Guitars

The Used Electric Guitar Checklist: What to Inspect Before You Hand Over Cash

By Mike · Published July 16, 2026

The best guitar deals live on the used market, and so do the worst afternoons of your life. This checklist comes from both sides of the table: years of buying used, and years of selling guitars from my own collection on Craigslist and Reverb, watching buyers inspect (or fail to inspect) instruments. The good news is that unlike a used tube amp, a guitar can’t electrocute you and rarely hides a catastrophic fault. Almost everything wrong with a used guitar is visible in ten minutes if you know where to look.

The neck is the whole ballgame

Everything else on an electric guitar is replaceable for reasonable money. The neck is where deals should die.

Sight down it from the headstock like aiming a rifle, down both edges. You’re looking for gentle, even relief (fine, that’s what truss rods adjust) versus a visible twist, a hump where the neck meets the body, or an S-curve. Twist walks away from the deal. A slight up-bow or back-bow is a truss rod turn, and you can even ask the seller to adjust it on the spot; a seller who refuses to touch the truss rod on a guitar they claim is healthy is telling you something.

Check the headstock for cracks, especially on Gibsons and anything with an angled headstock: look behind the nut, under the finish, in strong light. A properly repaired headstock break plays fine forever but should cost you 30 to 40 percent less. An undisclosed one you find yourself should end the conversation, because what else wasn’t disclosed?

Frets: look for divots under the plain strings in the first five positions, and run a finger along the fretboard edge for sharp ends (usually just dry wood, a humidity story, not a defect). Light wear is normal and plays fine. Deep grooves mean a fret level ($150 or so) or refret ($300 plus) in your near future; price accordingly.

The ten-minute playing test

Plug in, even at a pawn shop, even through a terrible amp. Then, in order: play every string at every fret up to the 12th, listening for buzz that survives a decent setup (fretting out on bends around the 12th to 15th is the classic symptom of a neck problem or worn frets). Bend hard on the high strings and watch the tuning; bring a clip-on tuner and check that the 12th-fret note matches the open string, because wildly off intonation is usually a setup item but occasionally a bridge placement crime on cheap guitars. Work every knob and the selector slowly, listening for crackle: pots and switches are cheap fixes but great haggling material. Wiggle the output jack with a cord in; same deal. And strum hard, then mute everything and listen for rattles: loose tuners, a loose truss rod (bad), springs (fine on a Strat, that’s the entourage).

What matters less than people think

Cosmetics on the body are haggling theater; buckle rash on the back of a player-grade guitar affects the price and nothing else, and honest wear on a 20-year-old instrument is character you didn’t have to inflict yourself. Non-original plastic (knobs, pickguards, tips) matters on collector pieces and not at all on players. Even swapped pickups often improve a workhorse guitar, though on anything expensive, ask for the originals in the case, because they matter at resale even if they never matter to your ears.

Where originality does matter: anything sold as vintage or collectible, where a changed part can halve the value, and any Custom Shop or premium instrument where you’re paying for provenance. If you’re spending four figures, ask for the case candy and paperwork; sellers who kept the hang tags kept the guitar dry too, in my experience.

Reading the seller

Ten years of Craigslist has taught me the seller tells you as much as the guitar. Good signs: they know the year and where they bought it, the case matches the guitar’s age, they hand it to you tuned, and they mention flaws before you find them. Caution signs: freshly restrung right before sale (sometimes courtesy, sometimes hiding how it sounds with dead strings and fret grime), stock photos instead of the actual instrument, “just needs a setup” doing heavy lifting in the description, and any resistance to you playing it plugged in. None of these alone is disqualifying; two together and you should slow down.

One more from the seller’s side: the buyers who got my best prices were the ones who showed up, played well, found a real flaw politely, and made a fair offer with cash visible. Lowball texts get ignored; a person standing in front of you holding money does not.

The math that makes it worth it

A used guitar in good condition typically sells for 50 to 65 percent of street price, and it’s already done its depreciating: buy right and you can play it for years and sell it for what you paid, which makes trying gear nearly free. That’s the actual reason to learn this checklist. The Squier-vs-Fender money question changes completely at used prices, where last decade’s Fender costs less than this year’s Squier. Bring a tuner, bring patience, check the neck twice, and let the seller’s coffee-stained case candy tell you the rest.