They don't make them like they used to

[SoundAsAnOldEngineer]

I guess most people on this board are interested in making beautiful new guitars and basses using some of the finest components on the planet. I'd like to know what we collectively think about the inherent qualities of vintage instruments. I completely understand that market forces set the price of commodities in limited supply, and some people will pay stacks of cash for vintage instruments. The question is "are they worth the money as musical instruments?"

I've played a couple of old Martin acoustics that were wonderful. I owned a Gibson acoustic that sounded great but intonated terribly. I've played a few disappointing old electric guitars.

If vintage electric guitars really are worth the money as instruments (not as collectable artifacts) then this might be for the following reasons:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Survival of the fittest: A guitar won't be around after 50 years unless it's better than average
[*]Better materials or craftsmanship: Old Fenders and Gibsons were actually very expensive in real terms, made in relatively small quantities, and manufactured by hand by craftsmen.
[*]Effects of time: Maybe something happens to the wood over time. In this case, does the magic happen only if the instrument is played? If so, does it matter who plays it and what they play?
[/list]

 

[Cagey]

For the most part, I don't think old "vintage" guitars are worth much as instruments. If somebody wanted to give me a '57 Strat or Les Paul, the only way I'd want it is for resale. I'm not a collector, so I'd sell the thing so fast there'd be a vacuum in here for 10 minutes after it left.

 

[Surf n Music]

It seems pretty overpriced to me. Maybe an old acoustic that sounds amazing would be worth it but it would have to play and sound amazing to fork over lots of cash. Even new fenders and gibsons seem overpriced when you can build it exactly how you want and put all the time and energy you want for a fraction of the price of a custom shop.

Sometimes in surfboards I will grab and old vintage surfboard and give her a go. But usually they are cheap. They don't work half as well as modern boards but it is always fun to feel what they used to ride for a moment... then back to the modern. 

 

[drewfx]

• Effects of time: Maybe something happens to the wood over time. In this case, does the magic happen only if the instrument is played? If so, does it matter who plays it and what they play?

There is some truth to the fact that wood changes over time (and also if played), but as far as aging goes, not all of the changes are always necessarily "good".

But to me the interesting question about aging is what does that mean over time if I feel an instrument sounds perfect right now?

 

[stratamania]

The vintage market for what used to be second hand guitars is what it is.

Sure there are gems that are older guitars, but if a guitar wasn't good new it generally won't be better when older.

Not all craftsmanship back whenever was great, a lot of things didn't have good tolerances and so on.

I was talking to a dealer in Germany a few months ago, and he mentioned that there were more vintage guitars of a given year and brand than were made in the first place available today. In other words not all of it may be genuine. Caveat emptor.

So I guess guitars are like wine. Some are vinegar regardless of age and some may mature well but are certainly fine wines to start with.

 

[Wolfie351]

Like you said, perceived market value is what drives prices...so two identical 1957 Strats (one sounds good, the other doesn't) are going to sell for the same price.  Same can be said for two brand new Warmoth bodies, W doesn't go through their wood pile and charge more for pieces that have better resonance.  But, one could sound fantastic, the other could sound dead.  So, "are they worth the money as musical instruments".  The answer is...maybe

I've said it before and I'll say it again when it comes to vintage instruments, which is the better buy?  A brand new Warmoth Regal build that will cost you $1600 and be worth $900 (if you're lucky) the day after you finish building it?  Or, a $5000 used and worn 1969 Les Paul that is still worth $5000 the day after you buy it and will appreciate in value?  Both sound equally great.  Most of us, including myself, can't afford the vintage instrument and would choose the Warmoth.  But, I would never disparage the buyer of the vintage instrument because it's really the smarter financial choice.

 

[migetkotla]

I have "reissued" vintage fender guitars (almost all '62 strats and teles).  Most are sold on the market for about 1500......these are not the original guitars and they are definitely not custom shop relic'd.  They are though some of the best playing and sounding guitars I have, in my opinion.  Hard to compete with the quality of guitars we are able to build through Warmoth.  For the price, I think we end up with final products that are worth twice as much as the same model carrying a brand name like Fender.  As long as you are not "in the market" and hoping to resell your Warmoth for a fair price, Warmoth just allows us to create a superior guitar at any given price.  Just my opinion of course...

 

[MikeW]

I think you've hit on the real issue here :

The question is "are they worth the money as musical instruments?"

As historical pieces I can see the value, and in some cases I might even be able to justify spending a truckload of money to acquire one; Jimi's Strat from the Monterrey Pop Festival for example. But as musical instruments, I'm neither interested nor willing to suffer through the idiosyncrasies and poor components of a vintage instrument.

We've had a few lists of improvements go around lately and in almost every case the incremental change was significant enough to result in a far more playable instrument. A short list of the ones I mean: (in no particular order)
1. locking tuners
2. two-point synchronized bridges
3. humbucking single-coil-sized pickups
4. harder/denser/longer lasting nut materials
5. amp, cabinet and tube modeling processors and preamps

and (IMO) the biggest improvement in the industry:

5. CNC machines.

I guess I'm in the minority of players that sees my instrument as a tool. Sure I've attached sentimental value to a couple that I've owned, and I have one that would be considered 'vintage', but rarely (never) have I played a vintage instrument that I thought was significantly better than a comparable instrument at the local GC.

 

[DavyDave53]

Modern electric guitars are far superior to their "Vintage" counter part in every way.

Other than the workmanship the biggest issue I have with "Vintage" guitars is the ratio of fake to genuine guitars.

 

[Great Ape]

Well, then--that settles THAT, doesn't it!?! :laughing7:

 

[DavyDave53]

After some thought, I realized that buying a vintage guitar is like buying a vintage pocket calculator.

Yes, it will balance your checkbook.

Yes, it may look extra-cool.

But why not just get a new one that takes advantage of technological improvements?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator#Pocket_calculators

 

[mark1178]

If I had the money, I'd be a collector. But for practical use, modern guitars due to their construction, as MikeW said in his bullets:

{read MikeW's post, too lazy to copy and paste or reply all}

 

[Re-Pete]

Well, A Gretsch used by Lennon on Paperback Writer was passed in at Auction. So I guess some folks are wiseing up at the top end of the market. It's a guitar Lennon used once, then passed onto one of his cousins to play. Didn't meet reserve so the market deemed it unattached to the icon of Lennon.

I've seen this 'vintage collectible/ don't touch that/ don't even LOOK at that one' phenomenon rise and go to stratospheric levels. I can't say I am a fan of it as the trickle down effect of that has been manufacturers cashing in by re-issuing certain models of years gone by. Usually at high profit margins. Re-issues are nice guitars but at the price they demand I won't be buying one too soon.

I've seen comments about the ooh ahhs of the old Gibson Les Pauls, but at the same time I've seen comments about the absolute piece of crap tailpiece on the original Les Paul model (because Les insisted on one of his patented tailpieces going in, but the curvature of the smaller solid body made it near impossible to fit the strings on properly & so Gibson pushed them out the door with the strings on upside down!) and comments about the headstock on Gibsons being at the wrong angle - which is why so many of them suffer neck/headstock failure.

The other thing to consider is the player 's angle.

If a guitar was bought for US$400 in the 1950s, it was more than likely a serious player who bought it. For the price they wanted an instrument that would gig every week, be reliable and sound good and play well. THAT was lot of money back then. So if the guitar has gone through several hands and 50 years later it is in PRISTINE condition, with little fret wear, it's either a bad sounding/playing instrument or it's a fake, or it's had an absolutely magnificent re-fret job done on it & somehow the players have kept it nick-free (particularly at the back or the headstock area).

There's also a lot of plastic material on solid body guitars and that stuff shrinks over time and can degenerate. The tulip tuner pegs on old Les Pauls are prime candidates for degenerating into a crumbling mess. The plastic used on those tuning pegs had - I once read - a 25 year life span. TWENTY FIVE years. After that, it's luck if they don't crumble. Now look at that original 58 or 59 Les Paul in 2014. Tuners? Were they replaced in about 1975? Are they about to crumble again if made from original material or were the replacements made of better material? DON'T try to tell me the originals somehow survived.....Bindings on old Gretschs are also a worry...

 

[SoundAsAnOldEngineer]

Thanks for the thought-provoking and (I trust) well-informed comments. What I heard is that, in terms of its qualities as a musical instrument, a “vintage” guitar should simply be regarded as an extreme form of a “second hand” guitar, with all of the problems that naturally go hand-in-hand with anything old. The community is telling me that we shouldn’t expect a vintage instrument to have exceptional tone or playability just because it was manufactured before man landed on the moon. I’m going to accept this no-nonsense view because, frankly, it is just common sense, but the problem is that this challenges the generally accepted notion that vintage is good, and THAT requires a bit of attitude readjustment.

I understand that vintage may also mean collectable, and that collectable items have a price that is not bounded by the real economic value of the item or the cost of manufacturing a replacement. Prices paid for collectable items respond to demand, and may not always be as high as they are today. I also take the point that provenance is everything to collectors, and that some of the instruments on the market may not be genuine, and thus a very poor investment.

It occurs to me that Blackie was sold to Guitar Centre in 2004 for $959,500 having originally been retired in 1985 on grounds of being effectively unplayable. I guess this means that GC didn’t buy it because it was just a great instrument.

This discussion could be extended to cover vintage amplifiers, where the components (valves, transformers, speakers etc.) can still be obtained as more or less direct replacements for their vintage counterparts. The 1963 Fender Super I sold for £150 in 1978 might be worth £1500 today, if it still exists somewhere. If I’d kept it, I expect I’d have replaced valves, capacitors, transformers and speakers by now, so would it even be vintage? In the 1980’s that Fender Super sounded good because it was a more appropriate design for the task of amplifying electric guitars than the products that were available in the shops. Now, there are any number of re-issue amplifiers and boutique models built to reproduce the tones of classic designs from the 1950’s and 1960’s, so who needs a vintage amplifier?

 

[musicispeace]

I have read multiple accounts claiming that the noted guitarists who emerged in the sixties often had "vintage" instruments primarily because at that time they were in low demand and were comparatively cheap. Those noted guitarists often acquired those instruments second hand during a time when they did not have a lot of income to throw around. Plus many of those guitars were only about 10 years old at that time. So that was a very different context in the history of those guitars in terms of their use by some who would become big name players.

It seems to be a consensuses that not all PAF pickups were awesome, having to take the neck off a "vintage" Fender to render a truss rod adjustment sucks, and for some guitars frets that could be measured in height using a mosquito's abdomen for comparison do not apply well to every musical style.

The other side of the coin has feel and finish and perceived "tone." Where I live there is a vintage focused shop and I have seen or had a chance to touch several vintage strats. I personally am in the camp that is pro partscaster because I can take advantage of high quality components that I choose and come out for less than an off the rack Fender American strat. My impression of the vintage market is that collectors have ruined these old guitars for those who may simply want to play them. I think a lot is in the eye (and ear) of the beholder. Not all aspects of "vintage" designs have much merit in use. But vintage guitars also have their followers.

Do they look cool? Yes. If I had an income that allowed me to have one would I do so? No.

 

[QuasarQuail]

Maybe people just want a piece of the Golden Age, and that's completely understandable...but Stratocasters were like iPhones during Buddy Holly's career...and how much of a drag would it have been if he shunned the newfangled Strat because it didn't sound as warm as an Appalachian dulcimer?

Meanwhile, Moog guitars look like barf and please don't get one near me. And if those aren't true PAFs, I'm calling the cops.

Here's a tacky emoticon:
arty07:

 

[alterbridgefan]

"They don't make them like they used to..."

That's called progress.