Guitar folks educate me on old guitars

Cafe Society
1

I don’t play guitar, but love guitar music, and also looking at guitars. Some are truly pieces of art without even being played.

I’m watching Nikki Sixx interview Joe Bonamassa, and Joe mentions he bought a '59 Flying V. He and Nikki begin gushing about it. So my question is what is it about certain guitars from certain years that get players all emotional. I hear people say they got a '63 This, or a '57 That, or a '69 The Other Thing. Obviously it depends on the guitar, but what is that makes some of these old guitars so special?

2

I do not pretend to be an expert on the vintage guitar market as a whole or the market of specific years/makes/models. However, I have observed or engaged in many transactions during the past 25+ years with stringed instruments. A lot of factors contribute to the value and demand of and/or emotional attachment to vintage electric guitars:

-Any great guitar can grab a guitarist’s emotions regardless of age, brand, & model. Some vintage guitars have the rarity factor with associated short supply + high demand. Each combination of wood body and wood neck is unique whether new or old or somewhere in between sort of like fingerprints on human fingers.

-There is a perception (possibly truth?) that tone improves with age as the wood base material in body and neck dry out or whatever and also tone capacitors are perceived to improve with age.

-The nitrocellulose coating on old electric guitar bodies allows the wood to ‘breathe’ and enhance tone…or at least that is a common perception.

-Many old Gibson electric guitars have the manually hand wound PAF (“patent applied for”) humbucker pickups. Each hand wound pickup is unique by default and some are better than others but the best of them are considered to have holy grail tone and timbre. Similar sentiments can be applied to vintage P90 pickups and Strat single coil pickups. In other words, they don’t make 'em like they used to.

-The craftsmanship and techniques of certain luthiers of certain years/eras are perceived or known to be superior. This is a driving force in the price difference of pre-CBS and post-CBS Fender guitars, for example. Gibson guitars are hit or miss (or in between) and the '59 Les Paul has reputation as best of best. Not all '59 LPs are equal, however.

-Some old axes are truly great and one-of-a-kind. The same can be said for some newer axes but that is a much larger more accessible, more affordable population of guitars.

-Even beat up '59 Les Pauls and '62 Stratocasters with worn out frets are worth a fortune. I do not totally get it, but the salvageable components alone have high demand + high value.

-Some vintage guitars have excellent provenance with past celebrity ownership.

In my experience, I can replace the inexpensive Asian sourced wires/potentiometers/pickups/jacks/switches/capacitors with higher end components (<$500 upgrade costs) in relatively cheap (<$300) guitars and then sound better than many (although certainly not all) vintage classics worth >$30,000 same style axe.

3

Most of what you post, EM, is how things are discussed in vintage guitar circles, grounded in fact with some hyperbole and myth tossed in.

I spend a lot of time in this world. I’ve owned a few 50’s guitars including a '57 Gibson Les Paul Special and other old, desirable electrics. I currently have a few old acoustics, Martin’s from the '30’s and a Gibson from the '40’s.

Joe B is this generation’s Rick Nielson (Cheap Trick): grew up in a music store, made it, and has a collectors jones bigger than Texas. When Joe scores a real find, or adds to his burgeoning Les Paul sunburst collection, it makes news. This V got a lot of reporting.

The V is “Amos” - named after the owner of the music store in Indiana, Amos Arthur, who got it as a curiosity for his shop window. Story here: The Story of Amos: Joe Bonamassa’s ‘58 Korina Flying V | Reverb News. Back in the day, Ted McCarty of Gibson was looking to compete with Fenders modern designs. So G came out with the V, the Explorer (originally the Futura and a tad different), and never made a third model, The Moderne. Only about 100 of the V and E were made each and they sold really poorly. They were bought as props and curiosities and went nowhere.

A few bluesmen like Lonnie Mack and Albert King got them. But until glam rock in the 70’s they were no big deal (Hendrix played one that he had painted).

As for why a guitar is valued so much - V’s are n the $300-$400,000 range - it is a combo of factors, but clearly is anchored on the fact that our heroes played them and they are scarce. With only 1,800 sunburst Les Pauls made from '58-'60 and the fact that SO many great players used them at one time or another and there ya go.

I’ve played a bunch of them - only a couple of V’s and Explorers in shops, but a few Les Pauls and many, many old Strats and Teles. I love old guitars and always say that an older example of an excellent guitar tends to sound better than a new equivalent. Some of these old guitars are Truly Special.

Having said that, we are in a Golden Age. We have figured a lot out and, IMHO, with great electrics you really can get a similar tone. After playing many, and living with a few great old guitars, I assembled a couple from aftermarket parts based on what I learned and sold my old guitars. Or, rather, I shifted my Guitar Toy Budget into old acoustics. They sound different and obviously superior vs new guitars to me, and I don’t think I can assemble a guitar similar to my prewar Martins from aftermarket parts.

That won’t stop the market for these older guitars.

OP, hope that helps. If you have further questions, I can help where I have knowledge.

ETA: here’s a famous clip: Guitar World reveiws the new DiMarzio PAF 36th Anniversary - YouTube

4

Missed the window: the guy is demoing DiMarzio pickups but plays a new and a vintage Les Paul. At 1 minute in he plays both unplugged. To be clear, that’s the difference right there. Just listen to how choked the new one sounds and how loud, but far more importantly, resonant that old Les Paul sounds.

5

Guitars originally weren’t meant to last for decades. Imho

Martin and Gibson weren’t trying to fill Antonio Stradivari’s role of producing instruments that last for centuries.

I saw an interesting interview with a Luthier last year. He talked about repairing the old 30’s, 40’s & 50’s acoustics when he opened his shop in the mid 60’s. He said the old guitars had very fragile bodies made of very thin wood. They cracked easily over time and with use. The necks warped and the frets wear out. These guitars were already 20 to 30 years old (in the sixties) and needed a lot of work.

He mentioned Martin and Gibson both started using thicker wood for the bodies in the sixties. Making the instruments more durable. I’ve been struggling to recall the Luthier’s name. It wasn’t Dan Erlewine. I just can’t remember right now.

It’s a trade off. Thinner wood is more resonant and gives more volume. But the instrument is more fragile. Thicker wood can still sound good and the instrument will last longer.

The rare survivors from pre-1960 are very valuable and special to play. They are kept in cases with controlled humidity. Treated very delicately and treasured by their owners.

6

aceplace, I’ve had quite a few Martins and Gibsons from the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. By definition, guitars are built to vibrate and yes, the string tension of a flat top steel string wants to pull the neck up and the bridge off the body of the guitar. This is what leads to the need for neck resets: the continuous tension compresses the wood in the neck joint, so the fundamental geometry is a bit off from spec. Resetting the neck repositions the neck properly, taking that compressed wood into account. But if done properly, doesn’t need to be done again - the wood doesn’t compress further.

Martin and Gibson have always toyed with wood thicknesses and such - it is much more having to do with their warranties than the life-time potential of the guitar. Martin had a lifetime warranty, and a thinner-built guitar is more likely to need work, so at one point in the 70’s they made some changes. When it was clear that it was resulted in subpar guitars (and led to the birth of the vintage market) they went back to their original designs. Gibson was always known for inconsistent build quality, especially when they were banging out a bunch of low-end blues boxes in the 1930’s. There might be issues with the guitars, but it is because the tolerances were sometimes sloppy.

I spoke with Kerry Keane, the head of vintage instruments at Christies and a frequent participant on the Antiques Roadshow. I had a connection who knew him and I was considering my first old guitar, a small-body 1946 Gibson. He basically said that there is no end-date for a well-made and well-maintained old guitar. There is no reason they can’t be used and played for another couple of hundred years.

My 1929 Martin looks like it got dragged behind a car (close, it went on tour with Wilco for about 10 years) but is solid and wonderful to play.

7

Very Interesting.

I’ve never had the funds for anything older than my 1976 D18. I bought it in 2011. Pretty sure it had been in its case for most of those years. Perfect condition. I bought it because the D18 is what I desperately wanted in high school (mid 70’s) and couldn’t afford.

Found out later that was a bad decade for Martins.

Oh well. It’s mine now. I enjoy playing it.

8

Lots of folks love and cherish their 70’s Martins. Their changes during that decade just made it a bit more important to play a few and make sure you were getting one that fit you. if you have one that works for you, yay! I had a 1948 D-18 for years and absolutely loved it.

9

Getting over the “oh it’s vintage” feeling is the hardest part.

I rarely played my Martin the first year. Didn’t want to be the first guy that scratched it.

I finally decided it’s a guitar dummy! Play it. It’s supposed to get a little wear.

I can’t imagine violinists with $100,000 and up instruments. Carrying them around, getting in taxis, and planes. That’s a lot of money in your hand.

10

There is a fair amount of bullshit surrounding *some *vintage guitars, especially when it comes to solid-body electric guitars.

Case in point – CBS-era Fenders. At the time they were made, and for a while afterwards, you couldn’t give them away (OK, overstatement, but they were not well-regarded). Now, they’re “vintage” instruments, and sell at a premium price.

Fender guitars can be especially subject to the “vintage” halo effect. Leo Fender intentionally designed his guitars to be industrial objects – to be easily and inexpensively manufactured and repaired. They never had Gibson’s heritage of luthier-level design and manufacture.

This isn’t to put down Fender guitars – the Telecaster and the Stratocaster and (especially) the Precision Bass were incredibly influential and changed music forever. But the Fender instruments of today, even the ones that aren’t at the top of the line, are as good as the instruments of 40 and 50 years ago.

11

I have no argument with any of that - I play a Fender designed instrument built out of new parts that I prefer over the vintage I’ve played (well, there was this '56 Esquire and the one '54 Strat I’ve played - those were special).

But remember, Clapton bought all of those 50’s Strats, some he gave away and some he parts’d into Blackie, for about $100-$150 10-12 years after their production. It takes time. With the CBS early era, heck, Hendrix played them. But it wasn’t until some years passed and the market for 59’s examples started to blow up that people started pick apart the CBS details. The bigger headstock looked like a big change but wasn’t - they still had four bolt necks and non-goopy finishes, etc.

12

a lot of the real expensive stuff is not bought by musicians. It’s bought by people with a lot of money such as doctors, wall street types , etc.

13

Joe Bonamassa has a few nice pieces. :cool:

14

This is true. Now what?

15

Yes, absolutely. I actually went back to edit my post, but I was too late.

A great player may well be able to bring out the most in a guitar, and even hear things that a half-assed amateur noodler like me can’t even hear. I can certainly see someone like Eric Clapton putting together a guitar from parts – getting the best neck for him, the best body, the sweetest-sounding pickups, etc. Although I bet that sort of home guitar surgery would give the Guitar Aficionado types a heart attack.

For me? Am I going to sound better playing a 1959 Gibson ES-335 than I sound playing my completely stock 2000-something Epiphone Sheraton? I doubt it.

16

I’ve gotten teased a bit on the Dope about this, but it really comes down to an instrument’s responsiveness. How it takes your playing and feeds it back to you in sound and sensation. If you listen to that DiMarzio demo clip, it is simply clear that the old LP is giving much more feedback sonically, and I can report that they do so physically, too (resonant bodies vibrate a ton) for you to work with. Yay.

In my experience, once a few great, old guitars introduced me and taught me about the level of responsiveness, I was able to better listen for and feel it in other guitars. And since Fender type guitar design lends itself so well to the process I figured out what worked for me. My Tele, with its ash body, inch-thick maple neck and '.12’s strung tight like a cheese slicer, vibrates like a sex toy when I strum it.

So yeah, for electrics, I think the basic responsiveness of great old guitars - especially F types - can be more or less replicated with woods and parts from today. A Les Paul with its more luthier based design might benefit more from old wood - builders like Gustavsson, Yaron and others make big money from that (building modern replicas from fancy old woods).

For acoustics, again, old wood sounds different, even from the super-hyped Torrified woods. Excellent old guitars have a crispness and focus to their tone that cuts better in a mix. All IMHO.

17

Hey, Daddypants - we doin’ okay here just geeking out?

18

Ain’t it the truth?

Not being the most disciplined guy in the world, I pick up my guitar not to work on my playing, but instead to have fun playing it. So I usually follow my natural inclination, which is to play the guitar the same way I rode my motorcycle: throttle wide open - shredding like a maniac - scenery all ablur. This, I’m sure, is a lot more pleasing to the rider than it is the passenger.

My Tele though, cut from an 80 year old plank, absolutely rings in my hands, encouraging me to slow down and enjoy the scenery, even unplugged. Especially unplugged. It makes me a better player, and if some guys get emotional talking about a guitar that has a positive effect on their playing, I understand thoroughly.

19

Oh yeah, that’s it.

What non-players don’t realize is that you have to train your ear, and your body helps with that.

  • Train Your Ear: it’s just like figuring out how to “hear the beats” when you are tuning a guitar by ear. Until you can hear that, you can’t move forward. When I had finally matured a bit as a player, I could start to hear what an especially-responsive guitar can do. It’s hard to describe. Just like things sound “right” when you finally get two strings in tune, you hear this extra level of “rightness” when you nail a bend correctly, or you build a complex chord. The right frequencies are meshing in the right ways - better.

  • Your Body Helps with That: guitar bodies that vibrate a lot are really noticeable when you can perceive it happening real time. You hit a big chord and feel it in the guitar. It’s great feedback that reinforces all of the ear training you are putting to work.

I’ve said this in other threads: great, old mahogany bodied acoustic guitars vibrate like motherfuckers. A 30’s Gibson L-00 or big Regal or Harmony from the 50’s. if you haven’t experienced it, it’s noticeable :wink: It’s like a little guidebook - the surer your playing, the more even the vibrations. Huzzah.

20

aceplace, just to come back to this: this is a subset of my #1 Rule = Whatever keeps you playing. I have to be able to see myself playing a guitar my way - sloppy, sweaty (ew, but true) and aggressive - or why even consider it.

I had blingy guitars and found myself holding back. Plain, tool-focused guitars don’t seem to limited me. I can, and have, picked up a real 1951 Nocaster and played the snot out of it through an old Tweed amp. Good times. Now it was listed for four times the amount ($25,000 vs. $100,000) of this handmade D’Angelico archtop I played - it was the guitar used on Nat King Cole’s version of The Christmas song - and I couldn’t play it at all. Too amazing and exotic for me.

So it really depends on how you come at the instrument. If you’re a violinist and a Strad is your tool and you know how to use it, that is what comes first.