I got my Mag, and then she blew my mind

[stubhead]

I got got finished perusing the new "Vintage Guitar", and I must be confused - weren't we supposed to be in some kind of recession? Weren't we all supposed to be smarter, sadder, wiser... There's a dealer named "Gary's Classic Guitars" - p. 66. They pretty much have an across-the-board standard price for any '50's or early 60's Telecaster or Stratocaster of $29,900 to $34,900 - ALL OF THEM. They've got one in pretty much every color, every year, I'm sorry but even given the extremely doubtful premise that "Gary" never gets fooled by the counterfeiters (or like most antiques dealers, agrees that it's a terrible problem - for every dealer except him), that's crazy money for an old guitar with worn frets, "original solder" that's shorted out is worth more than a guitar that works? For $30,000 you could make, what, 20 extremely serviceable, great-sounding and playing guitars, or if you wanted tonar to do PERFECT finishes and you were willing to spend three days on the fretwork & nut (or pay me to do it :evil4 you could still make a dozen immaculate, UN-IMPROVABLE works or art, which you could then play hard and enjoy instead of worrying over it... even the late-70's Strats and Teles are 4 to 6 thousand, and the old Gretches - which are leading candidates for "matchsticks-if-you-bump-it" - they're $8,000 t0 $15,000.

The good news is that Fender Starcasters are on the rise - the bad news is that they're all at least 5 grand! And there are dozens of these guys - how do they stay in business, year after year? Trust-fund babies, who got burned and are now just sitting on it? Is grandpa in the back workroom, quietly chiseling down underneath the turtle emblems....

Gurian, Melancom, Valley Arts Guitars, Travis Bean, even Kramer.... all have serial number registry programs, so you can find out both when your $5,000 Bean was made and which one it is.... Fender and Gibson only have dating available, after all it's only a $30,000 old guitar. :laughing3:

 

[mayfly]

Well - yea.  There's money in those old-looking guitars.

But just think of the trouble they would be in if anyone found them out.  Course no one will since they would have to take apart their 'old' guitar to prove it...

It is rather funny that back in the 70's old fenders, Gretches and Gibsons from the 50s were pretty scarce and if you could find one it was pretty much in ruin.  Now they seem to be EVERYWHERE  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Cagey]

It is rather funny that back in the 70's old fenders, Gretches and Gibsons from the 50s were pretty scarce and if you could find one it was pretty much in ruin.  Now they seem to be EVERYWHERE  :icon_biggrin:

You noticed that too, eh? <grin>

Tubes are the same way. There are only 2 or 3 manufacturing plants left on the entire planet, with those in some of the lowest-efficiency environments extant, yet a new tube distributor shows up almost weekly with a healthy stock of new and NOS parts.

 

[stubhead]

After Gibson filed the lawsuit that was adjudicated in 1977, it was ever so kind of the FujiGen Gakki and Matsumoku factories to destroy all the jigs and forms and plans they had used to meticulously copy Fenders and Gibsons for the Burney, Tokai, Ibanez, Greco, Memphis and whoever-else companies. Though somehow or another, those factories retained enough knowledge to still make Fenders when Fender couldn't in the 1980's, still make Squires and Japanese-only Fenders and Epiphones and some ghost-built Gibsons... in the 70's we knew a few old guitars were good, but they certainly all weren't; and a huge proportion of the Fenders ended up with big brass chunks and Floyds and Humbuckers, one owner or another just couldn't help it... they weren't worth anything, $200-$300 usually - why not? Every old Fender needed bigger frets at least, and the earliest Fender pickups went microphonic in just a few years of knocking around, they weren't wound tight enough. Original solder joints....

And by the mid-80's, you could go to the Dallas Guitar Show and a dozen dealers had a rack of old Fenders, and now they're hundreds of dealers who can say the same. And all the books written so that you can "authenticate your purchase" are just cookbooks for others. In the same Vintage Guitar there are now at least three or four guys selling "antiqued" and "relic'd" parts, just in case you were needing some & too busy to do your own. There's just something about them old Les Pauls, with the almost-brown yellowed pickup switch tip and THE BRIGHT WHITE BINDING. I think it was Premier Guitar that had an article about Slash's famous not-Gibson Les Paul, there were like four guys in Los Angeles alone making them and they all knew each other and recognized each other's work. IN LOS ANGELES ALONE - back in the 1980's. Be PROUD of your Warmoth sticker kids, all your friends are liars, scammers, idiots and/or all three. Why, some of MY best friends are....

Whoa Nelly, is that some nice fretwork or what? -
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Greco-Super-Real-1980-EGF-1000-Good-/270657491847?pt=Guitar&hash=item3f04719387

 

[Jusatele]

I think sites like ebay drive the forgery market.

Plus who wants to admit his is a fake

 

[jackthehack]

Compare the relicing on this $85K "56 Strat":

http://cgi.ebay.com/1956-Fender-Stratocaster-Custom-Colored-Sherwood-Green-/370388639936?pt=Guitar&hash=item563ce220c0

...to the $295 relic finishes this guy does:

http://www.mjtagedfinishes.com/


"Fender chose a beautiful, flamed maple neck to compliment this unique custom color. The “C” shape neck is wonderfully worn and feels amazing in your hands. The original frets still have plenty of wear, and the neck- stamped 11/55, is straight and true."

Fender didn't start stamping the neck build date until 1962, prior to that it was month/year handwritten on the heel; you'd think they'd do a LITTLE better job of BS....