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Post subject: Vintage Strats are firewood man!
Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 2:08 pm
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Seriously. I have been trying to buy a vintage Strat for a while now but every time I play one it has "issues."

I know, they're old guitars but lets get real. For the amount of money these things are fetching, I expect at least some of them to be a great guitar. I have played 1. That's right. 1 that was an awesome guitar and it wasn't for sale.

Then I'll pick up a Custom Shop Relic and play it. In my opinion, the Custom Shop guitars are worlds ahead of any guitars that came out of the Fender plant back in the day. They play better, sound better, tune better and are just consistently better guitars. I hate to say this at a point in my life where I can finally afford a real vintage Strat, but so far, after playing a few hundred of them, I no longer want one. They're firewood man! The Custom Shop offerings are actually better. And the more I think about it, it's no surprise.


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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:25 pm
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I have to agree with you on the merrits of a new cutom shop giuitars versus the vintage.

Vintage guitar value is not in tone, but in nostalgia and limited availability.


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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:01 pm
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Oh yeah.. today's manufacturing quality, component quality far exceed what was done 45 years ago. Even a Highway 1 is usually a better guitar off the line then a '57 was off the line.

You're paying for vintage vibe, not quality when you get an axe like that. Braggin rights are expensive huh?

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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:28 pm
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whats coming out of the custom shop is way ahead; but you have to remember where your from

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Post subject:
Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:45 pm
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what crack are you guys smoking?

some vintage guitars are duds and some although im sure a less proportionate amount are less lively... however the majority of preCBS strats are way better than custom shop guitars probably to the simple fact of the age of them. i have many examples of each and came to that conclusion..YMMV


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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 8:36 am
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I have a 1955 Les Paul Custom that I've been looking to sell and replace with a vintage Strat or Tele. Honestly, the vast majority of vintage guitars I've played, (all brands) are firewood. They just don't stand up to what is available today. I have played well over 300 vintage Strats in my travels and did actually find one that I thought was exceptional. The rest are just old junk. Sorry. New is better to my ears, hands, sensibility. And I have been completely sober for the past 17 years. Never had a problem, just found that sobriety is clarity. So clear in fact, that I am able to make the above comments. I love the fact that people over price these old guitars. I don't play my Les Paul. I'm not a "Les Paul guy." I just watch it increase in value every year.


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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 9:14 am
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Yeah I love Vintage Strats! They are the best, Guitars get better with age.


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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:06 am
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Ashunn wrote:
Yeah I love Vintage Strats! They are the best, Guitars get better with age.


Solid body electrics don't. They just get old.

The myth of "vintageness" began when CBS took over the company. Everybody said, "man, these guitars suck. They ere better back in the day." Prices started going up, and a myth was born.

In the course of creating the myth, people started searching for explanations to justify the cost: why are old guitars better? Oh, well, it must be because... uh... pickups get better when the magnets age! Yeah, thats the ticket... and "old wood" sounds better, or was dried better, or something. Plus, Leo's mojo was all over the building, and you can hear it in the guitars... and blah blah blah.

Now the rationalizations for the myth have become stronger than the myth itself... creating rising prices for the very 1970s guitars that were supposedly so damn bad that they created the myth in the first place! Now people will pay thousands for these "junk" guitars just because they're old!

I'm with Suhr Thing. I've played one or two early Strats that were special. The rest were beat-and-gone junk, even as their owners were telling me how awesome they were.

As the song says: "The more you pay, the more it's worth."


Last edited by Gravity Jim on Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:11 am
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i vintage is firewood why does the custom shop have reissues :P
(got yea there)

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Post subject:
Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:16 am
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thegigman0 wrote:
i vintage is firewood why does the custom shop have reissues :P
(got yea there)


I don't think you "got" him there. Custom Shop Reissues sell because people want a guitar that reminds them of those pictures of their heroes. Most purchasers of a reissue guitar have never even held a real example of the guitar it emulates.

Fender is just marketing to the myth. Do you think the guys working the Custom Shop believe that a factory made guitar from 1957 is better than what they can produce right now, today?

I can assure you they don't think that at all.


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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 11:37 am
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i think it depends more on the hands that are playing it. jimi did just fine with CBS Strats, and he found one awfully hard to burn...


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Post subject:
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:16 am
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In this case, "the hands" are on no consequence. A dud guitar is a dud guitar. Sure, a great player can make a dud guitar sound decent, but that doesn't change anything about the guitar. It's still a dud.

I am so thrilled that I can now get the sound of the very best vintage guitars out there at a fraction of the cost. And they play better than most of the vintage pieces out there.

Thank goodness for the Custom Shop!


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Post subject:
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 11:11 am
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Alright if thats your opinion then lets go buy a 5k custom shop guitar and give to a kid whos never touch a guitar in his life nd see if he start play like jimmy page :x

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Post subject:
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:35 pm
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thegigman0 wrote:
Alright if thats your opinion then lets go buy a 5k custom shop guitar and give to a kid whos never touch a guitar in his life nd see if he start play like jimmy page :x


??????????????

So, you're saying the inexperienced kid will sound great on an authentic vintage guitar? I don't understand. I'm not trying to get anyone mad here. Just posing a different point of view than the one that is popularly held.


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Post subject:
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 1:02 pm
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well i havent played a bunch of the old ones so i cant comment to much. i do know that the wood tends to be better than anything you can get today because they used older more mature wood back then, and through the years the wood will stabilize so it wont warp. also people say there is a woody smokey sound from those strats that the custom shop can barely duplicate but who knows? i know eric johnson says his signature plays and sounds as well and better than those and i know he really feels like that because thats what he's useing and he really doesnt need to tell B.S. to make money. i dont know because ive heard many convincing stories from both camps.

i was kidding about the whole crack thing too man, i dont really think you smoke crack i just said that to be radical :shock:


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