Where are all the guitars?

[blueruins]

I mean where do they go?  They've been pumping out hundreds of thousands of them each year for decades and even the worst guitars are rarely just thrown away..any of you number crunchers out there have any idea how many Fender guitars are sold by retail stores in the USA every year? Gibson?
I'm just wondering WTF?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Fires, floods, jealous girlfriends.  I have a friend who doesn't particularly play well but he loves guitars and basses and has a disposable income.  He had 20 when his house burned down.  How many were lost during Hurricane Katrina?  There's wild fires everywhere every year.  It's always something that nickels and dimes them away.  And...been to a guitar show lately?  Ever wonder how many are fakes.  I mean, some makes and models, there are more accounted for than were ever made.

 

[Superlizard]

I had a lefty LP Custom that (hopefully) was used as firewood for some lucky group of hobos.

 

[Cagey]

It's difficult to find individual numbers, but Samick is supposed to make about 1.3M guitars a year. They're larger than Fender and Gibson put together, which are also big companies, of course, but Samick makes some of their guitars, too. So, strictly a wild-assed guess, I'd put the number at about 2M units/yr. Of those, probably 2/3 of them end up in the trash, under beds, in closets, attics, basements and garages where they're not heard from any more, and certainly there's some attrition due to misadventure such as fire, flood and other destruction.

Still, it's a good question. Seems like we should be neck-deep in guitars (npi) <grin>

But, there are a lot of people in the world. We're rapidly coming up on 7B. And if you want to see some outrageous production numbers, look at cellphones. Production of those hovers around 1B units/yr. That's a LOT of cellphones, about 500 times as many units as guitars. Talk about neck deep!

 

[Disco Scottie]

I believe they're all in Rick Neilsen's house.

 

[Jusatele]

I believe they're all in Rick Neilsen's house.

Seen pics in mags and have to agree  :laughing8: :laughing8: :laughing8:




seriously though, I think a lot of the lower end guitars end up just getting trashed. I see on Ebay hundreds of necks or bodies being sold each day so parts guitars are not that uncommon, you know MIM fenders should be a dime a dozen but they seem to hold value in the used market so that the market is not flooded yet. Plus look at all the adds that say will buy your guitar, I guess shipping them off to developing nations has a good market
and to top it all off, simply because you can get any decal and any serial number printed now days, I think about 75 percent of all those vintage guitars are all fakes, there are just to many ob the market, I see stores full of things I had to search hard to find 10 years ago. Either we have had a plethora of guys clearing out under their beds or some guys are relabeling newer guitars like mad for a market still so young that fakes are easily passed off.

 

[swarfrat]

The Who? Hendrix? Garth Brooks?
Then you have Steve Balmer and ilk. I recall someone a couple years ago on TalkBass claimed to have 160 basses in his house. The response was, "That's not a collection, it's an infestation!"

 

[Cagey]

and to top it all off, simply because you can get any decal and any serial number printed now days, I think about 75 percent of all those vintage guitars are all fakes, there are just to many ob the market, I see stores full of things I had to search hard to find 10 years ago. Either we have had a plethora of guys clearing out under their beds or some guys are relabeling newer guitars like mad for a market still so young that fakes are easily passed off.

I agree. I think the vintage market is heavily saturated with counterfeits. I'm old enough to have been around back when many of today's "vintage" guitars were current and a dime a dozen, and there just weren't that many of them around. They simply didn't make as many back then as they do now. The manufacturing process hadn't been automated yet. And as you say, it's so easy to counterfeit one that anyone of reasonable skill can do it.

 

[Cagey]

The Who? Hendrix? Garth Brooks?
Then you have Steve Balmer and ilk. I recall someone a couple years ago on TalkBass claimed to have 160 basses in his house. The response was, "That's not a collection, it's an infestation!"

Steve Ballmer? Are you sure you aren't thinking of Paul Allen? Steve Ballmer's nothing but a limp dick. Paul Allen was the co-founder of Microsoft along with Bill Gates, and is currently the 3rd richest man in America. He has a guitar collection that's second to none.

 

[drewfx]

and to top it all off, simply because you can get any decal and any serial number printed now days, I think about 75 percent of all those vintage guitars are all fakes, there are just to many ob the market, I see stores full of things I had to search hard to find 10 years ago. Either we have had a plethora of guys clearing out under their beds or some guys are relabeling newer guitars like mad for a market still so young that fakes are easily passed off.

I agree. I think the vintage market is heavily saturated with counterfeits. I'm old enough to have been around back when many of today's "vintage" guitars were current and a dime a dozen, and there just weren't that many of them around. They simply didn't make as many back then as they do now. The manufacturing process hadn't been automated yet. And as you say, it's so easy to counterfeit one that anyone of reasonable skill can do it.

All of which makes me wonder how long before the vintage market loses much of its desirability. If there's 900,000 fakes out there and only the relative experts can tell what the real ones are, where's the status in having a (supposedly) rare (uncertain) vintage instrument?

Maybe actual quality will become more appreciated than supposed pedigree.

 

[OzziePete]

Sure, if there's no way to distinguish the fake from the real 59 Les Paul, the Vintage Guitar market will lose a lot of it's lustre....But there are ways to tell and people just have to be more diligent and apply harsh scrutiny to the instrument before committing to buy. I think, also, if you are going to buy a guitar instead of a house, you have rocks in your head.

 

[AutoBat]

All the vintage strats that were made are sitting in a pile at Yngwie's house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQANhRXDDt0

 

[Jusatele]

and to top it all off, simply because you can get any decal and any serial number printed now days, I think about 75 percent of all those vintage guitars are all fakes, there are just to many ob the market, I see stores full of things I had to search hard to find 10 years ago. Either we have had a plethora of guys clearing out under their beds or some guys are relabeling newer guitars like mad for a market still so young that fakes are easily passed off.

I agree. I think the vintage market is heavily saturated with counterfeits. I'm old enough to have been around back when many of today's "vintage" guitars were current and a dime a dozen, and there just weren't that many of them around. They simply didn't make as many back then as they do now. The manufacturing process hadn't been automated yet. And as you say, it's so easy to counterfeit one that anyone of reasonable skill can do it.

that nails it totally
I remember in the early 70s just waiting and praying that someone would trade in a Tele so I could afford one, I had a mustang I wanted to trade in on a used tele, there were guys in line to buy my used mustang, guitars were hand made and not many were going out the door. I see so many " XCertified vintage 60s era teles now day I am amazed how that color got released 10 years before Leo even knew it was around.
and guys are lined up to buy it.
guy around here keeps trying to sell his mahogany bodied custom shop 1965 strat.  WTF but I think one day someone will bite at his add, he has had it in the paper for 3 weeks claiming it is an original custom shop strat built in 1965. And I know some idiot will bite.

remember 20 years ago when baseball cards were the thing and how many guys sunk a fortune into them only to take a bath, or 10 years ago the beenie baby fad, I think the guitar thing is the rip off of today. Next year it will be Harleys, opps, no those already have busted down to the " here I will give you money to take it"out here in SoCal.

a fool and his money

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

Fires, floods, jealous girlfriends.  I have a friend who doesn't particularly play well but he loves guitars and basses and has a disposable income.  He had 20 when his house burned down.  How many were lost during Hurricane Katrina?  There's wild fires everywhere every year.  It's always something that nickels and dimes them away.  And...been to a guitar show lately?  Ever wonder how many are fakes.  I mean, some makes and models, there are more accounted for than were ever made.

I guess I would sort of fall into the category of, "Who doesn't particularly play well, but he loves guitars and basses, and had a disposable income."  The problem is, I really don't have the disposable income, yet I can't stop buying guitars.  :help:

On April 22nd, I purchased a new Jackson JS32 Warrior, a $400 guitar.  It was a replacement for a crappy Ibanez, which I had traded towards the Warrior.  I just wanted to upgrade from "crappy" to "cheap," but I just couldn't pass on the Warrior.  I had plans on grabbing up a Squier Affinity Strat, but the value on this guitar was just amazing.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a used, but pristine, Jackson USA Select Series KV2, in a Blue Ghost Flame finish.  I've been gassing hard for a USA Select Series Warrior, and figured the "V" would "cure what ails," but it didn't.  I'm entertaining offers on that one.

Within the last year, I"ve "gotten" 4 guitars.  My Warmoth has been built for just under a year, my wife got me a Squier Affinity J-Bass gig pack for Xmas, and then there are the 2 new Jacksons.

As for cheap guitars, I think a lot of them do wind up abused, and just totally thrashed, but most of those who purchase the guitars that are retailing for $800+ are probably taken fairly good care of.

...And then there are people like me, who own some cheap guitars, and they receive just as good care as my more expensive ones.  I sort of have this "hierarchy" for my guitars, and they wouldn't be in the order anyone would think they were...

1. Warmoth Star (Made in USA)
2. Jackson Warrior (Made in India)
3. Jackson KV2 (Made in USA)
4. Fender Telecaster Plus (Made in USA)
5. B.C. Rich N.J. Series Mockingbird (Made in Japan)

I don't list my acoustics or bass, because I don't play a whole lot of acoustic or bass.  The bass is more of a necessary "tool" for me.  Regardless, while I wouldn't consider myself a collector, the title is debatable.  I'm just one of these people who love guitars, and love to have a lot of them to play.  They're all out in my "Music Room," and they all get used.  While I certainly have some that I like more than others, they all have qualities about them that I love, and others that I'm not so fond of.  They all receive the same amount of care, regardless of price.

 

[swarfrat]

Also look at internet forums. I think the average here was 5 or 6 guitars each. Lots of folks have 10+ among guitar players.