Now keep in mind, clarinets are a dime a dozen used and as soon as your drove that brand new $1,200 clarinet off the retail floor (just like a car) it is now worth at least 50% less if you were to try to sell it in the open market immediately afterwards, but probably far Well, the $1,200 is the insurable value of the clarinet.īasically, if you needed to replace it with a brand new clarinet and wanted insurance to cover the potential loss, you would insure it for $1,200. That should give you a good indication of how accurate their appraisal is.Īs an example, a customer asked me the value of her Noblet 40 clarinet.ĮBay-wise it is worth about $60 – 120 depending upon condition and the market but someone told her it was worth $1,200 and she was Otherwise, you should just ask them to buy it right then and there.

The price a retail store tells you is what they would sell it for AFTER they Most people simply do not understand that. Other times they get it from a Retail store based on the retail environment’s selling the item in a retail envrionment. You will get this from non-instrument people that get the $$ value from some “magical” book. Most of the time people get an insurable value, or a retail sale value of the instrument. Let’s differentiate between a few items first – INSURABLE VALUE and the actual AS-IS value in an open market such as eBay. They want me to buy it at their price but I won’t get anywhere near what they were told it is worth. Others people I correspond with have been told their clarinet is worth far more than what I tell them it is worth and they are perplexed. But that’s a long time to wait, and few other instruments actually increase in value. Of course over time you may recover value such as a Buffet R13 from say 1960 was bought for $180 is now worth $800 in undamaged and playable condition.

Clarinets are a dime a dozen, and like cars they lose half their value once purchased, no matter if you drove it or not. We are mainly talking about it’s true sale value in an open market. If you have an intermediate clarinet, there is nothing about it that makes it a professional clarinet and worth more, period. If the clarinet has been in the family for decades then there is an emotional attachment and you think it is worth more And then many professional Buffets sell for less or the same as the retail price 25 years ago. This question of course gets asked by most people because they think their beloved clarinet from years past is worth far more than what they bought it for or that they found a clarinet at a garage sale which must be worth a ton of money because they are lucky and bought it.įirst let’s take a look at which clarinets are worth some value. If you have anything other than a professional Buffet, it is worth far less than what you paid for it, this may include garage sale prices.

Artley flute model 18 0