People don't pay the extra money because they sound better its because there are less to be had and the ability to have one. Why would a 62' reissue made to precise specs as the original 62' sound different? The only difference now would be the quility control of one reissue to the next made in the production line. Its a solid body guitar nothing is changing over time but the finish where and tear. Now the pickups they will change over all the years, A 40 year old magnet has will have degaused some from age.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I would just like to start by saying great post. The first half about the vintage market,well since I have been put on the shelf from playing I started looking at guitars in a way I never did before and reading Vintage magazines and articles and just talking to guys who collect and play which in 30 years I never did before. I was really shocked at how many guys I knew who played also had a large collection. There is a big vintage store in upstate NY called Rumble Seat Music which is one of the biggest vintage stores anywhere. They opened a smaller store 6 years ago in Park $@!&# Bklyn on 3rd st four blocks from my mothers house. I made friends with the guy and girl that ran the place and would drop in a lot. First I would like to say I am not crazy for vintage axes in the sense I would buy a guitar for 10 or 20K over a new guitar. I played a lot of guitars in that store and the new Fender Deluxe Strat and Tele I bought this year are hands down better guitars all around. The store did not make it and wound up closing after a year. The only guitar I bought there was a beautiful mint 95 Strat Ultra in Blue burst which I paid $1,100 for and might of been the cheapest guitar in the place but to me it was in the top ten playability wise and sound wise. I have read so many articles recently with top players who have pre CBS Fenders and 50s Gibsons and they all say the same thing there are keepers and there are duds and just because it is old does not make it better. Also everyone of them take custom shop made guitars out on the road and leave there vintage axes home.I would say if you want to invest a bit in something that might bring a nice return one day I do not believe you have to buy something that is already vintage there are a lot of guitars that are going to be worth a nice return made in the last 20 years, the thing is to figure out what. Also I could never buy a guitar I would not want to play. I have seen a lot of collections on the web and my favorite is our own Alains from France.He has a beautiful well balanced collection of Fender custom shop axes that you just know sound killer and just about all that I have seen have been made in the last 20 years. So if you could would you rather have one ax for that price or a whole collection of more modern masterpieces. Hands down I take the modern.As far as the Vegas guitar bet I would believe everything is on the up and up but you would have to be a fool to make that wager. First off they are not going to have 3 other axes that sound like $@!& and you would have to have one hell of an ear. Take it from me everything is always set up in favor of the house The one thing that dont sound right is putting a Gibson against a Strat as you should be able to tell a single coil from a humbucker unless they pull down 3 Gibsons which would make more sense. Anyway you look at it it is a suckers bet.Your best bet there would be to just find an empty Black Jack table and put down 10K and knock heads with the dealer for one hand which just about gives you an even bet.

Ok bring it round, I'll have 3 standards waiting and a choice of amps. I'll even throw a marshall stack into your winnings pro bono. I can make a new guitar hum like a 50 year old one no problem.

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LOL NIKI!!! Good point my friend!!

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"Wait a minute, somethings wrong here!"

Dude.. Leo started his company on pure greed. He used to say to his friend "Doc" Kaufman that they simply need to start a manufacturing company: "We just gotta MAKE something," as he put it. He went through some sort of library book of "101 Sure-Fire Products" and would talk with Doc about making soap cakes or doorstops or ANYTHING, because manufacturing was becoming a fast buck, and he wanted in.

He just happened to have some knowledge about amplifier circuits that led him into the business he chose, but let us not get all teary-eyed over Leo's pure heart: he didn't have one. The goal was to make a pantload of money, which he did.

To respond to the original post, I agree the entire concept of "vintage" guitars has become a shell game. In the 70s, there was little doubt that the older guitars were better than the current ones, which is the beginning of the myth. But a myth it is.

A spurious comparison. The best fretted solid body in the world doesn't require 1/10th the craftsmanship to make as even a mediocre violin.

Slapchop,
Things must have been different. I'm under no illusion that Leo was suddenly struck by some divine inspiration to bring rock and roll to the masses. He wanted to make a few quid just like the rest of us. Money addiction cant have been anywhere near the levels it is at today though, can it? I just think if we lived nearer that pace the modern technology used for speedy manufacturing would lead to a higher quality instrument, less QC issues than todays guitars. After all post war everywhere couldnt afford to bin hardware through a sloppy mistake. I dont even think yesterdays guitars were better. I do believe they received more hands on attention to detail though. Despite all the string run off problems I've seen. I once read that the fender manual included the instructions for fixing that. Thats not included anymore, but we still occasionaly see the problem on new guitars.

As an aside I was reading some article in a mag on Paul Bigsby. He and Leo were close friends until the strat came out. Apparently when the Bigsby saw the strat headstock he threw his dinner up the dining room wall and started screaming 'THAT %&^(*"! LEO FENDER'.

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I bet Leo in doing back flips in his grave today watching his $200.00 solid body electrics from the 50's selling for 10's of thousands of dollars! You go Leo!

This ought to be interesting!

T'was ever thus.

In the must-read book Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, de Waal tells a story about an experiment they ran with their chimp tribe, who roamed a huge paddock by day and slept in a monkey house at night.

Before turning them loose one morning, they showed them, through a window, a giant crate of one of their favorite treats: grapefruit. The chimps went wild as de Waal and his assistants showed them the grapefruit through the glass and then went out into the wilds, where they hid the fruit. When they turned the chimps loose, they tore out of the building in hot grapefruit pursuit.

WHat amazed de Wall was what happened when one of the chimps found the cache. He didn't call to the others, pointing and hooting, or go off to get the attention of an ally in the tribe. Instead, the chimp actually told a lie: he continued to look as if he had not found the grapefruit... and when the tribe fell asleep in the heat of mid-day, he went directly back to the spot and ate all of them himself.

Greed is older than $@!& erectus.

Puh-lease. I'm not going to argue the point because it's absurd. Most of the "nuance" you refer to has been invented in the past 30 years in the minds of guitar players, but has no basis in reality.

I love this stuff....

Solid Body Stradivarius...I'll take 1 please.

I'd say a high end acoustic needs a lot more effort put into it than either a electric guitar or violin. A violin doesnt require the crucial fret, or bridge measurements of a guitar as they are floating bridged and fretless. Or the calculated stringpath of a acoustic as they are played differently, you dont normaly whack the strings of a violin the way you would a lowden (the only acoustic i ever want to own). I'm pretty sure that nut slot height isnt that important on a violin aside from comfort. Both require wood bending techniques that whilst probably not difficult when your geared up for it, need time. The way the bracings are set inside the body and their relation to the neck joint govern pretty much everything on acoustic instruments soundwise.

One thing anyone can sound competent on any sort of guitar inside a couple of years. It takes around a decade to sound good on a violin. I tried it early on, gave up after a month and went back to playing along to stones records. Not only do you need a perfect ear, absolute carnal, intimate knowledge of your fretboard. You have to work that bow arm too, therin lies the skill of violin and other bow instrument players.

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Niki

Nicely stated....but a little to serious not to be followed by the "slapping penguin" don't you think. My son is a professional guitarist, has a wonderful command of the fretboard, and is a pleasure to listen to. He also has a beautiful Fender Electric Violin. Not such a pleasure to listen to, although a cool sound or two does occasionally sneak out of it.

We both love Taylor Acoustics....their sound is light years above most commercial acoustics. IMO...and they are a pleasure to play as well.

Noodles

Nevin what you need to ask yourself is 'how does that acoustic resonance on a solidbody electric guitar affect amplified sound?'. Truth be told mate, its not a fat lot at all. Fret calculations are difficult (more on that soon in another thread) but they are a set thing. Theres your nut, theres your bridge, heres where your frets go. Its quite definate. A solid body can be knocked up in a day out of one piece of wood, quite easily.

Even with modern machinery you could build a strat in a couple of days quite easily. 6 weeks odd to paint it and get a expected result. An acoustic guitar takes a minimum of a couple of weeks just to shape the sides. Get the bracings wrong and the thing sounds rubbish. They cant just be stripped apart, corrected and put back together like changing out some pickups. Its pretty much the same for a violin. The fingerboard may not require as much work, the body needs about 50 times more work than a whole electric guitar. My initial point was that a high end acoustic is far imore labour intensive than either violin or electric guitar.

On a aside I saw a tv program a year or so ago about a acoustic builder, who lived in a shack out in louisiana. He carved the guitars by hand to order. He wouldnt use anything but this whittling knife he had. Claiming anything else didnt sound as good. When asked about bracing placement he said I just look at the wood and get a feeling on where to put them. No two are the same.

A very different world to modern electric guitar building.

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