guitars

Responding to this comment chain as a whole.

1. You can be shocked through a guitar (or mic), but not really by the guitar itself.
2. Amps also rarely shock people as they have grounds in them that can protect from shocks, but some have ground lifts.
3. Pretty much the only case you will get shocked bad enough that it'll be a problem is in live sound.

A guitar has lots of metal components that can have a current running through them including the strings themselves if they touch the pickup coils. Usually there's never going to be enough current in them to shock you. Passive guitars aren't going to produce any of that current alone. I have an active bass with a 9V battery and it isn't going to shock me playing normally unless that battery somehow becomes ungrounded and the stings come into contact with that circuit. Which is rare, and also weak enough not to do any damage or even be noticable.

So a guitar (or mic) isn't going to shock you, but the equipment a guitar is connected to could provide enough current to noticably shock you. If that amp or whatever has a ground fault or had its ground lifted, it could be a shock hazard as bigger amps can hold a lot of voltage in their chassis.

Some in this thread have said that you straight up can't be shocked by a guitar and that is blatant misinformation.

An example of how to get shocked is in live sound, you'll likely have all your amps and stuff plugged into some kind of power supply or generator. That power supply is providing current to your amp. Let's say that power supply has a ground fault, If your amps ground is good, it's probably fine. The current in your amp that should be flowing to ground, is doing so. If you lifted your amps ground cause it was buzzing or something, that current from the power supply is now running wild in your amp. That current can and will travel up the 1/4in jack into your guitar and into the pickups. Making a circuit that electrifies everything as there are no grounds for that current to disapiate into. Now, when you pick up your guitar and press down on a string, that string potentially makes contact with the pickups sending current through the metal strings into your body and potentially through your body into the ground as you are now the only ground in the circuit. This shocks the shit out of you. And considering that a power supply can be very high voltage this could easily be fatal.

https://youtu.be/xS_5K5YEYv8?si=__vaNi_33fAtSygB

This video is good at showing how this works. Plus the guy uses an ohmmeter to prove that there is an electric current flowing from the amp into the bass in the first minute or so of the video.

As a side you shouldn't really ever be lifting the ground on an amp with the expeception of maybe studio recording sessions. Ground lift switches are often there to cut out buzzes and hums in the amp. In live sound and practice sessions that buzz really doesn't matter, especially live it'll get washed out by all the other sounds. If it's actually an issue, then you need a new amp or find a tech willing to work on amplifiers.

I heard that if pickup coils have gone really bad and lost their grounding they could potentially shock you, like the guitar itself shocks you, but I don't know anything more about that. Maybe that could apply to the guitar in question? If it's not active I doubt it. It's what amp you plug that guitar into that could cause problems.

TLDR: That guitar in question isn't really an electrical hazard unless it's plugged into an electrical hazard. It should be looked over irregardless before selling it.