1. Modern guitars are made
exactly the same that vintage guitars were made in the
old days. Sure, large pieces of
Brazilian rosewood are in short supply, but 98% of the
material used in the 40's and 50's is still available. In
many ways, the materials available today are superior. The
plastic in pickguards and pick-up covers is better made
today for example. The old Bakelite would crack and
discolor. The original Strat pick up covers from 1954 to
1956 broke so often that Fender stopped using the material.
Anybody trying to twist a "vintage" plastic tuning peg has
to say a hail Mary so the damn thing doesn't break off in
their fingers. There's a good reason that Grover tuners
were the rage in the 1960's and were almost de facto on your
Les Paul Standard at that time. It's because the original
pegs were pretty cheap. If you bought a Les Paul Custom,
which was a lot more money, Gibson threw in the gold
Grovers. But the stock pegs were really lame in many
cases. Tuning pegs on today's quality guitars are far
superior.
Electronics of today are
light years ahead of the stuff from the 1950's. Sure, for
the most part, a pick-up is a pick-up. It's hard to be
innovative with what is essentially a magnet with copper
wire around it! The law of diminishing returns starts to
apply. A humbucker is a very simple device. It was
wonderfully designed and improvements on it are possible but
the results will be negligible. HOWEVER! I am sick to death
of morons telling me that PAF's from the 50's sound better
than modern humbucking pick-ups. That's just a lie. Anybody
who knows anything about guitar electronics will tell you
that the sound of a guitar is not produced by the pick-up.
The pick-up is merely an amplifier. What you hear coming
out of your amp is the sound of the guitar AMPLIFIED by the
pick-up. So if the guitar sounds dead, doesn't sustain and
has flat wound strings on it, guess what? The guitar may
sound like crap; the PAF's aren't going to override the
guitar and magically make it sound like Eric Clapton on the
Bluesbreakers records!
In the early days of
vintage guitars, before all this stupidity took over, we
would swap the PAF's in our Flying V's, sunbursts and gold
tops trying to see if we could find some holy grail
pick-up. The thing I immediately noticed was that a set of
PAF's would sound a little different in every guitar. In
some it would sound amazing and in others it would just
sound average. Obviously, the pick-ups are only one factor
in the sound of a guitar. If the guitar sounded average or
bad with one set of PAF's, it tended to sound average or bad
with a set of PAF's from another guitar. When I say "bad" I
mean subtle differences like high end frequencies and
sustain. We wanted a lot of treble and endless sustain.
Some guitars just wouldn't do it no matter how many pick-ups
we'd stick in it. So people need to get over this attitude
that PAF's are somehow superior. PAF's are no better than
the pick-ups in the Les Paul hanging right now at your local
music store.
Anybody that doesn't
believe me should accept my $10,000.00 challenge. Just
bring your stock 1950's Les Paul to your favorite music
store. I'll pick the amp and I'll take down 3 new Les Pauls
off the store wall. Then I'll plug in while you stand 20
feet away with a blindfold on. You have to pick your guitar
out of the 4 when I play it. If you can't identify it
repeatedly with any true certainty, I keep your guitar. If
you can always tell which one is yours, you get $10,000.00!
Note From Ed
All the truly magical sounding Vintage guitars have
been scooped up by Billy Gibbons, Slash, Rick Neilson,
And other people who will never ever need to sell
them. So stop looking for something that you will
never find !!!
Let's talk about your 3
most valuable collector's items. The Les Paul, the Strat and
the Martin D-45. The Les Paul Standard from the 50's as we
all know, has a maple top (except for the Custom), mahogany
back sides and neck, two pick-ups, 4 control knobs, stop
tailpiece, tune-a-matic bridge, a toggle switch, an input
jack, some switch and control covers on the back and a
rosewood fretboard. By 1958, Gibson had refined that guitar
by redesigning the bridge and pick-ups but it has
essentially remained unchanged in design since 1952. In
1959 Gibson wisely went to a larger fret wire and Voila, the
guitar graduated and has been made exactly the same except
for decorative cosmetic changes ever since.
In 1954, Fender brought
out the Strat with an ash body, maple neck, plastic
pick-guard, 3 pick-ups, selector switch, and tremolo
bridge. The changes on the Strat over time were even less
dramatic than the Les Paul. All Fender changed for the first
4 years was the shape of the holes on the tremolo cover, the
pick-up cover material and the paint from two color two 3
color sunburst. Later years saw the advent of the rosewood
fingerboard, multi-laminate pickguards and by 1965, plastic
fingerboard markers and by 1966, a bigger headstock. Fender
makes an EXACT copy of their 1954 Strat as we all know along
with many other "vintage" designs culminating with the
ridiculous "relic" series in which you are paying the
manufacture of your new guitar to beat it up enough to make
it look old. And you pay EXTRA for that!
At the end of the 30's,
CF Martin introduced a remarkable large new style guitar
they christened (no pun intended) the D-45. They gave the
first one to Gene Autry and put his name on it. The first
few had twelve frets to the body and a slotted headstock. Later ones had a western style, unslotted headstock and 14
frets to the body. This guitar evolved far less than either
the Strat or the Les Paul. I believe less than a hundred
were made in the 30's and 40's. By the 1980's, you could
buy an exact copy of the first one made complete with Gene
Autry's name on it.
These are not 16th
century hand made Cremona violins. They are mass produced,
machine made commodities. A Les Paul or a Strat probably
takes 10 hours to make. If they didn't have to wait for the
paint to dry, they could probably make them in 5 hours.
(Even Less Time)
So you have to ask
yourself a question. Why the hell would I want to own an
original 1954 Strat when I can go buy the exact same guitar
in better condition with a warranty at my local music store
for about one percent of the price of a 1954? Why would I
want to buy a 1959 Les Paul sunburst that I'm afraid to take
out of it's case when I can go down to Guitar Center and buy
one with 5 times more flame for literally one percent of the
price of an old one? Why would I sell the house I live in
and sleep in my car to buy a Martin D-45 from the 1940's
when I can buy one cheap and sit in my living room and still
play "Stairway to Heaven" (badly) and have a place to sleep
at night? Frankly, I don't know the answer to those
questions.
NOTE FROM
ED
I will disagree with
that, I believe that a new guitar could potentially sound much
better. But the vibe of an old guitar is a powerful driving
force. People will always love antiques and people will always
make up reasons why the antiques are better. In some cases older
is better. Look at muscle cars for example. on the other
hand new cameras take far better pictures, New guns are much
more accurate, Clothing today could presumably outlast
it's owner. New cars run smoother and have luxuries like
GPS , TV's , power windows and electrically warmed seats etc.
New computers are better. Flashlights are 10 times brighter
and last longer. I could easily go on for hours. But "Teakers"
(people who love antiques) will continue to piss their
money away on old inferior made products and there is
nothing anyone can do about it. If they only
realized that most of them were counterfeits they
might wise up a little. Vintage guitar dealers
hate me and flame me for printing this.
2. Anytime you are buying
something used (vintage) you have to worry about the
provenance.
Okay, so you submitted to
the peer pressure and you bought a three hundred thousand
dollar guitar with the money grandma left you. The guy at
the vintage store said it was a good deal and even threw in
a set of strings. Question: Seeing how you spent three
hundred large, which was your life savings, did you wisely
insist on a certified history of the guitars ownership
making certain that the guitar has a clear title and wasn't
stolen back in 1963 out of the back seat of Larry
Nerdenmeyer's Impala? YOU DIDN'T? Do you plan on sanding
off the serial number? Do you ever plan on taking the
guitar out in public? Will you be exhibiting your Les Paul
soon at your local vintage guitar show? Seeing how you
don't really have the protection of an escrow service with
a title company, and you are effectively taking the word of
the seller as to the title of the guitar, you have to ask
yourself a question. What the hell are you gonna do if
Larry Nerdenmeyer (or his best friend) spots your guitar and
wants it back? Good luck getting the guy at the vintage
store to refund you the money, or even worse, the private
party that you bought it from!
Let me inform you of the
awful truth about this. Every vintage guitar dealer
eventually buys something stolen. Many times, the guy
selling the guitar to the dealer has no idea that the guitar
was once a stolen item. This stuff is OLD. It changes hands
a LOT. When the poor guy that had the guitar stolen founds
out you have it and asks for it back, keep in mind, he's not
going to reimburse you the 300 thousand. He will probably
have the cops with him and the cops will tell you the same
thing they told me and every other vintage dealer- you're
screwed. You lose the guitar. You have to hire a lawyer to
chase the vintage guitar store or private party that sold it
to you. The store that sold it to you will tell you it was
a consignment item, that they never owned it and they were
just selling it for a guy named Dick Gozinya and then they
will give you a P.O. Box in Biloxi, Mississippi and a cell
phone number that was disconnected two years ago. If
grandma was alive, she'd be bitch slapping your stupid ass
all over the back seat of the car you're living in.
Note From Ed
To quote Sam Kinnison in the movie " Back To School" I
like how this guy thinks, I couldn't have expressed this
much better than he has!!!!
3. The values are so high now that
Counterfeiting is commonplace.
Extreme valuations are causing
counterfeiting
I know a vintage dealer
in Hollywood that charges other vintage dealers a fee to
examine guitars to make sure they are all original. All of
these guys have been in the business for over 25 years and
you would think that they would always be able to spot
something that wasn't correct or original on a guitar. But
the truth is, some dealers are good and some are great. Once
in a while, even a really savvy dealer will buy something
refinished or modified and he won't spot it. Personally,
I've always thought that the issue of "originality" was way
overblown. In the late 60's and early 70's, vintage guitar
freaks like myself had no qualms about taking a really nice
blond 1959 Strat and converting it into a maple neck model
by swapping a 1958 neck on to it. We didn't have a problem
putting a set of PAF's we swiped out of a 1959 ES-175 into a
1956 Les Paul Gold Top to make it look like a 1959. I know
this is sacrilegious now and in retrospect I can't believe I
took a bitchin' 1959 candy apple red Telly and painted it
white! But it was a different time and nobody cared about
that stuff. It was more important to own a nice looking,
nice playing, nice sounding guitar. The fact that you
pirated a neck or stuck humbuckers on something was not a
big deal at all. Nowadays of course, the anal retentive
pinheads have charts that document exactly how much money
your guitar decreased in value when you had it refretted or
changed the tuners. Never mind the fact that the guitar had
no frets or wouldn't stay in tune. If these guys had their
way, you wouldn't be allowed to change your strings.
Now that guitars cost the
same as condos, the issue of originality has become
HUGE.
The trouble is, no one out there is knowledgeable enough to
know with 100% certainty that a guitar is all original.
I've owned and sold literally thousands of vintage guitars.
Over the years I've seen some amazing oddball stuff that was
highly unusual. I owned a 1960 ES-175 Gibson with a Charlie
Christian style pick-up and an L-5 style neck. I've owned a
1958 Strat with a gold anodized pickguard. I've owned a
double cutaway Gretsch White Penguin. I've owned a candy
apple red 1954 Strat. If you ask the average vintage
dealer, they'll tell you "the manufacturer never made
anything like that". Well, I'm here to tell you that THEY
DID! You have to remember when someone is telling you that
a guitar is all original, he is only really stating that the
guitar has all the typical features of a guitar from that
particular era.
Can you really be sure
that the neck on your 63 Strat is the one Fender put on it
and not another 63 neck from another guitar? Let me ask you
a question- do you think that every vintage store that got
two 63 Strats avoided the temptation to take that refretted
neck/original body guitar and swap parts with that original
neck/refinished body guitar? You're naive if you don't
think that went on. Hell, in the early days, stuff like
that was rampant. Once again, I'm not saying it was right;
it was a different time and the sensibility was different.
You had businessmen trying to make money.
NOTE FROM ED
I myself did it all through the 70's & 80's there were
probably 1000 instances in my Danbury store alone where
someone wanted a maple neck on a guitar that had a rosewood
board. Every single time I switched one I effectively
destroyed the originality of not one but two Fender guitars.
To say nothing of all the rewiring, swapping out of pickups,
tailpieces, brass nuts, Floyd Rose conversions, neck
reshaping, bridge mods, neck shims, etc. During the 50's &
60's I'm sure it was exactly the same way.
It never even occurred to me that this would someday reduce
the value of these guitars.
But never mind a few
people swapping parts, how about the people taking old necks
and electronics and putting them in re-issue bodies? Are
you sure you can spot that 100% of the time? How about the
counterfeit Gibson Korina Flying "V"'s and Explorers? I got
stuck with one of those and I've owned probably two dozen
original Korina pieces.
NOTE FROM ED
I myself once installed a Floyd Rose Tremolo in an original
korina Explorer. I also removed it and rebuilt the entire
body from new Korina years later. I would defy anyone to
tell that guitar from an original !!!
PS that guitar sold for $90.000.00 in 1992
By a dealer in Bristol Ct.
Did that brown Les Paul
case come with the vintage guitar you bought or did you buy
it later and put the two together? Is your guitar just in
extraordinary condition or was it refinished 20 years ago?
I've walked around a
guitar show and shown the same guitar to 30 different
dealers. Without a doubt, I'd usually get 10 different
opinions. It was always the guy that was telling me the
guitar was re-finished who would change his story completely
after he bought the guitar from me. Then the guitar became
100% original. So, seeing how you can't even trust the
opinion of the so-called experts some of the time, you have
to ask yourself a question: Is that $300,000.00 Les Paul you
bought completely original? Isn't that a little overspray,
I see behind the 3rd fret? What if it boils down to dealer
A's word against dealer B's word? The people in this
business are not trained at Harvard. They are people &
people make mistakes. Who are you going to turn to with
confidence when you need an expert opinion? Before you
answer that question I think you should know that in the
early 70's I spent a lot of time with the factory repairman
for Fender. He took a lot of damaged Fender Strats sent in
by customers and refinished them. I've seen these same
refinished guitars for sale at vintage shows as all
original. And you know what? They DO look all original. I
just hope you don't pay $50,000.00 for one!
NOTE FROM ED
BIG BIG BIG
BAD BAD BAD News for the vintage guitar
market. (Good news for vintage dealers)
In the 70's 80's or 90's there
was a devaluation for a "refin" slang for a refinished
guitar. I predict by 2010 there will be no such thing as a
refin. Now that everyone wants a relic all those good
condition guitar are bringing less money. Imagine this
for a minute. All the refins will be turned into
relic's therefore eliminating them from the ranks of
refinished guitars and effectively tripling their value.
So remember all those refins you didn't buy. Well you should
have bought them for roughly 500.00 each you could turn them
into extremely valuable original guitars (The Suckers will
line up to buy them)
DON'T BE A SUCKER
Wake up and smell the coffee.
4. There is NO guarantee that vintage guitars will hold
their value.
Let's face it. Vintage
guitars are only desirable because they have gone up
ridiculously in value in the past few years. If you manage
to buy one, hold on to it and sell it for a profit, you are
apparently a wise man. When I started dealing vintage
guitars in the early 70's, I'd sell a rosewood board from
the 60's for $400 and a maple neck from the 50"s for $600.
Last week I went to a show in Santa Monica and a vintage
dealer had 15 vintage guitars on display at a "Modernism"
show. Just what the guitars were doing there was a mystery
to me. Anyway, he had a really average '54 Strat on display
and it was tagged $100,000.00 He also had a nice white '65
Strat tagged $50,000.00 I walked up and said like a
smartass: "Selling lots of stuff?" He sort of hemmed and
hawed and said: "Well, this is just sort of an exhibition".
I had to suppress my laughter. I guess I'm supposed to
believe that the guitars I sold as recently as the mid 80's
have appreciated 15,000 percent? What's wrong with this
picture?
NOTE FROM ED
In 1976 I bought a nice 1957 Sunburst maple board Strat from
'The Guitar Lab" in New York City. I paid $400.00 cash and I
owned it for about 2 years. I didn't know too much about
guitars at the time. All I knew was this guitar would not
stay in tune, the action was high and it didn't sound as
good as my new Koa BC Rich Mockingbird. When I first got
into this business I was doing PA systems and recording
studios. Guitars didn't do much for me till the 80's. I
tried to sell the guitar for almost 3 years with no bites,
Finally I sold it to Vinnie Cusano AKA Vinnie Vincent. I
sold it for exactly what I paid for it and I heaved a sigh
of relief. $400.00 was a real lot of money back in those
days.
If you study
collectables, (as you should, because vintage guitars are
nothing more than collectables), you will know something
about the other collectable markets. Baseball cards, comic
books, vintage cars, and other kinds of collectables will
give you valuable insight into what happens and CAN happen
in this volatile market place. Baseball cards and comic
books were really hot in the 1990's. There was a time when
a baseball card collector would send his best cards off to a
company that specialized in the careful determination of the
exact condition of a particular card, seal it in plastic,
certify it and charge plenty for this process. Well, the
baseball card market has taken a huge bath. Prices have
dropped dramatically. Comic books have suffered a similar
fate. No one is completely sure why this happened. Some
people think Ebay made the availability too easy. Others
think it was just a fad that got played out. Ferraris that
sold for a million dollars at one point in the 70's dropped
to much less than half that a few years later.
NOTE FROM ED
I have never met anyone in the collectable business that I
could really trust.. I myself am an avid collector of
stamps, coins, comic books, guns, toy ray-guns, cameras,
binoculars, custom knives & switchblades. movie
posters, electric trains autographs, movie props and a host
of other crap that my wife wants to kill me for. Normally
when I deal with a custom knife maker who is making something
for me. These people are almost always straight up honorable
people. when I deal with a memorabilia guy selling comic
books or stamps it always ends in disaster for me. I have
been ripped off by these guys far too many times.
Memorabilia merchants are usually about as honest as car
dealers. Sadly I have to include myself in that gaggle
because I do deal in stage played rockstar owned guitars as
well as an occasional piece of memorabilia. I have a strong
passion for what I do and it disturbs me that many of my
contemporaries are less than honest.
The vintage guitar market
has done amazingly well. If you charted it, it would be
impressive. There have been huge gains in value in the past
ten years. I think that rock and roll and the electric
guitar have become cultural icons. What started as a small
club of geeks (myself included) grew exponentially and
caught fire all across America. Publicity about the
auctioning of guitars owned by rock stars became commonplace
on television. No other collectable can boast the success
story of that of the vintage American guitar. I wish I had
held on to a few sunbursts obviously, but only for one
reason- so I could cash out on them. I hate to be the Alan
Greenspan of the vintage guitar world but sorry ladies and
gentleman, there is irrational exuberance afoot in the
vintage guitar world. You have to ask yourself a question.
Does the fact that the guitars have steadily risen in price
mean that they will always be going up in value? Is it a
good investment to buy a Les Paul for $300,000.00? Do you
like to buy stocks when they are cheap or when they are at
their highest ever recorded levels? Will a Les Paul be
$500,000.00 in 10 years or will it be $200,000.00? or
$20,000.00? or less! The truth is that vintage guitars will
be a really good investment until they aren't. That's about
all you can say.
Do yourself a favor and
Google the word Tulipomania.
NOTE FROM ED
I googled it and this is what I got
The term tulip mania
(alternatively tulipomania) is used metaphorically to
refer to any large economic bubble. The term originally came
from the period in the history of the Netherlands during
which demand for tulip bulbs reached such a peak that
enormous prices were charged for a single bulb. It took
place in the first part of the 17th century, especially in
1636–37.
The event is remembered in part
because of its extended discussion in the book
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,
written by popular British journalist Charles Mackay in
1843, more than two centuries after the event. Mackay
omitted mentioning that during 1636-37, the Netherlands
suffered from an epidemic of bubonic plague, and severe
setbacks in the Thirty Years War Modern scholars consider
the event much less extraordinary than did Mackay.
Obsession with various plant groups
has happened a number of times
5. How do you protect and
insure a valuable vintage guitar collection?
Okay, you have two
sunbursts, a Broadcaster and a 1954 Strat. You called your
insurance man and told him that you own guitars with a total
value of $800,000.00. Yeah, he hung up on you a couple of
times until you finally convinced him you weren't prank
calling him. After his secretary revived him with smelling
salts, he told you that he have to call the homeowners
insurance company and "check into it". After a couple of
weeks of waiting, you call the guy and he says "I can't get
an answer". After two more weeks, he calls you again and
says: "We can't do it". Next you try a company that
specializes in vintage gear. You get a quote for $8000.00
However, the guitars are "only covered for fire, theft or
water damage". You are chagrined to discover that if you
manage to drop your Les Paul on the floor and break off the
headstock, you aren't covered for that! You also aren't
covered if the neck warps because you are afraid to take it
out of the case or if the top on your D-45 cracks because
you forgot to leave the air conditioning on in July when you
went on vacation. And don't even think about picking them
up and strumming them! They are far too valuable and you
have to protect this $800,000.00 Unfortunately, unlike
money in the bank, your guitars take up space, are
susceptible to damage, are vulnerable to temperature and
moisture and draw no interest while they are sitting in your
closet. And for God's sake, don't show them to anyone and
don' tell anyone you own them!
The safest thing to do is
put them in a bank vault ($400 a month) and just keep
pictures of them at home that you can look at!
6. Nobody Cares But YOU and
a few other guys that haven't discovered girls yet!
Besides collecting
vintage guitars, I've collected a variety of interesting
things over the years. I loved coins when I was a kid.
Stamps soon followed. Comic books and baseball cards were a
blast. Eventually, of course, you outgrow these things.
One of the last things I collected was vintage clothing-
especially rayon Hawaiian shirts from the 40's. I had a
couple of mint condition old shirts that I loved to wear on
the rare occasions when I felt like putting them on. It was
always a kick in the ass when I'd show up in my beautiful
1940's Duke Kahanamoku shirt and people would have no
reaction. I expected them to think my hobby was as cool as
I thought it was. Guess what? Nobody cares!
NOTE FROM ED
I love this guys attitude. I can
really see the parallels between us !!!!
Take your finest vintage
guitar and walk up to a guy on the street and show it to
him. Don't expect him to start salivating and scream at the
top of his lungs "Oh my God, a vintage guitar!". He's far
more likely to think you are just weird and say "Yes, your
guitar is very nice; you'll have to excuse me now as I have
a girlfriend and we are going to be engaging in adult
activities".
Only the middle aged,
amateur unwashed musicians of the world who happened to be
familiar with the fact that you have an old guitar will want
to be your friend. Once again, you will have to ask
yourself a question- Do I really want to hang out with these
people? However, if you sell your guitars and put that
$800,000.00 in the bank, you will have tons of new friends!
7. Guitars are just tools.
For the life of me, I don't
understand how the focus somehow shifted from the man
playing his guitar to the guitar itself. A guitar in the
hands of a novice is not exactly a pleasant experience for
the listener. It's best to learn guitar in your bedroom
with the door shut behind you. Once someone has become an
accomplished musician, the guitar can be a joy to listen
too. It is truly a versatile, beautiful sounding
instrument. This fact seems to be lost on the vintage
guitar collector. Collectors frequently can't play worth a
damn. The guitars are wasted on them. It's not about
making music or learning to play; it's about hoarding a
valuable commodity. You can only play one guitar at a time.
You don't need 400 of them sitting in a warehouse. Investing
is not my idea of fun. I've never seen a group of investors
get together to compare portfolios and show off their
accumulated wealth. I'd much rather play a guitar than look
at one. I love playing guitar with my buds and throwing
back a few cold ones. Guitars are just tools for making
music. It's too bad they got turned into something else. No
one collects the computers that writers write books with or
the paint brushes that great artists paint great paintings
with. Why would anyone want to hoard an old guitar? I
don't get it. Life shouldn't be just about making money.
It's bad enough we all have to chase a dollar to survive.
People should own an instrument that they can afford and
aren't afraid to play. You don't need a 1954 Strat to play
good music. It's not the guitar itself that is the
important thing. The important thing is to learn to play and
enjoy yourself doing it.
The above
article was written by Frank Lucido of Studio City
California
NOTE FROM ED
I beg to disagree here with some of this.
Personally I collect guitars, I own approximately 100 of
them myself. Very few are for investment, most of them are
beautifully executed works of art. I'm proud to say that I
don't own any Gibson Guitars at all. Even my Eric Clapton
Fool guitar is not made by Gibson. We made it in my shop. a
handmade neck through body high quality beautiful piece of
art that I still love to stare at. I don't own to many Fender
guitars either (However I am looking for a set of Japanese
made Hellecaster models and I am also looking for a Japanese
made Performer bass and/or guitar.
I also deal with numerous boutique collectors who play quite
well, Most of the Vintage collectors are the ones who can't
play to save their lives. (There are always exceptions to
both rules)
I collect guitars for the same reason I collect stamps,
guns, knives and art. Because they are beautiful to look at
and I love them. Currently I am on a kick collecting
crossbows !!!!
Ed Roman's Rules
For Smart Guitar Investors
If you want
to invest in guitars they are usually great investments.
If you are smart and
buy when they are new instead of 30 years later !!!!
Never ever ever ever pay a premium cache up
front !!!
If the manufacturer has
preloaded a huge cache up front, Then you are the world's
biggest sucker if you buy into that. Some examples to stay
away from. Overpriced limited editions, Overpriced imported
guitars !!!
If buying an expensive guitars
look for quality & workmanship not hype.
Stradivarius Violins will
always increase because the quality is there. You are buying
into hype but nowhere near as much as if you were stupid
enough to buy a $12,000.00 Gibson Eric Clapton 335 that
should have sold for $2,395.00 or a $30,000.00 Charvel Eddie
Van Halen Relic that should have sold for $3,595.00 at the
most.
Never buy anything that has
already skyrocketed !!
unless maybe you want to
complete a collection or the price is really right.
It's OK to buy into the
hype on a fair priced guitar!
Hype can be fun, collecting is supposed to
be fun. It's no fun finding out that you paid stupid money
for something that will never increase in value to the point
of what you paid.
Generally
stay away from one of a kind guitars !!
Unless it's from a smaller builder who is known to you. PRS
would be a safe bet on a one of a kind but Gibson or Fender
would definitely not be safe. You have to remember collector
investing is all about one-upsmanship. If there are no
others to compare to then my guitar can't be better than
your guitar.
na na na na naaaaaa na....
Artist
Models Are Good!!!!
Especially American made ones that are not stupidly priced.
Say for example you wanted to collect all the Fender artist
series guitars. They cost a little more, however the prices
are usually fair. In the case of Gibson the prices are
outlandish!!! Only a fool would invest in Gibson's artist
models. They are simply charging so much that it would take
30 years for the market to catch up with what they are
charging today. $30,000.00 for a Jimmy Page Doubleneck
"Give me a break" or $7,900.00
for a Neil Schon Les Paul "I was born
at night but not last night". Run like Hell
from those deals !!!!!
If you are filthy rich & you
want to convince everyone that you are.
Then this article is not for
you.
I strongly agree
with much of this article except for the fact that I
don't think he has covered all the reasons. I believe there
are other reasons besides what he has listed.
Note from Ed regarding the interjections
in blue !!!!
These are little interjections that I have added in. These
are not the writing of the original author,
I have used the color blue and I have put them all in
Italics so as not to confuse or Plagiarize anyone.
I truly hope that you got
a little knowledge from this article and that it saves you
some money over the years to come. If you have already made
some mistakes, don't get discouraged, maybe if you move
quickly enough you can still break even or possibly even
make money.
Ed Roman 2008
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