Music Swop Shop is a Melbourne/Naarm institution. Located across two locations on Elgin St in Carlton, the Swoppy, as it’s known, sells second-hand musical instruments – and the range is vast.
Electric and acoustic guitars are the shop’s bread and butter, and they stock everything from guitars worth $100 to guitars worth $30,000.
There are also drum kits, percussion, djembes and cymbals; keyboards, electric pianos, drum machines and synthesisers; accordions, melodicas, brass and woodwind; amplifiers, speakers, PA gear and mixers; computer interfaces, recording devices, monitors and microphones; samplers, sequencers, effects pedals and DJ gear; and every kind of string instrument imaginable.
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“Basically, if it’s music related, we’ll stock it,” says the shop’s manager, Jeremy Malcolmson.
The Swoppy sells all its items on consignment, which means they don’t actually own anything. “We just work on 20% commission,” says Jeremy. “So, people bring us their gear to sell and there are no time limits, no pressures on pricing.”
If a consignor changes their mind, they can take back their item free of charge. This system, rooted in principles of honesty and trust, has been in place since the shop opened its doors in 1982. The shop’s long-time owner, Bryan Derrick, passed away in January. But his spirit lives on in how the Swoppy does business.
“His ethos was, rule number one, total honesty, and that goes a long way,” says Jeremy. “Just to be trustworthy and reliable, you know what you’re going to get.”
The Swoppy’s success has a lot to do with its casual and friendly way of doing business, as well as its fair prices and extensive range. But in an era when e-commerce dominates, it’s notable that the Swoppy hasn’t just survived, it’s thrived. They opened a second location a handful of years ago, directly across the road from the original store.
In Jeremy’s view, the shop’s very physicality gives it an edge over online retailers. “You can play the instrument first, which is important not only for bonding with the instrument and seeing if you like it, but for actually getting a realistic idea of what it’s like and if it suits you personally,” he says.
“We’ve got a saying that the guitar chooses you, so you’ve got to really connect with it first. You don’t get that online.”
The Swoppy has approximately 5000 items in stock at any one time, which gives the shop a bit of funhouse unpredictability. “We’ve had access to stuff you just don’t get anywhere else because it’s second-hand,” Jeremy says. “You get a lot of gems that people’s grandparents have had under the bed for 30 years or something.”
They’ve stocked some rare vintage guitars over the years, some of them quirkier than they were playable. At present, there’s a Gretsch “Billy-Bo” Jupiter Thunderbird Bass in the shop that’ll set you back $3,000. “That’s been here for at least 15 years,” laughs Jeremy.
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They had a Gretsch White Falcon in the shop for about 10 years, which attracted a lot of attention. “Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, he was close to buying it,” Jeremy says. “He came into the store and liked it, and his wife was trying to negotiate a price but the seller wasn’t budging enough.”
A visit to the Swop Shop can feel like a day at a musical instrument museum. There aren’t enough hours in the workweek to look through everything they’ve got in stock.
“It’s a bit of an Aladdin’s cave: there are little gems, little treasures hiding everywhere,” Jeremy says. “We probably log in, on average, 13 new items a day.”
The Swoppy is a shop for musicians, by musicians, and they’re also doing their bit to support the local scene.
“We sell artist merchandise at a very, very limited cost to us,” Jeremy says. “It’s basically so we can have it there. So local artists with their releases, their albums, videos, T-shirts, band merch, anything.”
The Swoppy plans to take its support for local artists a step further with the launch of a musicians’ grant dedicated to the late Bryan Derrick.
“[It will be] a yearly grant for young bands to help them get off the ground,” Jeremy says. “Basically, to give young bands a merchandise package and recording time, just to help the local music scene.”
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