Anyone ever bought a guitar from ed roman?

325_fan · Post by **325_fan** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 12:30 am

Yeah, I bought a bass from Ed. In his own right he's OK. Hard to get in touch with, but generally a business man with a business man attitude. It's hard to get a fix on whether or not he's FOR the customer or FOR the instrument vendor.

leftyguitars · Post by **leftyguitars** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 3:33 am

I mailed his shop through his web site a few days ago for the price of a Ric, I am still (patiently) waiting for a reply.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 5:01 am

A better term than business man might be middle man, as it sounds like that's his main psychological focus...get a fix on this: he's FOR himself.

Maybe he should start his own gruff, ill-tempered website and call it The Roman Forum...betcha somebody gets stabbed on those front steps...

nachoric · Post by **nachoric** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 8:54 am

I live in Spain. In my country we have only one Ric official distribuitor, and fron him you can only get 360/6, 330/6, 620/6, 650/5 and 4003. No twelve string; and 200% from official price. Most of the internet musical shops don't shift ricks overseas. I had bought my 370/12 from Ed and I have no problem with him. I'm very thankful

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:40 am

Nacho, did he charge you 200% over price?

nachoric · Post by **nachoric** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:27 am

Not Ed Roman, the spanish dealer

webhead · Post by **webhead** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 2:48 am

I called them for parts for an old Steinberger headless bass. I needed the thing that flips up on the bottom. They were going to charge me $200 for that stupid piece. I later found out that Gibson had them for $65.. I also called them on a 360V64 they had as new. I was quoted a price of $1999- this was going back 3 years... I thought that was a bit steep.

philco · Post by **philco** » Sun May 01, 2005 7:08 am

Ed Roman bought up the available ORIGINAL Steinberger parts supply from the factory, so he can rape you on the price if needin authentic original parts.

If Ed has what you want at the price you want to pay, then he can be OK to deal with. I bought my Tacoma acoustic from him, and he is Tacoma's biggest dealer. I called the Tacoma factory to see what they thought of Ed. His packing and shipping were excellent. His ranting and raving on his website gets tiring very quickly. He downplays Ricks a bit on the website because he has no intention of meeting other internet Rick dealer prices. For a "walk-in" store with Ricks on display, his prices should be competitive and it's worth a bit more to pick out what you like. He keeps over 100 new Rick guitars in stock. His stock of basses is nowhere near as good. He claimed last year to be seriously upgrading his stock of basses, but I haven't browsed his website lately. His huge supply of Ricks means that his commitment to Rickenbacker is still there, but if you are browsing the internet to get the absolutely lowest price on a Rick, he doesn't want to mess with you. He will sell the Rick to a walk-in customer at a higher price, so don't bother calling unless you want to pay his price. He had to make a deposit on every Rickenbacker in stock and wait for delivery. A dealer that takes YOUR deposit and makes YOU wait can give a lower price. Personally, I have never met or talked to Ed. His sales associate, Scott, was a pleasant enough guy.

route66guitars · Post by **route66guitars** » Sun May 01, 2005 10:29 am

Ed has to place a deposit on every new RIC he orders? Is this new RIC factory policy, or is Ed on RIC's naughty list?

Scastles · Post by **Scastles** » Sun May 01, 2005 12:46 pm

I heard from another dealer it is policy.

johnhall · Post by **johnhall** » Sun May 01, 2005 4:04 pm

We only require deposits on special orders, i.e. lefty, pickups options, etc. Probably 97% of our business is non-deposit items and Ed is no different than any other dealer in this respect.

route66guitars · Post by **route66guitars** » Sun May 01, 2005 4:10 pm

Thanks, John.

That is how it was when I was a dealer all those years ago...

mdbuck · Post by **mdbuck** » Mon May 02, 2005 12:10 pm

I participated in a recent thread where I put up pics of Ed's Ric display. I was in Vegas for almost the entire month of March and visited his shop on 3 seperate occasions. I was impressed with the inventory of what he had in the store.

He caters alot toward the more obscure, little known brands of guitars and basses although he sells the obvious brands as well. He is really into the asthetics of the guitars it seems. Figured ones to be sure.

Anyway, I was interested in buying a Ric and he surely had plenty of them to look at. Although they are located behind the rope arrangement, I had no problem being able to try one on for size.
They were happy to accomidate.

It was nice being able to try a Ric out, something that is a rare occasion. I ended up getting a MB 620/12

.

While I was there, they offered an alternative replacement bridge and I had them install it. The service I received was pretty good and can say that it was nice to go into a shop like this and not be attacked by sales people wanting to 'help' me.

Oh, I payed a reasonalbe price for the 620.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon May 02, 2005 12:48 pm

As long as you think it was a reasonable price, that's all that's important. I notice, however, that you don't mention the figure.

Regarding Ed's dealing in obscure brands, he's wily--these are smaller manufacturers who, for lack of a better word, he can bully on terms. His personal taste does run toward the PRS type of flame that you can trip over in colors unknown in nature, but that's Vegas, ain't it?

Ed's been there, seen in all, done that. He's got an itch that he's turned into a profitable enterprise.

I'm sure your attitude, appearance, and demeanor had a whole lot to do with the way in which you were treated. And you DID leave with a guitar, didn't you? Everybody won in this case!

mdbuck · Post by **mdbuck** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:19 pm

Paul, I doubt that I'll have the chance to peruse ER's anytime soon in the near future. I could walk in any guitar shop and have a bad experience. If Ed's is so bad, I guess I got lucky. I dealt with Ed indirectly. He was the fat guy that was ALWAYS on the [cell]phone.

As far as my appearance, I was in T-shirt and jeans, he thinks PRS's are junk (his are much better) and my attitude was neutral.

As far as walking out with a guitar, I had been there 2 other times previous just looking. They didn't treat me any different as I would expect.

The guitar cost me a little over 1100 bucks with the custom bridge installed. The bridge by the way is CNC'd brass, chromed over and 12 saddled made with the special space aged hoocha-ma-coo plastic(?) stuff. Looks great and matches the shape of the p-ups.

I also bought a normal 12 saddle bridge(for my 366) and some odds and ends.

The only problem(if you can call it that)was the question of whether the 620 came with the case, questioned by the person I was directly dealing with, who asked and got a confirmation that it did from Ed himself. Most of us know that they do come with a case. I had the same experience at GC when I bought my 6120.

Everybody does win, as you put it, when everybody walks away happy. I'm happy, Ed's happy, the sales guy is happy, where all happy...