The State Of The Vintage Guitar Market

[Muzikman7]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gelDeT5MlTs&feature=related

[Dave W]

That was in early October, I think. Wonder how their Christmas sales went?

I spent a lot of money with Nate (a/k/a Willie) back in the 90s. Couldn't afford his vintage gear now.

[Barklessdog]

You could interchange that with muscle cars, wine, coins & real estate. When the economy tanks, everything else gets liquidated, which drives down prices. Good thing about Gibsons & Rics are prices were never ridiculous, at least at the Ebay level. If you bought at dealer prices a year or two ago, those are the ones who will be stung.

A good example is Uwe who never really paid "crazy dealer money" for 99% of his basses I know of. Just buys & plays them, "not for resale" as the customs invoice says.

There will be some great buys out there for people who have solid assets & stable employment. In the next year it would be a good time to pick up that bass/car/house that you always wanted but out of reach.

[uwe]

Though my bass collection has probably done one hell of a lot better than my bunch of Lehman Certificates  I've never bought any bass under investment angles. When I buy I think of personal appeal and use to me, not about resale, hence the occasional refin of a vintage instrument. Probably not more than a dozen to twenty of my basses are really long term value accumulators, but the vast majority of my stuff is rank and file that only deletion has made rare, but mostly not desireable to a relevant collectors' market. I don't think that, for instance, my Epi Gothic bass (the one with the SG body "bitten off in part by a shark") will ever amount to much nor can I try as I might envisage that any of my Grabbers or G 3s will fetch 10.000 bucks a piece in, say, 2025. And those people lusting for my two Wayne Charvel prototypes haven't come out of hiding either yet to offer me obscene amounts of money!!!

As my 14-year old put it matter-of-factly only recently: "Dad, there is no hiding from it, you are a collector (that is a four letter word to him, never mind how he now owns a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul in addition to his Gibson Flying V and his Ibanez whatever) and one day I will have to liquidate all that. But don't you worry, you can give me a list shortly before its time and we'll keep like about ten of your most favorite ones".   

[Dave W]

the vast majority of my stuff is rank and file that only deletion has made rare, but mostly not desireable to a relevant collectors' market.

Amazing how many sellers fail to understand that. If it didn't sell well and it's never developed a following, you're not going to get big money for it just because it's "rare."

[gweimer]

I'm pretty much in the same boat.  I've never bought any basses as an investment, although I always try to think of what the resale value might be if I ever did sell.  The Newport may be the exception, but that will take a couple years to pan out.  I'm thinking of doing a nice black refin, and then sell it in a couple years.  I'm still playing it occasionally in the meantime.  I would probably come close to breaking even if I ever had to sell everything outright, with a few basses making a little profit.

The Columbus Guitar Show is coming up.  It will be interesting to see how many people come to sell, and what the prices are like.  My guess is that the show will be light, not much vintage will get sold that's older than 20 years, and the new stuff brought in by the Low End will have some modest, but bigger, discounts over normal pricing.

[lowend1]

Crap. There goes my plan to corner the vintage SX market.

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Vintage Guitar mag has an add that says:

Tired of investing in bad stocks?
Invest in headstocks!!!

If they go down in value,
at least you can play the Blues!

Ha haa haaaa

[Rhythm N. Bliss]