards building trust.
Yes, partner mechanisms like PayPal can help. Things that are relatively easy for a person to understand and prove to be dependable, are examples of the relatively free market promoting a higher-trust culture.
I wonder though ... is what you're describing in draconian societies like Saudi Arabia more like "trust" or "compliance"? It sounds like compliance to me, and it's very costly to maintain. A genuinely high-trust culture wouldn't need the heavy costs of what is essentially a police state.
And I like hearing your guitar stories! I didn't know you dealt in that kind of quantity of instruments. Impressive! What's the coolest guitar you ever restored and sold?
I'm sure it's mostly compliance as you say, rather than Trust, but it's hard to say how much comes from their religion vs their laws, that's if there is a difference between them.
It's also very costly to NOT have compliance, one problem the Saudi's don't have that we have is recidivism. How many of our young people get started on a life of crime because they feel they won't be caught or they know that even if they are caught it's no big deal? For punishment to work as a deterrent you must first know you will get caught and second, that it's going to hurt a whole lot When you do.
Are we doing young people a favor by being the slap on the wrist types, I don't think we are, although I'm not advocating to go full Saudi, I'd say we would be better off to throw the book at people early, than have to end up paying for their incarceration for life. We certainly end up spending far more on our prisons per person than they do. Nobody in the world has more people locked up than us and we might be the nation that gives the most slaps on the wrist. It seems like somewhere in the middle would be a better place to be, rather than going soft on crime and having it end with a massive prison population.
I sold a minimum of a hundred guitars a month for a couple decades, I literally bought them by the Semi truck load, pallets and pallets full, thankfully they were already restored and set up for me by a place called MIRC.
I think my favorite restoration project was a 1957 National 1155E. It's got a National neck, which is made from Magnesium and has a pickup built into it, the body is a 1957 Gibson SJ 50. It was a collaboration between National and Gibson. That one did NOT get sold and it's been my go to dreadnought for years. I traded a Mexican Fender Stat that I paid $175 for it, the strings were an inch off of the neck but other than that it was in great shape. I did a neck reset on it, which was almost easy because it's actually an adjustable neck, they just had never done it. I say almost easy because it was certainly a bit tricky even with the adjustments but not compared with doing a full neck reset. It's got a full warm tone, it frets super easy, the electronics still work great and it's just a funky cool guitar all around, with a big oversized headstock.
My favorite electric restore was a Gibson Les Paul Custom that I picked up fairly cheap because someone had tried to "Relic" it and totally botched it. I ended up stripping it down to the bare wood and then staining it green, it had a very nice wood pattern that peaked out through the stain. Some guy in a fairly big Canadian band bought it, I forget their name but he used it while on tour. I also restored a Strat Plus that someone had done the same thing to, tried to relic it and made a mess, but that one I didn't have to strip down. The fender Start Plus is also one of my favorite Strats but that did get sold, I'm not a big strat guy, I like the shorter scale on Gibsons.
The Mustang is a shorter scale. I had a nice 70's Mustang, that I sold but kind of wish I hadn't, it was minty and a real closet queen, It looked like it had the original strings on it which were like rubber bands. . It did end up with a fellow band member and good friend, so it's not all bad plus you can't play them all but it was one that got away. Another one that got away was a Fender Telecaster Japan that I loved but ended up selling because I got an offer too high to refuse. I've owned a couple dozen different Japan strats and telecasters, some are fantastic some just run of the mill, I made money on all of them because they went up in price so fast.
> It's also very costly to NOT have compliance, one problem the Saudi's don't have that we have is recidivism.
Raising kids who can interact in a high-trust manner is important, yes. High-trust, if developed, is largely self-regulating and self-sustaining. It becomes spontaneous order. Imposed order can't match the genuine peace and wider-spread wealth of spontaneous order.
—
Great stories about your guitars! I played an Ovation shallow-bowl body for gigs. The electronics crapped out on me in 2012, but I was able to put an external mic on it for the few gigs I had left that year and in early 2013. I considered finding a good repair show to see what went wrong with it, but when I stopped gigging in 2013, it no longer mattered; I never need the electronics for playing at home.
There's definitely a difference in the neck and fretting on my Ovation, compared to my friend's Luna I'm guitar-sitting, and with the guitar a friend let me borrow last night at an open mic (hadn't played an open mic in about a year, and hadn't planned on playing last night, but was offered the guitar, so I went for it!). I'm always extra cautious about borrowing a guitar, because they never sit the same way in my hands as the one I'm used to. This is the downside of playing only one guitar and getting so accustomed to that one instrument, but it's a downside with plenty of upside, and it keeps me humble when people let me borrow their guitars 😅
I've always wondered if my playing suffers from bouncing around from guitar to guitar so much, but I love guitars themselves as much as I do playing, so I wouldn't trade my enjoyment of guitars for a marginal increase in ability anyway. However, if I were trying to go pro I'd probably stick with one guitar.
I like ovations and own a few, I have one I like in particualr. It's an older big bowl balladeer model with the big light brown case they come with, it doesn't have the electronics at all in it. It's a fine guitar to play and sounds lovely too, big sound and frets easy, has the ebony fret-board on it.
If I remember right Ovations also have a slightly shorter scale than some do, making them a little easier to play than most. I like the Taylor Big Baby for that reason as well, it's a 7/8th scale or 630mm. Ovation is 640 or 642 I think, Martin and Taylor are 645 up to 650 scale. I've got a couple classical guitars that are 660 scale and wow is that a stretch.
Segovia was the best in the world and played a 660 scale guitar, because of him it became the standard for a while, he had HUGE hands though. Poor Japanese players even got in on the fad although most of the guitars they built for Japan stayed shorter scale, I was lucky enough to find a great one made by Sado Yairi in 1970 that is shorter scale, very lightly braced with a very Japanese sound made for the Japanese market and I've got a 1970 K Yairi built for America, with a full 660 scale and baseball bat sized neck, it's not much fun for me to play. For some reason the K Yairi sells for more, probably due to their association with Alvarez and that long "concert" scale. I love the Sado model and never pay the K Yairi even though they get all the praise as being fine guitars.
I say play whatever puts a smile on your face and doesn't cramp your hands.
Shamefully, I was one of those who suspected that eBay would fail because of the trust issue. How pleased I was to be proven wrong!
I was skeptical and wary of it, too. Years later, I gave it a try as a user, and I think I've either bought or sold things a handful of times over the past couple of decades.
I'm not sure e-bay would have functioned on Trust without Paypal, which goes a long way to ensuring trust, by paying when someone sends you junk and credit cards have similar services. Having said that, the number of scammer that I dealt with over the years wasn't terribly high, about the same amount of people who shoplifted I suppose. (I sold thousands upon thousands of guitars on e-bay and bought a hundred or so to, that I fixed up and resold from there as well.)
I'm reminded of a story a friend told me about being in Saudi Arabia during a robbery that turned into murder. The murderer stole from a gold chain shop, the owner was in the back having tea and came out and surprised the robber who stabbed him to death.
The murderer was stabbed to death with the same knife two days later by the shopkeeper's Son in the middle of the town hall after his very short trial. Leaving your gold unattended normally works fine in stores in that country because they could usually Trust the shoppers, the shoppers knew that stealing would get their hand cut off. This thief was from another country and couldn't be trusted because he hadn't had the same upbringing and didn't really know the rules. (Having real enforcement of laws, certainly makes things more efficient., there isn't much need for security in many nations like this. )
Having steady rules that everyone understands will be enforced, because they will get caught and the book will get tossed at them, goes a long way towards building trust.
Yes, partner mechanisms like PayPal can help. Things that are relatively easy for a person to understand and prove to be dependable, are examples of the relatively free market promoting a higher-trust culture.
I wonder though ... is what you're describing in draconian societies like Saudi Arabia more like "trust" or "compliance"? It sounds like compliance to me, and it's very costly to maintain. A genuinely high-trust culture wouldn't need the heavy costs of what is essentially a police state.
And I like hearing your guitar stories! I didn't know you dealt in that kind of quantity of instruments. Impressive! What's the coolest guitar you ever restored and sold?
I'm sure it's mostly compliance as you say, rather than Trust, but it's hard to say how much comes from their religion vs their laws, that's if there is a difference between them.
It's also very costly to NOT have compliance, one problem the Saudi's don't have that we have is recidivism. How many of our young people get started on a life of crime because they feel they won't be caught or they know that even if they are caught it's no big deal? For punishment to work as a deterrent you must first know you will get caught and second, that it's going to hurt a whole lot When you do.
Are we doing young people a favor by being the slap on the wrist types, I don't think we are, although I'm not advocating to go full Saudi, I'd say we would be better off to throw the book at people early, than have to end up paying for their incarceration for life. We certainly end up spending far more on our prisons per person than they do. Nobody in the world has more people locked up than us and we might be the nation that gives the most slaps on the wrist. It seems like somewhere in the middle would be a better place to be, rather than going soft on crime and having it end with a massive prison population.
I sold a minimum of a hundred guitars a month for a couple decades, I literally bought them by the Semi truck load, pallets and pallets full, thankfully they were already restored and set up for me by a place called MIRC.
I think my favorite restoration project was a 1957 National 1155E. It's got a National neck, which is made from Magnesium and has a pickup built into it, the body is a 1957 Gibson SJ 50. It was a collaboration between National and Gibson. That one did NOT get sold and it's been my go to dreadnought for years. I traded a Mexican Fender Stat that I paid $175 for it, the strings were an inch off of the neck but other than that it was in great shape. I did a neck reset on it, which was almost easy because it's actually an adjustable neck, they just had never done it. I say almost easy because it was certainly a bit tricky even with the adjustments but not compared with doing a full neck reset. It's got a full warm tone, it frets super easy, the electronics still work great and it's just a funky cool guitar all around, with a big oversized headstock.
My favorite electric restore was a Gibson Les Paul Custom that I picked up fairly cheap because someone had tried to "Relic" it and totally botched it. I ended up stripping it down to the bare wood and then staining it green, it had a very nice wood pattern that peaked out through the stain. Some guy in a fairly big Canadian band bought it, I forget their name but he used it while on tour. I also restored a Strat Plus that someone had done the same thing to, tried to relic it and made a mess, but that one I didn't have to strip down. The fender Start Plus is also one of my favorite Strats but that did get sold, I'm not a big strat guy, I like the shorter scale on Gibsons.
The Mustang is a shorter scale. I had a nice 70's Mustang, that I sold but kind of wish I hadn't, it was minty and a real closet queen, It looked like it had the original strings on it which were like rubber bands. . It did end up with a fellow band member and good friend, so it's not all bad plus you can't play them all but it was one that got away. Another one that got away was a Fender Telecaster Japan that I loved but ended up selling because I got an offer too high to refuse. I've owned a couple dozen different Japan strats and telecasters, some are fantastic some just run of the mill, I made money on all of them because they went up in price so fast.
> It's also very costly to NOT have compliance, one problem the Saudi's don't have that we have is recidivism.
Raising kids who can interact in a high-trust manner is important, yes. High-trust, if developed, is largely self-regulating and self-sustaining. It becomes spontaneous order. Imposed order can't match the genuine peace and wider-spread wealth of spontaneous order.
—
Great stories about your guitars! I played an Ovation shallow-bowl body for gigs. The electronics crapped out on me in 2012, but I was able to put an external mic on it for the few gigs I had left that year and in early 2013. I considered finding a good repair show to see what went wrong with it, but when I stopped gigging in 2013, it no longer mattered; I never need the electronics for playing at home.
There's definitely a difference in the neck and fretting on my Ovation, compared to my friend's Luna I'm guitar-sitting, and with the guitar a friend let me borrow last night at an open mic (hadn't played an open mic in about a year, and hadn't planned on playing last night, but was offered the guitar, so I went for it!). I'm always extra cautious about borrowing a guitar, because they never sit the same way in my hands as the one I'm used to. This is the downside of playing only one guitar and getting so accustomed to that one instrument, but it's a downside with plenty of upside, and it keeps me humble when people let me borrow their guitars 😅
I've always wondered if my playing suffers from bouncing around from guitar to guitar so much, but I love guitars themselves as much as I do playing, so I wouldn't trade my enjoyment of guitars for a marginal increase in ability anyway. However, if I were trying to go pro I'd probably stick with one guitar.
I like ovations and own a few, I have one I like in particualr. It's an older big bowl balladeer model with the big light brown case they come with, it doesn't have the electronics at all in it. It's a fine guitar to play and sounds lovely too, big sound and frets easy, has the ebony fret-board on it.
If I remember right Ovations also have a slightly shorter scale than some do, making them a little easier to play than most. I like the Taylor Big Baby for that reason as well, it's a 7/8th scale or 630mm. Ovation is 640 or 642 I think, Martin and Taylor are 645 up to 650 scale. I've got a couple classical guitars that are 660 scale and wow is that a stretch.
Segovia was the best in the world and played a 660 scale guitar, because of him it became the standard for a while, he had HUGE hands though. Poor Japanese players even got in on the fad although most of the guitars they built for Japan stayed shorter scale, I was lucky enough to find a great one made by Sado Yairi in 1970 that is shorter scale, very lightly braced with a very Japanese sound made for the Japanese market and I've got a 1970 K Yairi built for America, with a full 660 scale and baseball bat sized neck, it's not much fun for me to play. For some reason the K Yairi sells for more, probably due to their association with Alvarez and that long "concert" scale. I love the Sado model and never pay the K Yairi even though they get all the praise as being fine guitars.
I say play whatever puts a smile on your face and doesn't cramp your hands.