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Investment guitars

style0

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Jun 4, 2006
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I don't have a bunch of guitars or money to buy guitars; but my hobby is to predict what's going be hot soon in the vintage community. This year it's going to be "walnut" Gibsons.
 

bizzwriter

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Oct 23, 2002
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Hmmm...okay. Was never a fan of walnut Gibsons, whether SGs or ESs or whatever.

Will be interesting to see if you're right.

p.s. What was your prediction for what was going to be hot in 2016?
 

style0

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Hmmm...okay. Was never a fan of walnut Gibsons, whether SGs or ESs or whatever.

Will be interesting to see if you're right.

p.s. What was your prediction for what was going to be hot in 2016?

"Specials" I was kinda right.
 

treeofpain

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Aug 1, 2004
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The answer used to be, "Whatever guitar the next rock star is playing", but we don't have rock stars anymore. :-(
 

style0

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Very true. I guess the barometer is Joe Bonamassa now; and he collects EVERYTHING!
 

57gold

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Jan 14, 2005
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691
There are no "investment guitars"...only guitars to play and enjoy.

Vintage market is not robust and values are NOT increasing year over year.

Once in a while, a great vintage burst, GT or V gets a nice premium price...but that's not the basis for an investment thesis.

On the other hand, if you need to justify an pricey purchase with the significant other...it's a possible BS argument. Just hope the significant other doesn't do any research with vintage dealers!
 

crashbelt

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Apr 10, 2016
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Very true. I guess the barometer is Joe Bonamassa now; and he collects EVERYTHING!

Look forward to seeing Joe playing a 70s walnut 335 this year. He'd sound brilliant playing the worst Norlin dog anyway!!
 

57gold

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Look forward to seeing Joe playing a 70s walnut 335 this year. He'd sound brilliant playing the worst Norlin dog anyway!!

Naw...he NEEDS a 1972 Les Paul Deluxe, tomato soup non-book matched plain as vanilla top, sandwich body, laminated neck weighing 11lbs featuring those nasty mini hum buckers...
 

deytookerjaabs

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Look forward to seeing Joe playing a 70s walnut 335 this year. He'd sound brilliant playing the worst Norlin dog anyway!!

Naw...he NEEDS a 1972 Les Paul Deluxe, tomato soup non-book matched plain as vanilla top, sandwich body, laminated neck weighing 11lbs featuring those nasty mini hum buckers...



Makes sense, I used to teach at a vintage shop and witnessed countless examples of dudes dogging a 70's guitar without touching one, then I'd plug it in for fun and the big mouths wouldn't be so big for the next minute or two.

About 20 years of taking those guitars through gigs, sessions, music school, vintage shows, shops etc and I'm still trying to figure out how awful they are. I must be tone deaf.
 

Strings Jr.

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Jan 17, 2016
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I don't have a bunch of guitars or money to buy guitars; but my hobby is to predict what's going be hot soon in the vintage community. This year it's going to be "walnut" Gibsons.


Sounds good to me.


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57gold

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Makes sense, I used to teach at a vintage shop and witnessed countless examples of dudes dogging a 70's guitar without touching one, then I'd plug it in for fun and the big mouths wouldn't be so big for the next minute or two.

A good player can make music from a piece of crap guitar, on that we agree.

I saved up, two years of paper route, babysitting, and carrying golf bags (doubles, two rounds Saturday and one on Sunday) to buy a 1972 LP Deluxe in 1972...piece of very heavy/dead/over finished junk, was 13 and didn't know better. It was made better when I installed some 1956 P90s from a GT that was converted to PAFs after owning it for a year, killed some of the innate nasty shrillness. Still have it, never play it...because have several pre-Norlin Gibsons that put it to shame.

You might be tone deaf if you can't hear the difference and/or be a great player that can make music from a turd. Then again there may be some nice examples that Norlin didn't mess up...I have never played one that I thought was special, but I'm sure they must exist.
 

duaneflowers

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I purchase Les Pauls as a combination of investment and enjoyment... as an investment, my little collection has risen in value an average of about 30%... in enjoyment points, the percentage is in the thousands... :teeth
 

57gold

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Duaneflowers - When did you buy them?

Own/owned about 35 vintage pre Norlin and pre CBS guitars...almost all worth @ 3 to 4 times what I paid for them, but almost all were purchased before the Clapton auction in 1999, which brought investor/non-player attention to the vintage guitar market in size.

Post crash (2008) there was a significant drop in values and thereafter little price appreciation. The dealers I have know for decades say to a person that the vintage market is as slow as it has ever been in US. High dollar has had an impact and the aging of the baby boom has created sellers who once were the key buyers.
 

deytookerjaabs

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A good player can make music from a piece of crap guitar, on that we agree.

I saved up, two years of paper route, babysitting, and carrying golf bags (doubles, two rounds Saturday and one on Sunday) to buy a 1972 LP Deluxe in 1972...piece of very heavy/dead/over finished junk, was 13 and didn't know better. It was made better when I installed some 1956 P90s from a GT that was converted to PAFs after owning it for a year, killed some of the innate nasty shrillness. Still have it, never play it...because have several pre-Norlin Gibsons that put it to shame.

You might be tone deaf if you can't hear the difference and/or be a great player that can make music from a turd. Then again there may be some nice examples that Norlin didn't mess up...I have never played one that I thought was special, but I'm sure they must exist.


I think there is a huge difference between "Doesn't work for me" and...."Turd" or "Crappy" etc. I've seen and experienced it too many times. Yet lots of people just have that mentality if they can't embrace a guitar's quirks said guitars must be awful en masse.
 

duaneflowers

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Duaneflowers - When did you buy them?

Own/owned about 35 vintage pre Norlin and pre CBS guitars...almost all worth @ 3 to 4 times what I paid for them, but almost all were purchased before the Clapton auction in 1999, which brought investor/non-player attention to the vintage guitar market in size.

Post crash (2008) there was a significant drop in values and thereafter little price appreciation. The dealers I have know for decades say to a person that the vintage market is as slow as it has ever been in US. High dollar has had an impact and the aging of the baby boom has created sellers who once were the key buyers.

Nothing vintage, but most of the high ticket ones were purchased in the last 7 years. My calculation of 'value increase' is a bit different than that of the average collector though. I purchased them all in Japan using US$ when the Dollar/Yen conversion rate was at its peak... So, for example, a $10,000 guitar purchase in Japan would only put a $7,000 ding on my US credit card and I can turn around and sell it today at that actual $10,000 for a very real 30% profit. This is not based on the actual value of the guitar, but rather on the value of the yen. If the yen drops down to where it was just 20 years ago, that will bring my 'profit' up to 50%. Rather than buying guitars I hope will increase in value I was content to purchase those that would merely hold their value... and just enjoy them in the meantime while the international currency exchange did its thing.
 

57gold

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I think there is a huge difference between "Doesn't work for me" and...."Turd" or "Crappy" etc. I've seen and experienced it too many times. Yet lots of people just have that mentality if they can't embrace a guitar's quirks said guitars must be awful en masse.

Agree that every instrument has to be evaluated independently on it s own terms. May be some great Norlin era Gibsons; a good buddy loves his recently acquired 1969 Super 400...though, I believe that Norlin cost cutters/engineers did less immediate damage to Gibson archtop department.

Then there is the fact that one man's dog is another's dream instrument...thinking about the 1980s "super Strats" many with very heavy maple bodies, Floyd Rosed and EMG pickups (think Valley Arts)...played by many high profile pros in the day. Different strokes.
 

deytookerjaabs

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Agree that every instrument has to be evaluated independently on it s own terms. May be some great Norlin era Gibsons; a good buddy loves his recently acquired 1969 Super 400...though, I believe that Norlin cost cutters/engineers did less immediate damage to Gibson archtop department.

Then there is the fact that one man's dog is another's dream instrument...thinking about the 1980s "super Strats" many with very heavy maple bodies, Floyd Rosed and EMG pickups (think Valley Arts)...played by many high profile pros in the day. Different strokes.


Someone on TGP put it like this:

2. Then there are the minihumbucker pickups that came on a lot of 70's LP's, and well - they just don't sound like a proper humbucker, so imagine you are a 70's kid who has seen your idol play an LP and getting "that" sound from it and then spend your hard earned money on a real Gibson (!), and discover that it sounds like a cross between a strat and a P-90 only with more treble... First thing you do if you are smart enough to know what's going on is obviously to route it to put full size humbuckers in there, and if not, well, a couple of decades later you remember 70's LP's as being shrill and trebly...

:laugh2:
 

57gold

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Or if you spent $325 on a 1972 Deluxe at age 13...$1,900 in 2017 dollars. You were out of funds when you figured out the mini-Hum tonal issue. Routing for PAFs was an expensive proposition, if you could find someone who did it...LPF has seen some serious butcher jobs from this era.

Paid like $20/each for 1956 P90s...the guy who sold them to me had the 1956 LP GT they came out of...it was his main guitar. Not much else one could do with spare creme covered P90s. Can remember the instructor of jazz band at rehearsal say, "wow, your guitar sounds much better, fuller...what did you adjust?" first rehearsal after doing the PU swap.
 

deytookerjaabs

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Yes, things can trend down but they usually go back up. I was looking at those anniversary strats (which I think are great) & 70's Strats in general....talk about a freefall from a couple years back but at some point they'll rebound. Meanwhile, 70's Gibsons are selling for more & more every day it seems (uhg, gonna miss the boat) so not silly to think they'll continue.


I think the vintage market pre-'85 is a darn safe bet for the most part. Production totals on a monthly basis these days dwarf what the retailers were putting out on a yearly basis. Even if mass interest wanes you still have the older stuff in much smaller numbers.

As for the REALLY expensive stuff, again, safe bet if you buy a bit low. Go figure, when the market tanked so did the vintage market, it doesn't require a huge fan base, just enough people riding the historical gravy boat need to be interested to make it flow because there just aren't as many out there. We thought 20 years ago our customer base of 50/60 year olds meant an impending crash...nope, lol. Plenty of 40/50 years olds now to scoop up the next collections to go on market.
 
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