The prices for beat up, modified, rusted out guitars and amps are blowing my mind, even after all these years. Like I've mentioned before, I have a stack of old (1960's and 70's) Guitar Player mags. I read the articles about how Gary Richrath bought up the entire stock of used Les Pauls in his home town for about $200-$250 each back in the 70's. Strats and Teles were $100 and up back in the 60's and 70's in the used market. I know. I bought a used '61 Strat for $100 in the early 70's. Strats in my area's pawn shops were going for $250 into the mid 80's. I bought a Tweed Fender 212 Bassman for $200 in a pawn shop in Lincoln Ne. back in the mid 80's. Even the big local Fender dealer was selling used Teles and Strat for next to nothing back then. Now, because some big name artist uses them, prices have shot up 100 times over. They are old, used guitars and amps. Some with serious issues, but people still snatch them up. Is it the actual tones you are looking for that can't be duplicated with something new now days? Is it the look of a beat up piece of gear that the Road Worn and the Classic series can't give you?
Is it the snob factor of just saying "look what I have? I know of some collectors who don't even play, have these vintage pieces of gear just for show. Granted, some of this mayhem is just honest players buying them up to help with thier retirement or to replace a 401K, if they hold thier value. I know the vintage market is just like any other collectors market (cars, stamps, books, etc), but guitars and amps?

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Life is like a sh*t sandwich. The more bread you have, the less sh*t you have to eat.

I buy vintage amps because they sound better, look better, last longer, and actually appreciate in value.

Can you honestly state you're convinced that twenty or thirty years from now Fender will be selling "vintage re-issue" FM212s?

'Nuff said!

Arjay

While the prices of vintage Strats are too high for me nowadays,and like you I remember the days where for less than $300 you could get a Strat or Les Paul,...the vintage Blackface,and Brown amps are still within my price range and to me they just get the tone I want.The ones I have are in great shape and for my style,there's nothing like a vintage Fender amp.

retroverbial:

I don't think Fender will sell a RI FM212 at all in twenty years. It will be the guy who's got one and thinks it's worth thousands of dollars. How many Musicmaster and Bronco guitars you see for sale for the $1000 and up? They've been refinished and modded, but they still want top dollar for them. I recall seeing on ebay a Fender Twin Reverb that did not work, and had been modded, for sale by someone who had bought it off of Johnny Cash's guitar player, and wanted thousands of dollars for his "piece of music history". I guess all these amp manufactuers with thier modeling amps that can reproduce these vintage sounds are just a bunch of hocus pocus. And Boss's line of pedals like the '59 Bassman are phoney too.

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Life is like a sh*t sandwich. The more bread you have, the less sh*t you have to eat.

I recently picked up a vintage LP, I did so because as you know they just don't make things like thy used to. Companies now factor, "breakage," into the products they sell so they can continue to bring in revenue. That being said I certainly would not have spent what I spent for that Paul if it wasn't in pristine shape. As far as vintage amps go, which is far haha, they do sound a lot better in my opinion, but everything is hit or miss, it's a lot nicer I that kind of deal is in your hometown because Internet purchases are almost always a risk, with to many uncontrolled variables and too many dishonest people it's tough. In the end, for me atleast, it's about tone chasing, I don't like the idea of thinking that some rich snob has a vh4 blueface sitting in his/her basemet never touched and won't sell it to me!

The best Les Paul I ever played was a '79 Les Paul KM (handmade in Kalamazoo, not mass produced Nashville). For back then, the KM model was mostly the same price, too. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if it fit into my budget. I regret so often not acquiring one back when they were new. I would have had for all these years to rip on ...

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

I own an 81 straight from KM;)

"it's mindBLASTING!"
(insert picture of Russell Peter's funny face lol)

I own a '77 Les Paul made here in Nashville,and it's a good guitar but I don't play it,my son does...it's worth way more than the $385 I paid for it back then.
The one I want to get back is a '65 Strat that I once had,but I think the price is going to keep me from owning it....it makes me sick!

I wouldn't mind getting some vintage FX. Like an old Rams Head Muff from the 70s, or an Echoplex. Had an old EH Phaser that was all messed up and i was too stupid to hang on to it til i got older, wiser, and handy with a soldering iron. I'd even love my old Juno Synth back, that was fun.

As for guitars, i don't have the money to go collecting, and i agree that fender makes such good guitars that i don't feel the urge to find something i cant afford just cuz its old. Plus i'm a bit silly with the dings and dents. I like guitars to look shiny and new.

I have nothing against guys who buy guitars to collect even if they cant play a note except the few that have the snob factor. The Bottom line is everyone can thank the corporate buy outs of both Fender and Gibson for the incredible rise of the vintage market. CBS did a better greed job of looking to cut corners and turn out more guitars and amps that were no where near what Leo originally made. For those that dont remember Fender was on a respirator and could of easily folded if the right group of guys did not buy it, and since CBS bought it for 13 million and sold it 20 years later for 5 they could of easily just shut it down for good. And as everyone realized just how superior the earlier guitars were they just became hotter and hotter which started the vintage craze. I would like to know how many are actual gigging players who paid those insane prices, as I know it has to be very low unless it was established players. The only good thing about the dive in the vintage market by the bad economy is a lot of musicians were able to afford a vintage ax and more are in circulation. Personally if I had 10K to drop I would get 2 or 3 Custom shop axes made today than something vintage.

I have nothing against guys who buy guitars to collect even if they cant play a note except the few that have the snob factor. The Bottom line is everyone can thank the corporate buy outs of both Fender and Gibson for the incredible rise of the vintage market. CBS did a better greed job of looking to cut corners and turn out more guitars and amps that were no where near what Leo originally made. For those that dont remember Fender was on a respirator and could of easily folded if the right group of guys did not buy it, and since CBS bought it for 13 million and sold it 20 years later for 5 they could of easily just shut it down for good. And as everyone realized just how superior the earlier guitars were they just became hotter and hotter which started the vintage craze. I would like to know how many are actual gigging players who paid those insane prices, as I know it has to be very low unless it was established players. The only good thing about the dive in the vintage market by the bad economy is a lot of musicians were able to afford a vintage ax and more are in circulation. Personally if I had 10K to drop I would get 2 or 3 Custom shop axes made today than something vintage.

yeah,we would really be in a helluva fix if Leo had just shut the doors back then....a Strat would probably be selling for millions now.

I read that $1.00 in the 50's is like $7.00 today. In that vein, today's prices for guitars and amps bought new are about right. I think the reason vintage prices shot so far up is the snob appeal the rock stars made out by saying "yeah, I have all these guitars and amps in my collection, I rarely play them, but I have them and they are mine." Everyone who wanted to sound and look like thier rock heros went out and bought the Strats and Teles and Les Pauls and amps. Then it got to the point that if you had a guitar or amp with Fender or Gibson on it, it was instantly worth a lot. The collectors that don't play saw the financial investment end of it and started buying them up, so the prices shot up even more. Now it's a bidding war to see who has the most $$ to buy this or that, the rock star or the investor. The average musician like us can't swing that kind of cash, so we're left with the hacked up, modded, refinished, rebuilt stuff that left.

Don't get me wrong-I can really appreciate a nice vintage guitar or amp. I've had a few back before they were collectables, we all have. The few times I've played someone's '61 Tele, or a '57 Strat or an old tweed Deluxe I haven't been blown away by the quality. More than anything else, the guitars were noisy, and kind of hard to play compared to some of today's gear. Every vintage amp I've seen needed so much repair work, it wasn't the same amp anymore. IMHO

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Life is like a sh*t sandwich. The more bread you have, the less sh*t you have to eat.

The only reason I'd buy something vintage is if it were something they don't make today (like a Fender Coronado or a Peavey T-60). Although I once played through a real '65 Super Reverb and to this day it's the best amp I've ever heard in my life. You hardly had to tweak the settings for it to sound good, it just did. I'd pay more for it than a reissue, because it sounded so much better. I haven't played enough vintage gear to really have a good idea of what differences (if any) there are between something that costs $10,000 and a reissue of the same thing.

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probably the same reason as you would want to buy anything. cause you like it.