Trade-In or Sell?

Oddjob27

Greetings Brothers and Friends! It's been too long since I have been active on the forums. Miss you all, I will be trying to hop on the Friday Zoom. Does anyone have any experience trading in pipes through Smoking Pipes? I've got 3 Savinelli/Rossi 320s that I want to trade-in so that I can get some straights. Issue is that from their website I may only recover 30% or 55% of the "value".

PappyJoe

I personally have not used them for trading in pipes. I have talked to a couple of people who have though and they said they only receive 30% of the value of their pipes because the pipes were not very expensive when they bought them. Best bet would be to call the customer service number and see if you can talk to someone about the process.

You can also take some pictures of the pipes and post them for sale on eBay starting with a price you think is fair. The listing is free but you pay a small fee when the pipes sell.

mapletop

@Oddjob27 Have you considered selling them at auction on E-Bay?

RockyMountainBriar

     On most pipes, or any used items for that matter, you will be lucky to get 50%.  Estate tobacco pipes have the added expensive of cleaning/sterilization, which I can say from experience, is very time consuming if done correctly.  Unless there is some collectibility in the pipe, I’d say your are doing good to get 30%.  Personally, I have actually made more % on cheap basket pipes I have EBay’ed than my more expensive pipes.  It is not worth my time to sell them on EBay, hence the reason I have over 500 pipes now.  I have been thinking about sending some to SPC just to see what they would give me.  I’m pretty sure I would just have most, if not all of them sent straight back to me.  I don’t see how anyone can make any money on refurbishing tobacco pipes, especially if they clean the internals.  If one just spiffs up the outside (Shiney), they may make some profit.  It probably takes me at least an hour on even “clean” estate pipes (not including supplies or the original pipe cost) to do it right. Even if I could sell a pipe like that for $50 (most don’t) it is not worth my time.  I have bought so called “cleaned and sterilized” pipes on EBay and about 75% of the time they are disgusting internally, cleaning the shank and mortise is a b!%(#.
     If you decide to send your pipes to SPC, let us know how it comes out.  SPC says they do give more as in store credit than cash on the barrel head.

Oddjob27

@mapletop - I have, I've sold things on ebay in the past, but not sure if it's worth it for the fees they charge. I might give it a shot.

@PappyJoe & @RockyMountainBriar - Thank you both for the insight/info! Sounds like it may not be worth the "convenience" of selling to SmokingPipe.

nelliefox

I swapped w/ SP.COM a number of years ago and didn't do too bad.  I got a new Barbi and a Radice out of the deal and still have both pipes.

NellieFox