So I won the lottery this year. But it’s not like I get to retire.
Every year since whenever it was they started them (like 2012 or whenever it was), I have tried to get in on the Premier Guitar Mystery Stocking deal. For me, it’s a fun little thing to do. I send them whatever the cost is for that year, and they send me that much in random guitar-related gear.
The first few years, I think it was $30. Out of those first 5 years, I think I got 2 pedals out of the deal. Back then, I think they’d stick the pedal in with whatever the basic box was because when I got those pedals, I’d also get strings and picks and whatever else. The years that I didn’t win and just got the basic box, it never was too bad. I’d still end up with strings and picks and some other guitar related gear that would be fun. And there was always one thing in the box that was kind of the “premium” item. So the years that you’d get the basic box, there’d be several little things and one something that would’ve been worth 2/3s the cost of the box. You could easily tell what that “premium” thing was.
Truth is, in those first few years, I found several things in the basic box that became my go-to. For instance, if it weren’t for the PG Mystery Stocking, I wouldn’t be using the picks I’ve been using the last 10 years or so. I also got a strap in the one in like 2019 that is the strap I use when I play out now. It’s one of those with the self-locking connector that makes it so I don’t have to use the rubber washers I had been using for years. And, no, I don’t use the Fender or Dunlop or whichever straplocks. Mostly I don’t because I don’t want to end up grabbing a guitar that I forgot to put them on, getting out somewhere to play, and then realizing I can’t use my strap because it doesn’t have the right straplocks. Anyways, up until the last couple years, there was always something in the box that I could use.
And here, I am going to pause and mention that I know the deal has always been that you send in whatever the price is, and they send you at least that much worth of gear. No promises that it’s going to be something that you want or anything that you might need. Just you send us $30 and we’ll send you $30 worth of something.
Now I didn’t get in every year from the start until this year. There have been 2 or 3 years that I was just late, and didn’t get my name in quick enough before they ran out. Seriously, they would sell out in a matter of a couple of minutes some years. I did find the last two years that, if you missed the initial rush, you could wait a couple of hours, refresh the page, and they would be available again for a little while. And, if you tried to get one during those initial few minutes, the website was always super laggy and not able to handle the traffic.
From that traffic and order perspective, the last couple years were no different. In fact, despite my best efforts, I missed the initial rush because I couldn’t get the order page to load. So I got mine ordered those years an hour or so after things settled down and a few would show up as available. Both years, I ended up getting what has very un-affectionately become known as the box of sad. The basic box. In fact, I think last year’s box was whatever was left when they were cleaning out the room.
Between the 2022 and 2023 PG Mystery Stockings, I didn’t keep anything in them. Everything I got either went in the trash or into my give-away box that I keep so that if I hear someone say “I need a strap,” I can grab one out of the box and give them one to use and not worry about getting it back. Also, in the 2022 box I got a guitar strap. In the 2023 box, I got the exact same strap. And in the 2023 box, I got a second strap. Two straps in one box.
Those two years really made me question if I was going to do it again this year. Two years in a row where everything in the box seemed like an afterthought. Two years in a row where it felt like PG was just throwing a bunch of cheap stuff in a box and sending it out. Both years, if you added up the MSRP (which is how they determine the box value minimum), it barely hit the $35 or $40 (whatever it cost those years), but, if you added up the actual street value, it didn’t hit the total. The box of sad. There’s a reason folks were calling it that online.
This year, I wasn’t really planning on trying to get in on one, but I woke up that Monday morning and decided that, if I was sitting at my computer at the release time, I’d give it a shot. But I was not going to do the try-again thing an hour later if I missed the initial rush.
I was sitting at my computer at the time, so I refreshed the order page. Surprisingly, it came right up with zero delay or lag. I ordered one. Then, out of curiosity, I kept the page up and occasionally refreshed it. I finally closed it 2 days later when I got the email from PG that they still had them available. Apparently, the last 2 years of bad press caused people to stay away from it this year.
The basic boxes always come USPS. So I was more than a little bit happy when I got the UPS ship notification. The back of my mind was still a little concerned because the shipment said 2 pounds and that’s about what the basic box always came in at.
When it finally came in, I WON!! Unlike those early years where they sent the pedal in a box with the strings and picks and other non-premium stuff, I opened the box and there was just a pedal in it. But I had gotten a pedal out of the deal.
It’s a Maestro Fuzz pedal. I’m not a fuzz person. And plugging this one in and playing with it some this weekend, I’m still not a fuzz person. But I thought it was really cool that I got a pedal. New toys are always fun! So I’ve played around with it, and I’ll probably toss it in the box o’ pedals that I keep on the side that will eventually go back to GC or the local MusicGoRound. But I still think it was really cool that I didn’t get the basic box again this year.
Although, I haven’t seen the absolute furor online this year with complaining about what they did (or didn’t) get in the box. So I’m really curious what the basic box was this year. My theory is that the initial few years of the box was a fairly small run with things that were a little more curated. By the last couple of years, the Mystery Stockings had just become a big, unwieldy event that was not easily managed and even less easily curated and distributed. So it went from a good time to a box of sad.
With the apparent slow sales this year, and PG even having to send out an email after a couple of days telling folks they were still available, I’m hoping they don’t stop doing it. For the $40 it cost this year, it’ll still be my annual lottery ticket if it continues. I’m just hoping that they’re able to get the scale under control where they’re able to get back to it being fun and not just a way to send junk to a bunch of people like it had turned into the last couple years.