Help me estimate $ value of my 2003 Tribute S-500 gee-tar

[MastersJA]

Can y'all help me put a ball-park-accurate dollar value on this Tribute by G&L S-500?
I'm new to G&L/Tribute guitars, new to this forum, this is my first post. Hopefully asking this question doesn't break the rules. I didn't see anything that would lead me to believe this is the case in searching.

I recently bought a used bass that needed lots of TLC, my hobby is resurrecting guitars and basses.
When I went to buy the bass, the lady asked if I might be interested in "this guitar" that was across the room, facing the wall.
I picked the guitar up and, yes, I was interested.
This is that Tribute by G&L guitar after much careful cleaning, spot leveling of frets, and setup. Frets are nicely polished with zero wear. Plays and sounds like a dream. This was my first experience with a guitar loaded with US MFD pickups and it has been an absolute revelation. I have an awesome strat copy guitar with great playability and tone from a good set of pickups, but it pales in comparison to the richness of this S-500 with the MFDs and the passive tone and bass controls.
I have an unused, like-new hard case that it looks perfect laying in, and will sell with the guitar.
I have the whammy bar and everything, I even ordered the little bag of vibrato bar plastic inserts and allen screws to have extra. (The plastic inserts, in particular, look very easily losable.)
The Dual Fulcrum vibrato system is the best I've used, and this is the first strat-style guitar I've ever owned where I didn't block the vibrato system to make it a hardtail. (The DFT on this is much better than the two point trem I used to have on a USA Deluxe Strat Plus from the 90s.)

Ebay is all over the place in the price of sold Tribute S-500 guitars, and I plan to sell this one soon, but have no good handle on a fairly accurate dollars-worth of the guitar. I would keep it, but this brings my guitar/bass collection total to 16 instruments and, frankly, I could use the money right now to help pay the looming deductible on hurricane damage repairs from last fall in Florida. Ebay tells me to ask for between: $189.00 - $255.00, and if it's only worth that, I may sell a couple of other instruments and keep this glorious sounding beast. This thing looks, feels, plays and has tone for at least $325.00 - $350.00 with case, but ebay is getting weird on their auctions, their computers have automatically changed buy it now auctions to Make An Offer auctions against my will, and I get barraged with low-ball offers from the usual idiots who try to take advantage. I figure they'll do that again if my own estimate of $335.00 is what I set my Buy It Now for.

Anyway, here are some images:

[Craig]

The body wood of your Tribute S-500 is Basswood not Mahogany. See this post in our G&L Knowledgebase: What is the new Tribute series which G&L announced in 2003?.
The 3-Tone Sunburst was a "Plus" level which had a Basswood body. The body wood Tribute S-500 models was changed to Mahogany in 2012,
several years after the manufacturing moved from Korea to Indonesia in 2007.

For determining valuation, see this post in our G&L Knowledgebase forum: Is there a good source for getting G&L instrument values?.

Hope this helps.

[MastersJA]

Thanks so much for the quick reply.
This is the kind of information (like body wood types available during in 2003) and pointers to places with valid price values I was looking for.
I am constitutionally unable to properly search this and other sites' forums; I know not why. I fill them out carefully, and end up with few, or in this case, zero search results.
I tried the forum's search feature and was given no results since "the word s-500 appears in no forum posts." I know this to be untrue, so I have to look like a dummy and just ask.
Thanks again for the information!
--MastersJA

[dhgleaves]

Thanks so much for the quick reply.
This is the kind of information (like body wood types available during in 2003) and pointers to places with valid price values I was looking for.
I am constitutionally unable to properly search this and other sites' forums; I know not why. I fill them out carefully, and end up with few, or in this case, zero search results.
I tried the forum's search feature and was given no results since "the word s-500 appears in no forum posts." I know this to be untrue, so I have to look like a dummy and just ask.
Thanks again for the information!
--MastersJA

On this forum, yes you get that message if you search for s-500, but if you search for s500 you get "Search found 1170 matches".

[Craig]

Thanks so much for the quick reply.
This is the kind of information (like body wood types available during in 2003) and pointers to places with valid price values I was looking for.
I am constitutionally unable to properly search this and other sites' forums; I know not why. I fill them out carefully, and end up with few, or in this case, zero search results.
I tried the forum's search feature and was given no results since "the word s-500 appears in no forum posts." I know this to be untrue, so I have to look like a dummy and just ask.
Thanks again for the information!
--MastersJA

On this forum, yes you get that message if you search for s-500, but if you search for s500 you get "Search found 1170 matches".

Another search key to use is "s*500" which at this point will get you 1217 matches.
Also, see this post in the G&LDP forum & guitarsbyleo.com site Discussion sub-forum: An Alternative to using Forum Search ....

Hope this helps.

[neutralomen]

This is back from when they had those huge ass bodies =]

[Danley]

This is back from when they had those huge ass bodies =]

Didn't ever notice; has anyone made a tracing to know what the difference is?

[neutralomen]

This is back from when they had those huge ass bodies =]

Didn't ever notice; has anyone made a tracing to know what the difference is?

Look at a strat and a modern legacy and you'll see these legacies/s500s from the 90s/early 2000s are wider, with noticeably higher, larger horns, and they're "sharper" around the edges. Not as round as a strat.

Great quality guitars, by S type G&L's from this era always looked off to me for these reasons.

[Danley]

Tough to notice when they aren't side by side:

[mikemjr12]

I recently sold a tribute s-500 - 2016 mahogany body tobacco sunburst one found on most major dealers - for $375 shipped in a gig bag. I would think you could get something in that range for yours. although I regret selling mine so there's that to consider.