old guitar prices

darthed1981

marantz1300 said:

I wasn't saying what's it worth.

Just prices seem to be on the up .

Prices of everything are going up at the minute, its scary.

Even new cheap guitars, the classic vibe squiers used to go for about £300 when they first came out, list is now £100-150 more.

richardhomer

Ianpdq said:

I wish I could get rid of my Burns the are not selling that well

Savlon and a light dressing held by surgical tape is probably your best bet....

peteri

I would also add - don't forget the weak pound.

Effectively importing from the US is priced out of the market - so supply is even tighter.

Honestly - I think 3k for a early 3 bolt strat is ok. They're way better than a lot - and relative to a late 60's that's good value

It's all relative

vale

some of it may be this cash-in-your-pension-early thing, throwing a lot of lquidity into the market at once. it hothouses prices & creates price spikes.

it also creates a supply hangover for years afterwards, as people cling to stuff rather than sell it at a loss, even though demand has actually cooled. stockpiling rather than selling pinches supply stopping prices falling too quickly.
but it's dead money in investment terms. rising inflation (about to hit uk) makes static prices losses. demand cooling & credit drying up is where things are going.

my prediction long term (10-20) is that prices for vintage gear will stall/fall, as so much of the vintage gear market is currently in the hands of babyboomers, who will soon need to convert gear into medical funds, as nhs/care services are pared down & radically means-tested.

& taxes on capital will rise as the younger property poor generation (currently not even able to vote) comes to make up a bigger proprtion of the electorate. bigger progressive taxes on property/assets will become ok politically, while it is being resisted with grey numbers now.

maybe overseas investors will keep prices afloat to a degree, but (domestically speaking) brit under 40s (& esp under 30s) won't be taking that gear off them for the price they paid for it. they will never have disposable income to the degree the current genration has. property ownership going down the toilet means money they would have spent on gear will be rent for the forseable.

most under 30 musicians i know have maybe one decent fender/gibson/equiv (maybe vintage) guitar & the rest sub £300 squier/epiphone/ibanez. they just can't afford to collect & hoard as the genration above them has got used to doing.

a cultural & demographic perspective.

guitars4you

ICBM said:

guitars4you said:

Some used prices totally baffle me and maybe an original Fender 70's Starcaster is a good example - 20/30 years ago you couldn't give them away for £300-500 - hard sell indeed - Now since then one thing, for sure, has not changed and that is that the guitar has not got better one-iota with age during that period - granted it is an acquired taste - But now 3k or 4K baffles me - If they are selling then I suppose you can say they are worth it, but I'd be petrified having one on my books around that price

It's arguable that they were underpriced then - they were quite well-made by 70s Fender standards, and a very distinctive and quite rare guitar. No-one wanted them until the chap from the Killers (and maybe Radiohead? Not sure) started using them, then they became cool…

I've always hated the carpet-slipper headstock personally, but I don't think they're massively overpriced at £3K… at least not given that people seem to pay nearly that for much less interesting 70s Fenders, and really silly money for older ones - which *can* be nice, but are often really quite average.

I agree in general about a lot of old guitars though.

Interesting observation - jump back in time 10/20 years ago, when Starcasters had an odd ball appeal about them, with prices somewhat below  par - So customer A thinks I'm not buying that as no one plays them and they are relatively cheap - A few years later, Dave from The Killers decides to buy one - Prices now sky rocket, so now they must be cool, plus cool is good, so Customer A thinks I better buy one now - Why does it take a famous name for customer A to buy it  - Why did he not buy The Starcaster before hand, when prices were far more attractive and  relatively few players wanted one - Why doesn't he set the trend, or beat the trend, whilst prices are in his favour, especially if it is a guitar he likes the feel, vibe and tone of - Just buy it

I think it was Johnny Ramone who was somewhat miffed about how much a replacement Mosrite cost him, after his was stolen - The prices had risen strongly on the back of him using one

My point is, buy it because you like it - and in time to come, if they become cool and prices fly north, you can either cash in, or smile as you set/beat the trend and in doing so have saved a fortune - Dave from The Killers appeared not to buy it because he was influenced by a name artist - ditto K Cobain, ditto J Ramone, ditto Van Halen and to a large degree ditto Hendrix as Strats were not that popular in the mid 60s - They were all original, so you be original yourself

guitars4you

vale said:

my prediction long term (10-20) is that prices for vintage gear will stall/fall, as so much of the vintage gear market is currently in the hands of babyboomers, who will soon need to convert gear into medical funds, as nhs/care services are pared down & radically means-tested.


most under 30 musicians i know have maybe one decent fender/gibson/equiv (maybe vintage) guitar & the rest sub £300 squier/epiphone/ibanez. they just can't afford to collect & hoard as the genration above them has got used to doing.

a cultural & demographic perspective.

I think these are valid points - Via many guitars shows I exhibit at, I see plenty of 50-80 year old players, who are talking about off loading their 50's and 60's guitars - obviously mainly Fenders and Gibsons - And at the prices they are hinting at, I don't currently see the next generation of players, often under 30 or 40, wanting to buy into this high priced market

I had a chat recently with a customer wanting to sell an early 60's Strat that he had purchased for around £150 around 50 years ago - He was talking about not letting it go below 8K  - I asked him 'would you buy it for £8K' and he said 'no' - I now asked  'if you won't pay 8K for it then why would you expect some one else to ' 

Part of me has seen these prices rise for many years and I dare say that after every boom or recession and prices have travelled north, a similar discussion has taken place amongst guitar players about these high prices - Be it a 62 Strat when they were £300, 3k or 8K - yet they have always sold - So market forces have justified these prices - Will it continue ?

Strat54

I see Paul McCartney's guitarist Brian Ray just paid £30k for a '53 Tele from Guncotton guitars so its not just the collectors snapping up the good stuff. Guys like John Mayer, JD Simo, Joe Bonamassa, Davy Knowles are all choosing the vintage stuff over the new and this is having an effect on the choices of their 40+ age fans, a lot of whom are pretty wealthy.
Lots of younger players buying up and gigging refin 50's Tele's too like Mason Stoops and Julian Lage, I guess these look good value compared to new wood $8k Masterbuilts, and if you can't afford the 50's/60's guitars then the next best thing in their minds is a 70's guitar......despite what we think about them. The old is good analogy rubs off along the line and nostalgia adds a few quid too.

p90fool

A lot of it is nostalgia, I've seen 1980-ish Westburys and Hondos being advertised for PRS Se money lately.
Not terrible guitars, but nobody's lifelong dream either, surely?

vale

guitars4you said:

I had a chat recently with a customer wanting to sell an early 60's Strat that he had purchased for around £150 around 50 years ago - He was talking about not letting it go below 8K  - I asked him 'would you buy it for £8K' and he said 'no' - I now asked  'if you won't pay 8K for it then why would you expect some one else to '

aka 'greater fool theory'.

"The greater fool theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants. A price can be justified by a rational buyer under the belief that another party is willing to pay an even higher price. In other words, one may pay a price that seems "foolishly" high because one may rationally have the expectation that the item can be resold to a "greater fool" later."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

ICBM

guitars4you said:

Interesting observation - jump back in time 10/20 years ago, when Starcasters had an odd ball appeal about them, with prices somewhat below  par - So customer A thinks I'm not buying that as no one plays them and they are relatively cheap - A few years later, Dave from The Killers decides to buy one - Prices now sky rocket, so now they must be cool, plus cool is good, so Customer A thinks I better buy one now - Why does it take a famous name for customer A to buy it  - Why did he not buy The Starcaster before hand, when prices were far more attractive and  relatively few players wanted one - Why doesn't he set the trend, or beat the trend, whilst prices are in his favour, especially if it is a guitar he likes the feel, vibe and tone of - Just buy it

I think it was Johnny Ramone who was somewhat miffed about how much a replacement Mosrite cost him, after his was stolen - The prices had risen strongly on the back of him using one

My point is, buy it because you like it - and in time to come, if they become cool and prices fly north, you can either cash in, or smile as you set/beat the trend and in doing so have saved a fortune - Dave from The Killers appeared not to buy it because he was influenced by a name artist - ditto K Cobain, ditto J Ramone, ditto Van Halen and to a large degree ditto Hendrix as Strats were not that popular in the mid 60s - They were all original, so you be original yourself

I totally agree. Obviously I have been influenced by my heroes, but I've never felt it necessary to play the same guitars, and I've usually bought them simply because I liked them. Currently none of my guitars are used by anyone I 'follow', with the exception of my Gibson Dove (KT Tunstall), and that's not why I bought it.

I nearly bought a Starcaster in about 1989 I think - from memory it was about £400 - but I couldn't get past the headstock...

thebreeze

vale said:

maybe overseas investors will keep prices afloat to a degree, 

a cultural & demographic perspective.

That's an interesting perspective you gave.

However, the market for vintage guitars is nearly altogether international these days and will increasingly be that way.  So what happens in China, the States, Japan, Russia, the Far East, Africa even, over the next 20 years will influence the market for vintage guitars - and that goes back to TTony's point about supply and demand.  What happens in Blighty (and I agree with much of your analysis) will be neither here nor there IMO. 

Voxman

vale said:

guitars4you said:

I had a chat recently with a customer wanting to sell an early 60's Strat that he had purchased for around £150 around 50 years ago - He was talking about not letting it go below 8K  - I asked him 'would you buy it for £8K' and he said 'no' - I now asked  'if you won't pay 8K for it then why would you expect some one else to '

aka 'greater fool theory'.

"The greater fool theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants. A price can be justified by a rational buyer under the belief that another party is willing to pay an even higher price. In other words, one may pay a price that seems "foolishly" high because one may rationally have the expectation that the item can be resold to a "greater fool" later."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

Yes, but as we all know - eg on stock markets - markets intrinsically react to market (or 'investor') sentiment, where values fall or rise not because of fundamental underlying valuation processes but by what the collective market thinks.  You also get situations where false market indicators promote market sentiment and changes to actual values.  There's another current example on Yamaha SG2000 prices (the subject of much discussion on an earlier thread). A 'known' individual seems to be buying these up and selling at over-inflated prices.  So, lets say an average condition SG2000 is actually worth £800, but they start selling for £2,400, and then you see one at half that price, £1,200 and snap it up because you think its a bargain.  But in reality you've over-paid by £400 - you've been manipulated by the market.  But then at some time, if enough buyers sellers agree on the higher values and there is demand that begins to outweigh supply, then that becomes the true market value.  And that's exactly what's happened with Vintage guitars.  Its like someone the other day putting up a LP owned by Ace Frehely of Kiss for an over-inflated $1m...and someone subsequently buying it for say $750k and thinking they've got a bargain because they saved $250,000 (example only - I've no idea what happened to that guitar).  

In theory TGFT tends to relate more to smaller numbers on more specialist items, and market sentiment tends to relate to 'collective' sentiment of a larger market population.  But the 'greater fool' and market sentiment theories all begin to merge. Its all bullshit but that's how it is.  As long as you have stupid, rich people who will pay through the nose for something, markets will be driven by them.  The same theories apply to art, classic rare cars, specialist jewellery etc.  But then if the value myth perpetuates and prices keep going up & they sell at huge profit, then they are not so stupid. 

Personally I think you're way safer buying a guitar and assessing its value to you as an instrument to play & enjoy, rather than buying it as an investment.  The other problem is that as 'vintage' guitar prices rise, there is a greater chance of more fakes (full or partial) hitting the markets.  Regardless of how much money I had I simply wouldn't buy a vintage guitar eg pre-cbs Strat today, partly because prices are just plain stupid and couldn't afford it, and partly because I wouldn't know who to trust to buy a 100% genuine one and even sellers that are 100% genuine may not know that their guitar isn't 100% genuine.  Its a crazy minefield.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketsentiment.asp

Stuckfast

There is a similar thing going on in the world of vintage synthesizers, too. In a sense it is even more inexplicable there, because vintage synths can be a nightmare to maintain, and you can buy new instruments that are demonstrably much much better than the old ones.

There's a Roland Juno 60 listed in the current Gardiner Houlgate auction with an estimate of between £1000-£1500. That's crazy money for something that was always a very basic synth. New instruments like the Dave Smith Prophet 08 or Behringer DeepMind 12 are so much better it's not even funny and will probably cost less. 

guitars4you

Voxman said:

Personally I think you're way safer buying a guitar and assessing its value to you as an instrument to play & enjoy, rather than buying it as an investment.  The other problem is that as 'vintage' guitar prices rise, there is a greater chance of more fakes (full or partial) hitting the markets.  Regardless of how much money I had I simply wouldn't buy a vintage guitar eg pre-cbs Strat today, partly because prices are just plain stupid and couldn't afford it, and partly because I wouldn't know who to trust to buy a 100% genuine one and even sellers that are 100% genuine may not know that their guitar isn't 100% genuine.  Its a crazy minefield.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketsentiment.asp

Very valid - And I tend to now run my store on a similar basis regarding stock and yes buying and selling within a comfort zone - I don't want to have this big debate about is a 64 Strat that might be listed on my web site, original or not - stripping it down 10 times for each potential customer - I ask myself many times now that am I losing it because I don't understand that a Starcaster is selling for 3-4K - what have I missed - apply that principle to many guitars, including a Travis Bean to be sold next week at G&H auction with an expected price of 2-3K - I don't want to invest my business funds into any guitars that I feel uncomfortable with

I have fancied buying a Gibson 59 DC LP for a while now, for myself - I keep looking and not really finding the ideal candidate - 10 days ago I purchased a new Feline Lion Cub from the Brum Show - and it ticks so any boxes regarding tonal character and playing performance - It ain't vintage but I've already gotten over that fact because it performs so well - I'm so content with it and can't find a negative issue with it

Ref fake vintage pieces, or such guitars with contentious issues, part of me states look for player grade examples at the right price - I recently sold a pre-CBS partsocaster - The Strat came in with so many different parts from different aged Strats - all parts pre 69 most pre 64 - But it was effectively a 'Clapton' Blackie from multiple guitars - But I could acquire it at a good price - I put the body/neck together (I recall one was 61 and one 64), yet stripped off all other parts and sold them separately as spares - I then re-built the Strat - refret - plugged the holes for all the hardware etc - Fitted a complete set of aged fat Boy Guitar replica parts and a set of Amalfitano pickups - In short it was a great guitar when finished - sold it for 2K and the customer loves it  as a gigging guitar - Granted you don't get many such guitars to do this with - I would not strip down a clean guitar, but as this one was already a 'mess' than no issues as far as I was concerned as any 'negative damage' had already been done over the previous years

I heard a great quote some months ago about a vintage guitar and that how do you really know it is original - If you see say a 62 Strat for sale at a car boot sale for £75, then you can pretty much guarantee it is original as the buyer has no clue as to what it is worth - If it was 5-8K the debate immediately starts - such stories are ultra rare now but you get my point

Strat54

Seems there's a rise in pretty much all guitars as they age. Today I noticed an ebay dealer with a '93 '52 Re-issue for £1699 which is a couple of hundred more than a 2017 '52 and £400 more than an used 2015 '52. Now I'm not sure that 1993 was a halcyon year for AVRI's but dealers are starting to push the prices up. Look what happened with the pretty dreadful 'Fullerton' era vintage re-issues....one minute they were £600 the next £2000 plus. There's a lot of perception involved. The same goes for PRS, new ones depreciate for fun but 'old school' PRSi are all £2k plus. First it was the 1980's PRS, then the 90/91's due to the still brazilian rosewood boards and now 92/93's are often priced above that of a new guitar. Its not strictly a supply/demand thing either, I see some of these year boundary moves and price increases as being dealer led too. 

thermionic

ICBM said:

 
I nearly bought a Starcaster in about 1989 I think - from memory it was about £400 - but I couldn't get past the headstock...

It doesn't look so bad if you have a black curtain as your stage backdrop.

ICBM

thermionic said:

ICBM said:

I nearly bought a Starcaster in about 1989 I think - from memory it was about £400 - but I couldn't get past the headstock...

It doesn't look so bad if you have a black curtain as your stage backdrop.

I did think about cutting it down to the edge of the black line, or simply replacing the neck with a Strat one.

57Deluxe

ICBM said:

<EDIT>

I nearly bought a Starcaster in about 1989 I think - from memory it was about £400 - but I couldn't get past the headstock...

They ain't that Big!!

fandango

TTony said:

guitars4you said:

Some used prices totally baffle me and maybe an original Fender 70's Starcaster is a good example - 20/30 years ago you couldn't give them away for £300-500 - hard sell indeed - Now since then one thing, for sure, has not changed and that is that the guitar has not got better one-iota with age during that period - granted it is an acquired taste - But now 3k or 4K baffles me - If they are selling then I suppose you can say they are worth it, but I'd be petrified having one on my books around that price

That's exactly mirrored in the classic car market.

There's no way that a mk1 Cortina is "better" than a current day Mondeo, but auction prices would indicate that they're more highly valued.

Supply & demand.

Supply is now very limited.  Demand is boosted by people wanting them just because other people want them (ie self-fulfilling investments - at least until the bubble bursts) and by some wanting to re-live their youth and by others who just want one because there's a Cortina shaped hole in their classic car garage.  

At least guitars are cheaper, take up less space, and need less maintenance than classic cars ...

Look how rare Morris Ital cars are. Okay, to save you the trouble, a website called 'How Many Left' notes only 43 (forty three) of these British car making gems are currently registered in the UK. Now that's rare!!! However, those cars are the best demonstration of the premise that rare does NOT equal valuable.

ronnyb

And of course low interest rates have a lot to do with it. Anyone with any spare cash, mortgage paid off etc what else do you do with it. It just isn't worth putting it into saving accounts and ISA's. There is always property but that can be a pain in the arse with maintenance and bad tenants. If you buy the right guitars / gear you will always get your money back and usually more, plus you've had the pleasure of owning and playing.