Returns

Tell us within 3 days

If an instrument is not the one, you must contact us and start the return within 3 days. Both parts matter: the clock is on getting in touch and beginning the process, not on the instrument being back with us.

The same three days apply whether you bought it online or carried it out of the shop. Buying in person does not sign away your return.

Ring us before you ship anything — a return sent without a word is hard for us to match to an order, and an unauthorised one may be refused.

In the condition it arrived

Play it, gig it in the living room, hold it up to the light. Do not modify it: no new strings gauge that needs a truss rod turn, no swapped pickups, no drilled holes, no removed tags. It comes back with its case, its candy, and the packing it arrived in.

Return shipping is the buyer's, and it must be insured for the full purchase price and tracked. If the instrument arrives back damaged or altered, we will call you before we do anything else.

Your refund, and the restocking fee

Once the instrument is back on the bench and checked over, we refund the purchase price to the card you paid with. Refunds are issued through Square and typically appear within five business days, depending on your bank. The original shipping charge is not refunded.

If the instrument is defective, there is no restocking fee. Something arriving faulty is ours to put right, not yours to pay for.

Every other return carries a 10% restocking fee, which covers getting the instrument back to saleable condition and re-listed. We assess each return on its own facts and can waive the fee, and we will tell you the figure when we authorise the return rather than spring it on you afterwards.

What is not returnable

Consumables — strings, straps, cables and the like — cannot come back once opened. Instruments can, on the terms above.

If we got it wrong

If an instrument arrives faulty, or materially different from how we described it — an undisclosed repair, a wrong year, a fault we missed — call us. Within the 3 days we guarantee the shipment and your satisfaction: we put it right, and no restocking fee applies.

Shipping is the one thing nobody gets back. We do not refund what it cost to send the instrument to you, and we do not cover what it costs to send it back. That is a loss on both sides, and we would rather say so plainly than bury it.