Greetings

I was reading a post, about a week or so ago, that was discussing the virtues, values, and desirability of "vintage guitars". I think that if you can afford them, and if owning them makes you happy, then by all means you should indulge yourself. The vintage guitar market has exploded recently and some of the pricing that I have seen is completely out of this world. I do think that it is somewhat of a dice roll when you drop major cheese on one of these pieces. We have no real idea what these pieces will do in the long term, and you can only hope for the best.

IMO I don't think that you can actually compare the build quality, playability, reliability, feel, and overall sound of a 50 year old guitar to one that is brand new. Especially when discussing solid body electrics. The quality craftsmanship of a new solid body guitar will far exceed what was being built 50 years ago. The playability and sound will be superior as well. Please remember...these vintage pieces are great. Vintage cars are also great, and sell for many times the price of new ones, but no one will try to tell you how their 50 year old car performs better than a new one, or was built better than a new one, or is more comefortable either.

In Las Vegas...where you can make a wager on almost anything...they play a game called "The $10,000.00 Challenge". You bring your $50,000.00 vintage 1950's Stratocaster...or if you have really big cajones, your $150,000.00 1959 Gibson Les Paul, and you meet at the music store of your choice. If you brought a Strat, you then pick 3 new MIA Strats of your choice off of the store wall. Now select the Amp of your choice as well. The player now puts a blindfold on YOU the vintage guitar owner, and places you 15 to 20 feet from the Amp. He now plays the exact same riff on all 4 guitars. If you can pick out your "super tone filled" vintage guitar from the 4, he gives you the $10,000.00....If you pick the wrong guitar...he gets to keep yours.

These guy's get very few players.

In the world of solid body electrics, IMO there's nothing like a new MIA Strat!

Thanks for sharing
Noodles

Good one noodles!!!!

Your right they just didnt have the technology 50 years ago to produce what they do today. However they didnt have the corporate greed on a par with todays levels. I think the test you mentioned is a little unfair. Theres too many variables involved, mainly the other players inflections on playing. A half decent player could make any guitar sound like junk and a junk guitar sound like a choir of angels.
If you could spend time playing the other guitars and getting to know their peculiarities, or if you played all 4 guitars blindfold it would be a tad fairer.

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No no and no

Man that challenge would be near impossible. An amp you've never heard before and your guitar is played by a guy you've never heard before. For all you know, he could turn down the tone or volume knob on your "super guitar" so you would pick one of the other ones figuring it's better. Besides, just the idea of somebody else playing mah guitar ticks me off a little bit >_> As with anything, vintage instruments are only worth as much as people are willing to pay, which can be extreme amounts of cash or perhaps nothing <_<

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I traded my car in for a microphone.

All I know is I'm happy with my guitars and truly hope that everyone else is happy as well!

I saw another MIM vs MIA thread today. I am not participating in those threads again. They just cause confusion and nothing good ever comes out of that exercise!
Although it does bring out an old buddy of mine at times.

Niki

Thanks for adding the line about "today's corporate greed". I know that you and I have discussed that philosophy before at length. Sadly, the prices of today's "Vintage Guitars" are driven by "individual" greed. They are also usually accompanied by a story about how great the vintage tone is and how amazing they are to play. This is usually not the case. As collecting vintage guitars goes, if I could have one of the actual ones that say SRV played himself, or Hendrix, or Clapton....this would capture my interest. But IMO old guitars are just that...old guitars. I will continue to try and add beautiful new ones to my current collection.

Remember that in Vegas the "House" always comes out ahead! Really, if you think about it, 1 in 4 odds are pretty good. Once the first guitar is plugged directly into the amp, no changes can be made to the game. All 4 guitars have their volume and tone knobs set at full. The amp settings are unchanged as well.

Pretty scary yes / no ?
noodles

Is certainly not a gamble i'd take 1 in 4 on a £30k guitar. Bit too risky for my nervous disposition.

On the whole corprate greed bit my point is that they make guitars of an acceptable sellable standard with a high turnout. When they could improve quality. On the other hand the fender manufacture process of the 50's would to my mind be far more like a customshop teambuilt guitar. Albeit without the notoriety of the customshop at that time.

They could use todays machinery to acheive utterly superb flawless works of art in wood and metal. Could we pay for them time and time again though. I really dont think todays fender is a bad product at all, I wouldnt buy them if i did. I do think they could be improved, theres always room for improvement. Any factory manager will tell you that. Then you need some care not to cross the when enough becomes too much line. There are superb guitars manufactured to ridiculous tollerances. Hardly a thousandthe of an inch differencre from one guitar to the next. Some say they seem sterile. We wouldnt want that for our favourite company would we? Its a fine line they walk teetering between what we'd call poor quality and bland perfection. Theres no doubt they have it right, now. I have to agree they must be more acceptable than some of the quirks that arose 55 years ago. Theres a beauty in imperfection though.

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No no and no

Yeah it is a real sucker bet. You're putting up a $50K instrument to win $10K and the odds are 4-1 against you!! A fairer bet would be 4 times your instruments value, since the odds are stacked against you to begin with. Of course my logic assumes that you would be unable to clearly identify your guitar and it would come down to a guess.

Scary as hell, I think.

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Right! The Gamble isn't very interesting but the rest of the Test is something I'd like to try out.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

If you could win 4 times the value, that would be fair. But being Vegas, the house would only offer you about 2.7 times the value (that would make it about the same as expected payoff as a single number bet on roulette).

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Orville

Actually roulette is the best pay-out of any casino game. A single number hit actually pays 35 to 1. No other game even comes close. Especially not the "pick your axe" game.

The story goes that the game came from a personal wager between 2 great and powerful guitar minds similar to the great minds that we share with each-other here. The "Vintage Guy" was adamant about the extra special tone which emitted from his well seasoned 50 year old guitar. His adversary claimed that it was only "hype" to justify the high price for the vintage piece, and even it's owner could never tell the difference in tone from a brand new one costing many thousands of dollars less.

Great stuff....A tension filled game for the extra rich!

Thanks
Noodles

In accordance with nikininja's comments on modern day technique, etc, if I had a super valuable vintage guitar, I'd promptly sell it to someone who is more than willing to over pay for it (we all know there are plenty of them out there). With the proceeds, I'd buy as many new, "high end" guitars, hand selected by my goodly self as I could until the money ran out. What the heck, I may even buy a nice bass too. No, they don't have to have a pedigree, per se. Rather, they would all simply have to be superbly made instruments.

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You dig?

This is an argument that a friend of mine and I have all of the time. For him, everything has to be vintages because "they just made things better back then" whereas I'm the "give me the latest with all the newest features". There is merit in both but since I am not as wealthy as my friend I have to make choices that he doesn't. The most obvious choice if buying a vintage guitar is whether or not to take it out of it's case. If I spent $5000.00 for a pre CBS Strat I would be scared to death of doing anything to devalue it. I'd never play it then what use would it really be if I don't have the money for a full stable of axes.

I have two Strats, an American Deluxe I've had for a few years and a Highway One that I purchased earlier this week. I'm a player rather than a collector so I get what I want in terms of sound and feel. I started playing guitar in 1978. The technology and manufacturing standards are way higher than anything I had back then. Not only that, the prices are still the same, you just get less. Back then a good student model classical guitar was $140.00. You can still get entry level classical guitars for the same price but now they're made in China and the frets turns your fingers into hamburger. I'm happier with my new guitars compared to the guitars I bought in the early 80s. I bought a Yamaha electric for $600.00 1982. My new Highway One cost me $621.00. Between the two, the Strat wins hands down. And its made in the USA. The best vintage Strat that I could afford for what I've paid would be a MIJ Strat.

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

Id take that bet, and take his 3 new Strats!!! Ill take one of my older ones from the 60's - no one could mistake the hum when he plugged that badboy in!! lol

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"Wait a minute, somethings wrong here!"

If you're talking strictly tables games, yes, it's one of the best. We also have Megabucks. It's a progressive jackpot slot machine that starts at 10 million and grows until hit. All for a 3 dollar bet. If I remember right the record jackpot is somewhere north of 34 million so far.