I wanna add that you can find some great older guitars for much cheaper if you look outside of the big name manufacturers and luthiers. Some examples: Zerosette and other guitars from Italy, Kawaii and Russian soviet-era guitars. Some of these guitars are simply bizarre. Also some comtemporary big names with more affordable guitars have some really interesting vintage stuff.
My favorite guitar is the Rayhorn O-Seven, a slim, semi-acoustic Gretch “knock-off”, in rosewood (I think:o) in a lovely cherry sunburst, produced by Zerosette for Robert Normann. It set me back around 1200$ in 2008. Obligatory guitar-pic. Not too bad a price for something like that. One day I’ll get another.
Anyway, enough gushing. Point is, you can find some real treasures if you know where to look and what to look for. And many of these instruments are really unique. Zerosette only produced fifty of that model. The treasure-hunt is why I (mostly) just looked at so much old, expensive stuff. It’s just so fun to seek them out! I’m thankful it’s relatively easy to sell again, and I usually don’t have more than one or two at the same time.
I found out I’m not all that interested in the instrument itself, but what I can make it do with, without or around it’s limitations. So expensive equipment isn’t really my thing anymore. It gets too expensive to be worth it. I’m getting into playing again though, and I’m having a blast.
Me and a friend are gonna fix his old guitar up, as his new one broke. I got him a GK-GT3 guitar synth pick-up kit for his birthday! He’s into metal and distortion, wava, circuit-bending and synth-programming, so I think this can become awesome!
I enjoy these guitar threads by the way! Music unites! Well, mostly anyhow:P
The wood they used back then was different than today. The old Les Pauls used a different type of mahogany. It was lighter and more resonant. I think. I’ve never played one. I have an old pine chest I made back in the early seventies. I was looking at it the other day and something caught my eye. The width of the pine boards i used and the grain density made me think. I don’t think I could find wood like that today. Not cheaply. I play classical guitar and played a few old ones and they are nice. Super loud and resonant.
It was Honduran Mahogany, nice cuts from old trees, long-dried. The stuff now is various types of mahogany of various grades. You can still get good pieces, but it’s a lot less common.
My '57 Les Paul Special was made of Honduran Mahogany, as was my '73 Limited Edition Black Beauty. Those can easily weigh 10 lbs; mine weighed 8 and was just amazingly resonant. In both cases, they were great guitars.
So bottom line is that the quality of the wood back then increased the likelihood you’d get a good one, but doesn’t preclude dogs.
It’s funny…I have and will likely never play or own a guitar like these ancient treasures, and I’m okay with that. I think modern advancements, especially in pickups, has more than cleared the hurdle of aesthetics that these old guitars bring, acoustics notwithstanding.
You can pry this Schecter C-1 from my cold dead hands!
I obviously agree. I don’t know what was cooler: owning those wonderful old tools and learning from them, or realizing it was time to flip them and use the money on acoustics because I had a modern build that played and sounded based on what I had learned.
That is,like, the ultimate in mother of toilet seat whacky guitars. If I was a making a video, I’d snag it immediately. As a basic, basic (in my teen daughter’s use of the term) Tele guy, I’d be stressed about its playability but would love to have a go at it.
The tale of two Fenders. Let’s call them Blondie and Brownie. They’re both Strats. Brownie is sunburst and Blondie has that older Fender transparent white finish that allows you to see a hint of the grain. They both have maple fretboards. They lived at the Fender plant. Fender asked 5 experienced guitarists to come in to evaluate the guitars. They were sat down together and the Fender guy explained that although both guitars were made of new wood and hardware, the blonde guitar has electronics from 1954 and the sunburst has the best imitations of the vintage electronics they could produce. The guitarists were asked to try the guitars for an hour or so and compare / evaluate them. Their verdict? Brownie was nice but Blondie definitely sounded better.
The next day 5 different guitarists came in. They were told the same story except this time Brownie had the vintage electronics and Blondie had the modern copies. Afterwards, they all were positive Brownie sounded better than Blondie, though it was a good try.
A lot of it is hype. True, some years had features and colors that other years didn’t. Some LPs made in 59 had humbuckers from 57 in them. Gibson just kept them in a bin. Assemblers would fill a tub of them and go assembling. Sometimes they got a better price on a different manufacturer’s pots or caps. Some combinations of parts weren’t wonderful. Some were. Necks had different shapes in different years. Fretwire varied. Do you want to play a guitar or collect it?
When I said “acoustics”, I meant what was emanating from solid body electric guitars. I meant that depending, the ancient guitars are quite possibly overrated as newer pickups and newer guitar bodies have matched or eclipsed older “holy grail” guitars…obviously YYMV and I think the type of music you play matters not a little but a lot.
Yessir. The point of my post exactly, although I feel compelled to point out that there exists a non zero amount of players that could, would and HAVE made use of these older guitars…and you could argue that it’s all in their fingers and amps to a point, but tell Hendrix to start playing a left-handed Les Paul upside down.
I think jimi played new guitars. In any case I don’t think he gave a seconds thought to vintage. This came after, and Jimi played a part in it, posthumously.
One of the big reasons for my recommendation to look at other stuff than the big-name vintages: You can, with a bit of searching, find a great and often unique instrument for much less than a decent new Fender or Gibson. For example, you can find some awesome soviet-era Russian guitars for around 200$, maybe even less. Just make sure it’s in okay condition and you’ll have a monster guitar you won’t be afraid to fix up or modify, for a steal.
I agree that vintage is mostly just about hype. But it’s a shame to discount old guitars just because they’re old!
Of course, remember times change and some things suddenly become desirable. It seems Kawai is more expensive now than when I was in the market for such things.
Vintage has a lot of hype, and a lot of old guitars are wonderful to play. The hype lies in people wanting to use “vintage” as shorthand for “special and excellent.” It’s not even remotely close to that simple. Old guitars are a joy to explore and learn about and experience but the collectible aspect is its own separate beast that affects pricing.
When I realized I was interested in an old Martin small body in rosewood, I exploited a collectibility loophole: old Martin Style 28’s are the standard Martin rosewood guitars. A D-28, a 00-28, etc - they have the features and history folks think of. Ah, but Martin also makes a Style 21 - rosewood, but with the lower-end binding and features of the mahogany Style 18 guitars. I prefer less bling, so yay there - and 21’s typically went for 30%-40% less than comparable 28’s. Found a great old 00-21 and haven’t looked back.
And again, we are mostly discussing electrics here. In my experience, an excellent old acoustic has a tone that I simply don’t hear in new excellent guitars. If you enjoy guitar and haven’t played a few old acoustics, you really should.
Knowing how to approach an issue like a refin is what makes looking at old guitars complex. If it is priced correctly and the work well done, they shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
That particular listing had a really, really bad refinish. Looks like somebody sanded it down and varnished. There’s still streaks of the old finish on the edges. It probably plays and sounds great.
I’ve seen well known musicians on youtube playing electrics with the body beat all to hell. Very little paint left. But the vintage electrics play like a dream in their experienced hands.
Actually I’ll share a story I’ve shared before here about a Julian Lage guitar: his favorite flattop is a '39 Martin 000-18. I played that guitar in the shop and could have bought it a week or two before he did. I was checking out small to medium old Martins and it was priced low for that model and year. I could see why: the bridge had been off and on enough times that the spruce top where the bridge is glued had had to be patched, and it was a bit obvious.
But man, that guitar had “It” - just a huge rich playable tone. I just was worried that the patchwork was a sign of instability. And the neck was medium not chunky, I.e., normal, and there was a '47 000-21 that had a perfect big neck and great tone as well. But I remembered that '39 and was excited to connect the dots when I heard he’d gotten it and then heard him play it. Felt kinda validating that I had heard and felt something.
