Is Vintage Really Vintage??

[baronedo]

Having been to many guitar stores and guitar shows and examining various guitars I have say that I think that the Vintage thing is way over blown. I bought and sold Fender and Gibson guitars in the 60's and 70's for a few hundred bucks and have no regrets because that's all they were worth then. I would also argue that many of these older so called "Vintage" guitars really shouldn't be worth that much more today.

 

If you think back to the way guitars were made in the 50's, 60's and 70's much hand labor was involved (not by choice) and NOT NECESSARILY BY GREAT CRAFTSMAN. Because of this, there was a lot of unit to unit quality variation. Yes you could find a really nice guitar but also some real clunkers. Back then they would have killed to have the improved woodworking and machining processes we have today. We have guitar necks and bodies carved to unbelieveably close tolerances due to computerized (CNC) cutting machines using good and in many cases better woods.

 

The result is much more consistent and GOOD quality. I've yet to find a bad playing American made Strat and many of the Mexican Strats are also very playable. The one area where Fender needs to improve is its pickups.

 

I have an extremely good off the shelf American Strat Plus with Kinman FV-HMS pups retrofitted. I would put this guitar up against any "Vintage" Strat in the area of both the tone and playablity.

 

I get a real kick out of stores trying to sell a beat up and worn out piece of old junk that looks like hell and often times plays just as bad for thousands of $ under the guise of "Vintage".

 

As guitar players I think we need to make a statement and reject paying large sums for this stuff and instead relish in today's good quality guitars which are sold at affordable prices.

 

Please provide your opinions and experiences on this controversial topic.

[Mile]

I just want to say that I never bought guitar before trying it out. I was once kid who went to music stores just to be able to impress the living s*** out of other buyers with taping and stuff.Now I try my guitars for the tone, playability, craftsmanship... I could play few notes and simple riff and that's it... Often changing pus, trying different volumes, clean & drive channel, checking for hum... And guitar must stay in tune no matter what!

So vintage or not, guitar must have grat tone and all of the above.

I have stock Standard Strat that sounds and plays like a dream (with set of new strings)

 

Just my 2 cents.

[baronedo]

Amen Mile. And some of the so called "Vintage" guitars do not sound that good compared to new guitars. I try everything, both acoustically and electrically looking for good tone, sustain, etc. before buying.

[strat0124]

Yep there was some awful sounding stuff off the shelf back then too. But guess what....somebody is trying to sell it at vintage prices right now!!!!! I know what I like, and I don't need Vintage Guitar magazine to tell me whats cool (though I like the mag!). Amps are one the things that gets my goat. Theres lots of folks who claim that their tone is the shite and anybody with more modern stuff has crap. I doubt true players out gigging give a damn, realistically. They just want to rock, and they want it to be reliable and most importantly, toneful. I see alot of Blues Devilles, Hotrods, reissue JTM45's, Nomads, reissue Fenders out there on the gigging scene here in Hampton Roads for that very reason. The coolest thing I've seen, which really isn't all that vintage other than they don't make them anymore, was a guy playing two Super Champs, and it sounded fab. Nothing like the roar of a small tube combo, to me that sound is only second to the sound of pleasure from your partner in the throes of passion. But as a guitarist, they are pretty damn close!!!!!!!

[Lee Flier]

Well I certainly agree that just because something's old doesn't make it good. And you definitely have to be careful when buying vintage stuff. I definitely wouldn't buy something without trying it out.

 

That said, I still think the BEST vintage stuff trumps the best new stuff. There might be individual models that are exceptions, but all my stuff is vintage and I have searched in vain for anything new that does as well. I do think the Vox AC30 reissues are impressive, and some of the new Fender amps too... I played a new Deluxe Reverb last weekend that smoked!

 

However I have an Ampeg Jet reissue and ummm well it sounds all right, but it's got a cheap looking PCB in it and I don't know how well it will hold up. The insides of the original Jets certainly don't look like that. And my vintage Ampeg VT-40 is built like a tank - NEVER had a problem with that thing in the 22 years that I've owned it.

 

I have a '68 Tele and I suppose there are new Teles that are probably as good, but there's nothing out there that remotely compares to my '52 Les Paul, no way, no how. Of course, I bought that when you could still find them for reasonable cost. I'm sure if I was looking for one now I'd be extremely put off by the price tag. Vintage equipment HAS gotten completely out of hand cost-wise, I'll say that much.

 

--Lee

[whitefang]

Frankly, I don't much see getting into the whole "vintage" thing with guitars that are still being produced. Unless you, like me, feel the whole essence of said guitar has gone through some radical change. For instance, I'm of the opinion that latter day Les Pauls seem to lack the smooth, unique neck action that they had in the late '60's. Corporate re-issues don't seem to be built with all original specs, and probably have a few hundred bucks added on with that "re-issue" moniker. THEN, finding a vinage model in good shape may be worth the effort.

 

Also, you may have long coveted a particular model of guitar that has been discontinued by the maker due to changes in market preferences. Gibson, for example, has a shitload (however much THAT is!)of discontinued models. Or maybe the maker has gone out of business due to a refusal to employ cheap labor and use materials below their long held standards. This is largely the reason in Hagstrom's case. Excellent instruments! But no longer manufactured. And it's a damned shame!

 

But I see no reason to put out good money for a strat, considering they are made the same or better these days, just because it's 30 years old. I once saw an ad for a "vintage" Martin D-35

that was priced at a grand more than a new one. The part of the ad that tickled me was when the seller claimed "sounds like new!" While I'll go along with the contention that acoustic guitars get better sounding with age, as fine wine gets better, I can't help but think that, like wine, so many years go by before it turns into vinegar.

After so many years, that sound improvement plateaus. and I'd rather save the grand and buy a NEW one, and grow old with IT!

 

There IS a very fine line between "Quality antiques" and "old junk"!

 

whitefang

 

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"Klaatu! Barada nicto!"

[desoto]

I like good vintage equipment. I like the look of a well-used guitar, dings, finish checking and all. I was delighted to get my 1964 Gibson Country Western acoustic for two grand less than it would have cost me to buy the comparable new Sheryl Crow model Gibson came out with. I love my '64, it's got character, tone and playability (after a little work by a great luthier). But I got a good deal on it, too. I see them pop up sometimes with people trying to get two grand and up for them. That's too much. But vintage or not, you've still got to be careful before you buy. I agree that there's a lot of outrageous pricing out there on vintage equipment. Just gotta figure out if that's your bag and what you're willing to pay to play.

 

I could bring up Fender's slew of "pre-worn" new electrics...but I find the whole concept pretty bizarre.

 

Amanda

[GuitarWolf]

ill agree with lancer... I think that the only reason you should really buy a vintage guitar is if your a collector or if your looking for that "special" sound that a certain vintage guitar may give you.

 

When i was looking at used electrics the stores had some vintage ones in there to for about 2k and over, i tried 2 of em' out (i think one was a gibson and one was a fender) and i think they sounded terrible! They gave me that Bubble Gum Pop Brittney Spears Feel when ever i played a note!

[g.]

Every company and their dogs are making "vintage" reissue crap these days: guitars, pickups (vintage noiseless single coils==serious misnomer), amps, tubes, etc.

 

Other than for equipment that actually was built a long time ago and seems to have captured imaginations, the rest of it is just marketing hooie from companies who know they went astray on some of their design vectors and quality assurance, at some point in their checkered careers. Now they are trying to win back the überconsumer with double-speak new-speak disguised as old-speak ; }

[eh steve]

Instruments exude art. Some old instruments are like fine old furniture. There are only so many pieces floating around. Some people will pay ridiculous prices for an old piece of art.

[Skip_dup1]

if two instruments play equally well, sound equally good, the vintage one will always fetch more dollars. It`s unlikely they`ll sound identical because, as someone mentioned, wood changes as it ages. The guitar makers who use aged wood, like Warrior, charge vintage prices.

I`ve never been all that taken in by the `vintage` thing. It`s like a self-perpetuating cycle. Why did I buy a vintage instrument? because of the resale value-if I want to sell it I`ll get more. Why? because it`s vintage. The next owner will say the same thing.

[gtrmac]

New ones, old ones, I love them all and I want them all! Thank God for the Custom Shop! Actually I have a new obsession- Japanese Fenders. Nice quality at about half the price of the US stuff. I've started combing the shops here for some good ones.

Instruments exude art. Some old instruments are like fine old furniture. There are only so many pieces floating around. Some people will pay ridiculous prices for an old piece of art.

Can you really call a Fender Strat a work of art? it is made by machines for the most part. I can see holding up an example of one as an "artful" design but I think that the whole "guitar as collectible thing" is way overblown. Not all of them sound great after all. The folks at Fender did not spend a lot of time hand selecting the wood in those days. There are a lot of crummy sounding guitars selling for $10,000 as a result these days. I do not feel the same way about handmade instruments like violins or cellos by the way. These are works of art or at least the work of artisans.

[desoto]

I'm actually not interested in the resale value of my 64 Gibson at all. If I cared about that, I wouldn't have replaced the funky adjustable bridge and had all the weird metal pieces pulled out. I went vintage for the sound, the look, and the price being right. I love my old guitar! I feel a greater connection with it than any new guitar I've ever had. But I agree it's not for everyone and there's a lot of price gouging going on in the name of "vintage gear."

 

Amanda

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by skip:

I`ve never been all that taken in by the `vintage` thing. It`s like a self-perpetuating cycle. Why did I buy a vintage instrument? because of the resale value-if I want to sell it I`ll get more. Why? because it`s vintage. The next owner will say the same thing.

I don't care about the resale value of any of my vintage guitars because I don't want to ever sell them. In fact I wish they WEREN'T worth so much money now because as the years go by I get more and more paranoid to take them out to clubs and PLAY them, which IS why I bought them... GRRRR... oh well it's not going to stop me.

 

--Lee

[strat0124]

I'm with Lee on the resale thing. To me you buy an instrument because you wanna play it. If resale is one of your determining factors to buying a product, collecting is more your bag. Collecting/speculating old guitars and amps is a very sad thing for players both young and old.

[Wrave]

Through the whims of fortune and the vagaries of luck I have owned and lost 4 or 5 instruments that would undoubtably be higher priced vintage instruments today. Gibson full bodied single cutaway archtop that somebody sold me in about 1973 when I was working in Detroit. Had belonged to her Dad and was just sitting in the attic gathering dust. A Fender PBass I bought from someone at about that same time that needed to sell it and it was an old one when I bought it. I bought a Tele too. ES335. Gibson violin shaped body fretless bass that I bought new back then. Nice instruments all.

 

But, to be honest, other than the fact other people value these a lot, I just picked up a PRS Santana LE this Spring and it plays as well as or even better than my old 335 and sounds better too.

 

Yeah, the old instruments are nice but the nostalgia that surrounds them may very well overshadow the quality instruments that are being made today.

[stanner]

well i bought my '63 strat back in the early '80s in a pawn shop and i never knew(or cared) nothin about the vintage thing. i bought it cause it was 'made to be played' and sounded real nice, plugged in or not. now people are tellin me how its worth $yadayada$ and i'm a fool for not unloadin it and i have a hard time tellin these people it was never about that.

in the words of peter green:"oh well".

s

[Skip_dup1]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

Originally posted by skip:

I`ve never been all that taken in by the `vintage` thing. It`s like a self-perpetuating cycle. Why did I buy a vintage instrument? because of the resale value-if I want to sell it I`ll get more. Why? because it`s vintage. The next owner will say the same thing.

I don't care about the resale value of any of my vintage guitars because I don't want to ever sell them. In fact I wish they WEREN'T worth so much money now because as the years go by I get more and more paranoid to take them out to clubs and PLAY them, which IS why I bought them... GRRRR... oh well it's not going to stop me.

 

--Lee

no doubt there-people have been known to part with those kinds of instruments exactly because they`re too paranoid about playing them out-but it would be the same with an expensive new instrument, ya? I have a guitar in New York now that`s exactly that-it`s totally not the kind of guitar that would have `character` by being used as a bludgeon, or a beer coaster, or a crowbar.

I have an inexpensive electric that I loaded with a set of custom wound humbuckers-it sounds great and I would take it to just about any club.

But I would qualify the playing vs. collecting

thing. It`s not necessarily one or the other. Some people may just say, well I`m going to find a guitar that I love to play but IF someday I find one that I want even more or, heaven forbid, `the thrill is gone` from the same old guitar, I know I`ll be able to get a super deal for this one. Makes good economic sense. That`s not so much my approach but it`s a valid point of view.

[JonnyM]

The "Vintage" thing has brought greatness and sadness to the industry from the point of view of us that just want to play great instruments thru great amps.

 

When I frequent the stores that cater to used equipment I stare in wonder at the oldies that have been priced outside my idea of "value" by the collectors, and those with too much money and not a lot of sense. I always ask about guitars needing homes which usually gets me a dazed look, but occasionally gets me directed to my personal quest, the beaters. The guitars that get overlooked because they were well-loved (a good indicator of a fine sounding insturment I might add, I must say) that the "collectors" don't want, but it's getting to where this only works with whatever is the not-popular shape/model/year of the day.

 

First and formost, you've got to play them, and then it's still a crapshoot because it's difficult to properly test at volume in a store, and certainly no way to give it the 5 hour torture test you'll be giving it when you take it to band practice. Still I've found a few that way. Remember as a previous poster has stated, quality varied widely in the 60's and 70's. Even the Norlin years produced some fine Gibson's, just not everyone with some real losers thrown in to the mix. 70's SG's can be a relative bargain, the same era LP's not yet they are the similar in quality and sound, but LP's are just way more popular. We're back to you gotta play 'em first. Recent American Standard Strats are fine guitars, but so are G&L's and you get more bang for the buck, in quality vs price. It's sad for me that many of the guitars I'd really like to own...Firebirds, Rick 12's are so outts sight price wise.

 

The other side of the story. So many wonderful high-end botique amps are being made that equal or trump my old Fender Pro Reverb, or fillin the Marshall/Fender/Vox blank. Whether these buyers have sense or not is besides the point. Eventually they are going to trade these puppies in for something newer and more wonderful, and we benefit. There will always be used wonderful sounding amps to buy at resonable prices. Look at the market for old Mesa amps. You can get a lot of way-cool reliable powerful toneful sound from what $400 - a Grand or so. Try to buy a blackface Deluxe for that these days.

 

JonnyM

[Christopher]

If you're talking about solidbodies, I think the only real appeal of "vintage" is visual. Sonically, you can get the same sound out of a new instrument by beating on the pickups a bit (or having them beat on for you by the manufacturer).

 

Acoustics are a different story. It can take some time for a guitar to open up, so there's a "sweet spot" in a guitar's lifespan that doesn't begin at the start of the guitar's life. However, I don't think you have to wait 20-30 years for an acoustic guitar to start sounding good.

[TurboDog]

Here's a funny story.

 

I walked into one of my local music stores a few years back. Hanging on the wall behind the counter was a beat up yellow, vintage looking Tele. The fretboard was all worn, the hardware was rusted, and the finish was all dinged up pretty badly. Buckle scratches on the back too.

 

Problem is, it was a brand new Tele that Fender was selling as new, but made to look/sound/feel "vintage". I think the price tag was like $2400.

 

The salesman was just bragging on it and telling me how awesome it was, and I just kept laughing in his face.

 

There are a lot of components on vintage guitars that can't come close to components used today. A 3 saddle Tele bridge? Give me a break. Vintage tremolos? Euucckkk.

 

Pickup makers today have done tremendous amounts of research to achieve whatever tone/output you want. Compare this to the 4 or 5 different pickups available in the mid 60's.

 

Necks today are milled to amazing specifications. Even on cheap guitars. Neck pockets and cavities as well.

 

I'll get flamed for this but...I sometimes wonder when people talk about that "vintage" sound, maybe they are simply hearing a tone resulting from inferior, old components.

 

I wont dismiss all vintage guitars as crap. There are some good ones made with some great wood. By in large, though, vintage doesnt mean crap to me.

[Tedly Nightshade]

There's nothing new that I'd rather play than my sort of vintage '80 Les Paul. They do not make them like that anymore.

However many many old Les Pauls are superb guitars indeed. They have a reputation for lacking brilliance which is because of the inferior signal chains, cords and so on that are so common. Mine has a pickup from an old 40's Gibson jazz guitar and 50 plus years later it sounds both brilliant and profoundly deep.

Strats are very inconsistent, and now they're so steep I'll never get one. Out of hundreds I've played one was the only really good one, a '72, belonged to a friend and since stolen, needless to say by a complete asshole, although I never met him.

Ted

[whitefang]

I can't argue with most of you. Like I said earlier, the whole vintage deal means more if there were radical changes in the model that you dislike, or it was discontinued but you still

have a hard-on for it. One example I can give;

I recently spotted an old Hagstrom at a pawnshop.

Not being familiar with particular Hagstrom models

I had no idea what I was in front of. They wanted

$225 w/case for it, and from what I could gleen by looking it over, all it really needed was a good cleaning. Neck was straight! Oh, yeah, the pickguard was cracked. And the person who had it before put a peace sign sticker on the body

(probably just saw Alvin Lee in "Woodstock").

 

I didn't have the price, and didn't pursue it enough. It was gone after a while. I just learned from a Hagstrom website that I had passed by a '68 Viking I! THIS is one time "vintage" is worth the bother.

 

I'll try to make sure that doesn't happen to ME again!

 

Whitefang

[Gabriel E.]

If you're talking about solidbodies, I think the only real appeal of "vintage" is visual. Sonically, you can get the same sound out of a new instrument by beating on the pickups a bit (or having them beat on for you by the manufacturer).

I disagree. The sound of any guitar will change as the wood dries out. It's not just the pickups. There's a certain sound that an old, well-played guitar has that simply cannot be reproduced.

 

I think vintage guitars are cool - just like old cars. The whole "vintage" market however is ridiculous and has made a lot of these guitars impossible to afford.

 

I think that new guitars are fantastic and offer a lot of value for the money. The quality control on MOST is better now that everything is automated. That being said, the availiability of good wood was definitely better in the old days (how many guitars with one-piece bodies are made today?). In some cases, the craftsmanship WAS better.

 

I have a '43 Epiphione Olympic archtop that kicks ass. This was one of Epiphone's lower end models. It has a solid carved mahogony top and back and solid mahogony sides. The same guitar would cost several grand if made new today. It cost me $600 (not a "desirable" vintage guitar).

 

I also have a couple of other vintage axes and a vintage amp. They've all been modified and beat up so they're not worth big bucks which is good since that means I get to have them.

 

Old guitars are just plain cool.

[Skip_dup1]

I would have to agree that there`s more to vintage sound than just pickups. I would also say that, if a computer-based manufacturer can churn out hundreds of guitars with the same specs in record time, they damn well BETTER be cheaper. And yes, there were craftsmen around back in the day whose work can`t be reproduced, but before you say anything you would have to be SURE that one or more of them worked on a particular guitar-no easy thing unless they signed it.

The point about better wood being around back then SEEMS to make sense-I`ve seen a couple of people mention it-but I`m not so sure it does. You can perhaps say that superior wood was in more common use, since it was before anyone thought wood could be an endangered species. But it was also back when getting rosewood from Brazil or ebony from Africa was a MAJOR hassle. Maybe there was MORE good wood around then, but I don`t think you can say it was better. I mean, was `56 a really good year for maple?

I would restate my earlier point-the best of both worlds would be to have vintage wood with modern components. But you`ll be paying the same sky-high price.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Some old axes are players, they've been played and they want to be played. You'll know if you try one if it's a player.

That's what you want.

 

Same thing with new guitars, but they haven't been broken in yet.

Ted

[whitefang]

There are two types of buyers in the "vintage" market. Those under the impression that a vintage guitar is both a better instrument AND has value as an antique, and the other guy.

 

The other guy maybe had an "Uncle Max", who played guitar in a '40's big band and sat on the stage strumming on a fantastic looking Stromberg.

This guy thinks "Gee, I'd LOVE to have a guitar like Uncle Max had. And his was destroyed in a house fire." What's this guy to do? Buy a NEW one? I don't THINK so! His only recouses are hoping to find one in the want ads, which is unlikely, or hit the vintage market and decide if the asking price is too inflated to make the purchase worthwhile.

 

I brought up the Stromberg because a while back, as I was watching that program "Antiques Roadshow"

a lady brought in her Father's guitar. It WAS a pre-war Stromberg he'd played in a '40's big band.

And it looked like new. The appraiser's jaw hit the floor when he saw it! The lady said she'd had it appraised at a music store, where the store owner offered her $1500 for it. She declined. The Roadshow appraiser said it was good she declined because at auction, he'd be able to fetch up to $50,000!!!

 

And THAT helps to explain the major niggling problem with the vintage guitar market!

 

Whitefang

[Gabriel E.]

Maybe there was MORE good wood around then, but I don`t think you can say it was better. I mean, was `56 a really good year for maple?

No of course the wood wasn't better then. I just meant that there was more good wood available - to the extent that it was taken for granted.

 

Just like furniture, a lot of guitars today are made of lots of small pieces of wood glued together. You pay a premium for sold-wood acoustics and one-piece solidbodies.

[g.]

Not pretending to be an expert here, but the date the wood was harvested doesn't seem to be the deal; it's the possibility it might have been aged better before being shaped, and the fact that it has been played for so many years that might make it better.

 

There might be some truth to that; I recently put Kinman pickups into a '59 Strat (with a '76 neck); talk about tone and sustain. I've put those pickups into relatively new Strats before and they always improved them, but this was an immense jump between BEFORE and AFTER. It's like the wood was waiting for something to come along and do it justice. Beautiful guitar with most of the finish SRV'd ; }

 

...I don't know that a one-piece solid body is intrinsically better than a two-piece (some argue that glue joints are like fault lines, but luthiers seem to be comfortable with them). I know that more expensive basses, multiple pieces of wood are often chosen for their tone qualities (and often, cosmetic appeal), laminates are accepted and desired, with body wings or halves common.

[Tedly Nightshade]

The wood is just not as good today, for any application, not just guitars.

Almost all the old growth is gone, both tropical hardwoods and things like Engleman spruce that grows in my neck of the woods.

The woods ain't what they used to be.

Ted