Once a vintage guitar becomes a commodity, what's the point?

crunchman

peteri said:

Plus remember, they're not making 64 strats any more - and every year the number gets less more , due to natural damage and loss fakery.

FTFY

guitars4you

octatonic said:

Provenance is a real concern now- some very experienced guitar techs I know are now saying they cannot always tell when a take is shown to them.
Some of them are really that good.
I'm kinda glad I never got the vintage guitar bug for that reason.

That is probably the biggest fear with today's vintage market - Either due to incompetence or via the seller deliberately telling fibs, there are many examples to be found that are 'iffy' 

octatonic

ICBM said:

octatonic said:

If I was looking at a £5k+ new Fender Custom Shop master built vs a player grade vintage instrument that I knew the provenance of then I'd buy the vintage instrument.

I simply won't pay that much for a relic.

You can buy a 'team built' for a lot less than that and get a better guitar in my experience. And far less than you would have to pay for any original in anything other than totally wrecked condition.

octatonic said:

Provenance is a real concern now- some very experienced guitar techs I know are now saying they cannot always tell when a take is shown to them. 

Some of them are really that good.

Which is precisely another reason why a CS reissue may be a better buy.

I've also never played a bad 'team built' CS guitar. Plenty of bad originals... as well as a few great ones.

Yes sure- but for some folk they simply won't buy a team built because it isn't the 'best' (by which I mean most expensive).

The way in which Gibson (and now Fender) stratified their product lines in increasingly more expensive categories has been pretty brilliant.

It isn't for me- I stick to my modern, and in some circles bereft-of-mojo, Anderson/Suhr/PRS/Forshage instruments and they do me fine.

FelineGuitars

I like vintage guitars, but firmly believe that the beauty of them is in the playing, and not simply in the owning or bragging rights.

I also feel (and this is a very unpopular view) that they should be maintained and sensitively serviced, so when frets get way too low they get CAREFULLY refretted with appropriate wire gauges, so they can carry on being played and enjoyed.

I really like some examples of "player grade" guitars like the SG junior that @musteatbrain had us refret with jumbo wire, add anEarvana and make play like a beast. OMG that guitar was so tasty it gave us goosebumps

ICBM

FelineGuitars said:

I also feel (and this is a very unpopular view) that they should be maintained and sensitively serviced, so when frets get way too low they get CAREFULLY refretted with appropriate wire gauges, so they can carry on being played and enjoyed.

Completely agreed. And when the pots and switches go scratchy they should be replaced with top-quality modern ones - and if the pickups fail then they should be rewound by an expert using the correct wire.

Something that drives me mad with people who own old guitars is that they won't have knackered parts replaced "because they're original". I certainly don't replace original parts unless there's no alternative - it's often possible to restore an old pot or switch with a bit of care, and make it work perfectly well again - but if that fails then it needs to be replaced without worrying about "loss of value".

I don't even really agree with keeping the old parts, unless they have dating information which is not present anywhere else on the instrument - if they've been taken out it's because they're knackered, so why would you ever want to refit them? Or worse than that, people paying good money for second hand parts to "re-originalise" an old guitar... which is only one step away from fakery if you think about it.

guitars4you

FelineGuitars said:

I really like some examples of "player grade" guitars like the SG junior that @musteatbrain had us refret with jumbo wire, add anEarvana and make play like a beast. OMG that guitar was so tasty it gave us goosebumps

agree - many fine old guitars can be seriously improved with such mods - Certainly modern jumbo frets

I don't mean you have to turn a clean original old guitar into a players grade example  - But when you find a players grade guitar, then upgrade accordingly and you can be on to something very nice indeed

ICBM said:

Something that drives me mad with people who own old guitars is that they won't have knackered parts replaced "because they're original". I certainly don't replace original parts unless there's no alternative - it's often possible to restore an old pot or switch with a bit of care, and make it work perfectly well again - but if that fails then it needs to be replaced without worrying about "loss of value".

I acquired a mid 60's Epi Sheraton recently - Knackered 3 way switch - Most hardware original etc, so I wanted to keep it straight if possible - Eventually managed to clean and salvage the switch, but it was on the radar for replacement - Sooner or later owners have to accept that such parts need to be replaced

I was recently offered an early 60's SG Special - Owner said all original inc the frets , but they had been dressed so many times that they were effectively a metal line on the fingerboard - What is the purpose of leaving a guitar like this - The owner said he wanted to keep it with original frets, even though it was unplayable IMO - I asked what is now original abut those frets, when a large part of them has been 'dressed/removed' following such repair work over the years - Totally barmy IMO

I still like old guitars, but they have to be in a working format in one guide or another

OilCityPickups

FelineGuitars said:

I like vintage guitars, but firmly believe that the beauty of them is in the playing, and not simply in the owning or bragging rights.

I also feel (and this is a very unpopular view) that they should be maintained and sensitively serviced, so when frets get way too low they get CAREFULLY refretted with appropriate wire gauges, so they can carry on being played and enjoyed.

I really like some examples of "player grade" guitars like the SG junior that @musteatbrain had us refret with jumbo wire, add anEarvana and make play like a beast. OMG that guitar was so tasty it gave us goosebumps

This where I come from too ...

ICBM

It also may be worth saying that the old '56 LP Custom I mentioned earlier had been refretted with medium-jumbo fretwire. It would have been far less usable a guitar with the original 'fretless wonder' ones, even if it had still sounded as good.

jaymenon

To quote a wise friend of mine:

Let’s put this “old wood” nonsense to bed.  Rain forest timber trees like Mahogany take centuries to grow and mature.  There is no reasonable reason to suggest that the timber used in a 1952 Les Paul is qualitatively “better” than that used in a 1992 Les Paul.  It’s essentially the same age of timber in both.  It’s entirely possible that the timber in a ‘92 Les Paul will have come from an older tree than that in a  ‘52.  

There is a case to be made that Gibson had access to wood that had been better seasoned in 1952 than they have today.  We don’t know if that is actually the case though.  It’s often believed by luthiers that timber that has been air-dried naturally is “better” than kiln-dried timber.  When pressed on this though, they have a hard time explaining why they think it’s better.  Also, we don’t know with any certainty, this long after the fact, what proportion of Gibson’s sourced timber was kiln dried and what was air-dried. Modern seasoning plants use vacuum kilns to dry wood by reducing the air pressure to below the saturated vapour pressure of water, causing the wood’s included moisture content to reduce through forced evaporation without “baking” the wood causing uneven drying (like the way your chicken gets crispy on the outside and moist on the inside).    So it’s even possible that wood dried to modern standards is more consistent than earlier timber stocks.   

To me, this is just more nostalgia and guitar geekery; like the “old violins are much better than new violins”. argument.  Violin aficionados desperately keep looking for reasons to rationalise their belief in this but it never withstands the harsh gaze of scientific scrutiny.

Strat_a_tat_tat

jaymenon said:

I sold two of my Collings guitars after reading that they now offer Throbak pickups for an upcharge (on the basis that Throbak own the original Gibson winding machines and 'make them like they used to').

Interested to know why you sold the two Collings.  Was it because you wanted models with Throbaks?

crunchman

jaymenon said:

To quote a wise friend of mine:

Let’s put this “old wood” nonsense to bed.  Rain forest timber trees like Mahogany take centuries to grow and mature.  There is no reasonable reason to suggest that the timber used in a 1952 Les Paul is qualitatively “better” than that used in a 1992 Les Paul.  It’s essentially the same age of timber in both.  It’s entirely possible that the timber in a ‘92 Les Paul will have come from an older tree than that in a  ‘52.  

There is a case to be made that Gibson had access to wood that had been better seasoned in 1952 than they have today.  We don’t know if that is actually the case though.  It’s often believed by luthiers that timber that has been air-dried naturally is “better” than kiln-dried timber.  When pressed on this though, they have a hard time explaining why they think it’s better.  Also, we don’t know with any certainty, this long after the fact, what proportion of Gibson’s sourced timber was kiln dried and what was air-dried. Modern seasoning plants use vacuum kilns to dry wood by reducing the air pressure to below the saturated vapour pressure of water, causing the wood’s included moisture content to reduce through forced evaporation without “baking” the wood causing uneven drying (like the way your chicken gets crispy on the outside and moist on the inside).    So it’s even possible that wood dried to modern standards is more consistent than earlier timber stocks.   

To me, this is just more nostalgia and guitar geekery; like the “old violins are much better than new violins”. argument.  Violin aficionados desperately keep looking for reasons to rationalise their belief in this but it never withstands the harsh gaze of scientific scrutiny.

When there was a wood debate before, I did google it.  I found an academic paper that did show that there were changes in the structure of woods over time.  That was mainly looking at timber used in structures, where some of it was very old indeed (hundreds of years).

How quickly these things change, I do not know.

As well as how it ages, the wood may not be the same to start with.  The "Honduras" mahogany used by Gibson in the late 50s is a significantly less dense that the stuff used to make the modern factory production - as seen in the weight of the guitars, unless they have weight relief.

jaymenon

One Collings was a Soco with Lollar Imperial low winds - very lightweight (which I loved), vintage style low frets (which I didn't particularly care for). I also liked what I read about the company's ethos. But the moment I heard about the uncharge for ThroBaks, it just made me angry.

At the time I had a completely stock 1979 Yamaha SA700 (it now belongs to TTony) which sounded every bit as good as the Collings Soco - so Collings sort of 'fell' in my eyes.

I have a lot of respect for folk like Ash at Oil City and Marc at Mojo.  Some of Monty's research findings re: good PAFs vs bad PAFs make for logical and interesting reading - respect.

But to say that just because someone has bought the old machines that Gibson used to use their pickups are superior and we need to pay crazy money for them quite frankly just irritated me. And the fact that Collings was endorsing these pickups made me lose respect for Collings...

By that time, I had also myself put together a couple of partcasters - which really both sounded and played incredible (they were set up very nicely by a rather good guitar tech). So when I understood that there really is no magic to the recipe of a good electric guitar, the 'mystique' was sort of broken a bit for me...

The second Collings was an acoustic OM1, rather beautifully made, but really didn't sound that great. Also I remember an interview with Chris Martin IV who said 'if you buy a dreadnought / 000 / OM and it's not a Martin, I don't care how much you paid, you bought a copy'. And I thought he was right.

When I bought this one (below) which blows out of the water every other acoustic guitar I have ever played (and has its own individual design that isn't a copy of anything else), it was time for the OM1 to go.  

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/BNMVMbw.jpg)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/2l8Vm4E.jpg)

earwighoney

jaymenon said:

When I bought this one (below) which blows out of the water every other acoustic guitar I have ever played (and has its own individual design that isn't a copy of anything else), it was time for the OM1 to go.  

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/BNMVMbw.jpg)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/2l8Vm4E.jpg)

Read good things about the Maestro Raffles guitars.  What are the specs of your one?  Cedar over Mahogany?  

jaymenon

Spot on...earwighoney :-)

prowla

When I bought my vintage guitar it wasn't; I've just kept it a long time.

gringopig

.

musteatbrain

FelineGuitars said:

I like vintage guitars, but firmly believe that the beauty of them is in the playing, and not simply in the owning or bragging rights.

I also feel (and this is a very unpopular view) that they should be maintained and sensitively serviced, so when frets get way too low they get CAREFULLY refretted with appropriate wire gauges, so they can carry on being played and enjoyed.

I really like some examples of "player grade" guitars like the SG junior that @musteatbrain had us refret with jumbo wire, add anEarvana and make play like a beast. OMG that guitar was so tasty it gave us goosebumps

@FelineGuitars ;It will return to you one day.... i’m currently working on wearing down the frets again.
it probably needs new machine heads and a new scratch plate at some point in the not to distant future too.

Funkfingers

Jack_ said:
Once a vintage guitar becomes a commodity, what's the point?

Sound.

Danielsguitars

I think all vintage guitars should get played, it's what they were made for 

jumping@shadows

gringopig said:

I like vintage offsets and I've just bought another and I imagine it to have been carried in the back of a Huey in a raid into Viet-Cong territory in 1968 and got a wee bit of 'Agent Orange' spilled on the butt from a leaky tank.

I'm not much for concepts of 'mojo' and 'good wood' and all that stuff. I like a more scientific reasoned approach to it all but I love the idea of playing guitars that were made before I was born and have originated in the decade that birthed rock music.

I have re-fretted 2 of them and  5 in total and had the nut replaced on all 5 plus another vintage Jazzmaster. The owner of 2 of them kept the frets and nut original but these are to be played and they need to play well. I have swapped out tremelo collets and bars with Staytrem. No problem. 

Everyone who has played them has stated that they haven't played anything remotely as good from a modern era. As Eddie Vegas has said:

"real deal 100%"

Very valid comments save the Eddie Vegas endorsement- he’s in the long queue of the last men on earth to buy a vintage guitar from ;-)