Cash Converters Price Shocker

[hubrad 136]

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1442404009' post='2866660']
Nice photo, I got the JD from the shop next to the pub, was it called the Princess of Wales?
[/quote]
The pub was The Duchess of York, otherwise just The Duchess.. one of the top venues in the region for decades! I remember that shop - they did 'that' question on the bassist in the pro band I was in at the time. He said the usual 'how do I know unless..' and being met with a dumb gaze he just walked out without spending several hundred pounds on whatever P bass it was.
[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1442404575' post='2866668']
I didn't play anything in my younger days but was briefly a singer in a school rock band and I recall our guitarist taking me to some mythical music shop in Bingley that people used to rate, can't remember the name. Would have been around 1980.
[/quote]
JSG Music, later Spectre Sound. Used to be pretty much THE shop in the county.. really laid back - 'you want to try a bass? Cables are there, and amps are there. Have a play.' and great selection of new and used gear so worthy of a day out for the whole band. One of the first discounters, they ended up getting undercut themselves with the advent of internet shopping. No longer there.

[Geek99 1,627]

[quote name='lowhand_mike' timestamp='1442411436' post='2866774']
cash converters near me has got a MIM fender P for £249, not sure if thats a good price, looks in pretty good nick
[/quote]
Good price
Grab it

[yorks5stringer 1,919]

[quote name='hubrad' timestamp='1442422118' post='2866873']
The pub was The Duchess of York, otherwise just The Duchess.. one of the top venues in the region for decades! I remember that shop - they did 'that' question on the bassist in the pro band I was in at the time. He said the usual 'how do I know unless..' and being met with a dumb gaze he just walked out without spending several hundred pounds on whatever P bass it was.

JSG Music, later Spectre Sound. Used to be pretty much THE shop in the county.. really laid back - 'you want to try a bass? Cables are there, and amps are there. Have a play.' and great selection of new and used gear so worthy of a day out for the whole band. One of the first discounters, they ended up getting undercut themselves with the advent of internet shopping. No longer there.
[/quote]

Yes, The Duchess. Saw Stevie Marriot there post Humble Pie and probably the best gig ever, Aimee Mann with her producer at the time Jon Brion. She was living in London at the time and they played her then current and back catalogue, just guitar and bass. Mesmerising.

Lived near JSG/Spectre Sound, it was shocking to see the decline over the years as at one time they had a huge range of stock.

Edited September 16, 2015 by yorks5stringer

[Annoying Twit 1]

Is Kiwi in this thread? Does he remember Harmony Central in Upper Queen Street, Auckland New Zealand?

[kodiakblair 966]

I remember Bostons well,assorted gear and weaponry. Was no surprised when the court case happened.
What was the shop in Tollcross ? same side and just before the Kings.

[EliasMooseblaster 859]

[quote name='lowhand_mike' timestamp='1442411436' post='2866774']
cash converters near me has got a MIM fender P for £249, not sure if thats a good price, looks in pretty good nick
[/quote]

Oddly enough I used to live near one that had a MIM Jazz in the window for ages - can't remember the exact price now but a quick foray down Denmark St confirmed my suspicion that I could have got one brand new for about the same price!

[chriswareham 1]

There was a shop on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton when I first went to university. Analogue synths were only just coming back into fashion, and I had plenty of bargains from there - Roland SH-101, MC-202 and TR-606. A Roland TR-808 and Emulator II (albeit with busted floppy drive) from a similar shop in Oxford as well as a Simns-Watts AP 100 valve amp and Oberheim DX from a junk shop in my home town. Then there was the small ads in things like Loot - a Korg Mono/Poly for peanuts from a bloke in a functions band and Moog Prodigy. All sadly long gone (both shops, Loot and the gear) although my brother still has the Mono/Poly.

[Big_Stu 100]

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1442433826' post='2866993']
I remember Bostons well,assorted gear and weaponry. Was no surprised when the court case happened.
What was the shop in Tollcross ? same side and just before the Kings.
[/quote]

Live Music, linked to Scayles, it's moved back to West Crosscauseway now, great shop - gets some excellent vintage gear in on occasion.

[kodiakblair 966]

Big_Stu

Was Live Music no up past the Kings at the start of the Meadows ? One I'm thinking of was opposite the Cameo an next to Bentleys Bar.
Marshalls or something rings a bell.

[tonybassplayer 132]

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1442404575' post='2866668']
I didn't play anything in my younger days but was briefly a singer in a school rock band and I recall our guitarist taking me to some mythical music shop in Bingley that people used to rate, can't remember the name. Would have been around 1980.
[/quote]


Wow that was a blast from the past.

I had just started playing and was taken there on the first of many visits to JSG in Bingley. You walked down like an indoor alleyway ( PA's etc at the top ?? ) in to a large room full of guitars, basses, amps cabs etc. It was like walking through the gates of heaven for a teenager after two long bus rides.

Bought my first amp ( Fal 50) and went back many times for many subsequent purchases.

[Beer of the Bass 296]

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1442437296' post='2867036']
Big_Stu

Was Live Music no up past the Kings at the start of the Meadows ? One I'm thinking of was opposite the Cameo an next to Bentleys Bar.
Marshalls or something rings a bell.
[/quote]

Live Music (before the last move) was next door to Bennets bar, two doors up from the Kings. It's the Purple Pig cafe at the moment. Mev Taylors was on Brougham Street towards the Meadows for a couple of years - are you thinking of that?

Edited September 16, 2015 by Beer of the Bass

[seashell 700]

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1442391299' post='2866508']


Yes, I used to go into Musical Exchanges in Brum back when it was in Broad Street (little Gary who went to PMT used to work there back then) and then Snow Hill, and the second-hand side of it just disappeared. Now there's just Stirchley Musical Exchange which is a tiny OMAAD place with some decent instruments but not very many of them,
[/quote]

I got my trusty Mexican Fender P from there only 4 years ago. I was in there recently buying a lead. They only had about 4 basses in - all Arias as I recall. Bob (the gaffer) said they hardly get anyone in selling basses any more, especially not anything decent :-(

[KevB 291]

[quote name='tonybassplayer' timestamp='1442438725' post='2867050']
Wow that was a blast from the past.

I had just started playing and was taken there on the first of many visits to JSG in Bingley. You walked down like an indoor alleyway ( PA's etc at the top ?? ) in to a large room full of guitars, basses, amps cabs etc. It was like walking through the gates of heaven for a teenager after two long bus rides.

Bought my first amp ( Fal 50) and went back many times for many subsequent purchases.
[/quote]

Yes that was the very place, thanks to all for filling in some mental blanks for me - JSG rings a bell so I'm sure that would have been the name when I went. We may have been a couple of times but it washed over me a bit not being a player. I recall lots of gear though,sad to hear it went the way of most of those sorts of places.

[Meddle 395]

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1442321214' post='2866011']
Before Cash Converters it was much more fun checking out gear in "proper junk shops" like Roddy Boston's on Leith Walk, or the one briefly on Montgomery Street and there was another on Elm Row.
[/quote]

Not sure there is such a thing left really. I can only think of Backtracks Records Tollcross and Chariot Express in Newington. Neither seems to be a source of rough diamonds, sadly.

Mev Taylors moved about a couple of times. For the briefest period it was in a different place in Newington, had a couple of Bass Collection P-basses in stock and a good selection of second hand amps. It then moved into that drum shop and occupied one corner of it.

Rikki's down in Leith has moved into one section of the old shop. Interesting that the 'building' that Rikki occupies is actually a section of the high level railway line that ran from North of Bonnington toll over to Easter Road.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Meddle

[kodiakblair 966]

Big_Stu and Beer of the Bass

I was living in Gilmore Place at the time and it was across the road.Looked on the Google satellite and I'm shocked I got Bennets Bar in the wrong place

[ballstomonty 3]

I got my ibanez btb775pb in a cash converters in Wolverhampton for £200... Fair price I thought

[Big_Stu 100]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1442438770' post='2867053']
Live Music (before the last move) was next door to Bennets bar, two doors up from the Kings. It's the Purple Pig cafe at the moment. Mev Taylors was on Brougham Street towards the Meadows for a couple of years - are you thinking of that?
[/quote]

Mev Taylors was a cracking shop when it was on Morrison St, turned to crap when they moved in with Sound Control.
Rikki's was usually over-priced, one of them with about 20 guitars all the same apart from colour.

[kodiakblair 966]

I mind Mev Taylor's in Morrison St and the bar was Bentley's not Bennett's.
Easy mistake, can only be 100 yards apart.

[casapete 1,749]

As mentioned above, JSG in Bingley was a wonderful shop.
I used to make the journey there from Hull in the late 70's / early 80's, over an hour's drive up through Bradford.
You could park outside the adjoining bike shop, and then the anticipation as you walked down through an almost
tunnel/cavern like entrance was fantastic. This led down past PA stuff to the main guitar and bass area.
They carried a fantastic range of instruments, both new and secondhand. Full range of Fenders in all
colour combinations, both guitars and basses.All were available to try through
any amp you wanted, and the staff were friendly, and patient! I bought quite a bit of stuff from there, including
a fantastic Orange 80 watt valve combo that I could barely lift. Also a Vox AC30 for £70 which later had
some...err....flammable qualities. My pal bought an Orange bass bin with an EV speaker that was amazing too.
I believe the owner was called John, and he later went into making flight cases with Lyn Blakeston of Greyhound
Cases / The Gig Shop in Hull.
Happy days.

[Matt P 288]

For those who trawl cash converters for the odd bargain it's probably worth knowing that they put a code on the sticker that tells the staff how much they paid for everything, it's known as the blacksmith code, usually written as a 4 or 5 letter code, b=1, l=2 up to H=0, so if the code is ch kh then they paid £40.50p for it, useful when haggling for deals. I always try bargaining in cash converters, unless they are seriously under the real value.

[Jacqueslemac 1]

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1442404941' post='2866671']
Now have any of you been to Johnson's of Leeds military surplus shop? That place is crazy. It used to have a white UN tank or something parked outside. For sale. And it's located round the back of the empty car park of a grim industrial estate, the kind of place you'd take someone to shoot them and dump the body. I see the website has various missile parts for sale, which is nice.
[/quote]

Off topic, but there's a place like that on the outskirts of Nottingham too. Did you know that you can drive a tank on the road with a normal car licence?

Back on topic, I haven't been in there for a while (little or no GAS at the moment), but the Cash Converters in Norwich used to be the local Warwick dealer. They used to have half-a-dozen in stock.

They also used to have complete lines of some of the cheaper brands in stock as well as the secondhand stuff. I reckon the majority of the stock was new. It was a completely separate shop to the main Cash Converters I should add.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Jacqueslemac

[KevB 291]

Some places cheekily use MAKEPROFIT as the basis of their 10 position code. So in that case Matt P's £40:50 item would be ETPT or they sometimes use upper and lower cases to differentiate which are before and after decimal point, ie ETpt

[tonyquipment 160]

Nobody would ever buy this gear


Too expensive!

[tauzero 1,188]

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1442404941' post='2866671']
Now have any of you been to Johnson's of Leeds military surplus shop? That place is crazy. It used to have a white UN tank or something parked outside. For sale.
[/quote]

That would probably be good for metal.

[Big_Stu 100]

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1442450289' post='2867112']
I mind Mev Taylor's in Morrison St and the bar was Bentley's not Bennett's.
Easy mistake, can only be 100 yards apart.[/quote]

Bentleys Bar was/is excellent - has it still got the little brass water pumps set into the bar for the whisky drinkers?