How Old Does Gear Have to Be Before Its Considered Vintage UPDATED

How Old Does Gear Have to Be Before Its Considered Vintage

Reverb.com was launched with the intention of building the best place for musicians to buy and sell all types of music gear. A major part of that is centered on the globe of vintage guitars. We take tons of sellers from all corners of the globe listing and selling vintage guitars every twenty-four hours. Nosotros go a lot of questions about vintage guitars, so we've compiled some of the about common ones into this handy guide. Read on for an introduction to the fascinating realm of vintage guitars.

Table of Contents

• What is a vintage guitar?
• What should I know when ownership vintage?
• How much do originality and status matter?
• Which vintage guitars are worth the most?
• Where exercise dealers go their vintage guitars?
• How has the vintage guitar market fared over the years?
• What does the future hold for the vintage guitar market?
• What's my guitar worth?
• Where can I larn more than about vintage guitars?

What is a vintage guitar?

While an antique is defined every bit an object over 100 years old, there's no strict chronological definition of what makes something vintage. Typically, though, guitars around 30 years old or older fall into that category, and even newer instruments volition often exist labeled as such by sellers. In the vino world, vintage tin refer to annihilation of a certain quality, and there are some who take the aforementioned perspective with guitars. On Reverb, nosotros usually consider anything made prior to 1980 every bit beingness vintage.

What should I know when buying a vintage guitar?

If y'all're asking yourself that question, and then you're definitely in the correct place. In that location are a lot of things to proceed in heed when shopping for vintage guitars, just here at Reverb, we try to make it every bit easy and fun every bit possible.

Here are some questions to enquire yourself when considering a vintage guitar:

• Who is selling it?

  When browsing on Reverb, you lot'll see listings for guitars from established brick-and-mortar shops, individuals who only happen to have a vintage guitar to sell, and everybody in betwixt. Many buyers only feel comfortable buying from actual stores which makes sense equally they will ordinarily have in-firm repair techs, return policies and a professional reputation to back their sales. This will, yet, often bring a slightly college price tag for the guitar in question, just non e'er.

  With individual sellers, information technology's important to ask questions ahead of fourth dimension and proceed the advice ongoing. In any example, the Reverb staff is here to help broker any deal from start to cease, and thanks to Reverb Protection, you lot tin can purchase with confidence.

• What forms of payment exercise they accept?

  This information will be listed on any listing page. Most sellers on our site volition have Paypal or Reverb'due south internal Straight Checkout system. Our Preferred Sellers may choose to offering financing through Affirm.

• What is the status of the guitar?

  Nearly professional person sellers will detail any and all conditional issues in their list, but in all cases you lot should feel comfortable asking questions prior to purchase. The importance of condition will vary greatly depending on your needs and priorities. More on this below.

How much practise originality and condition affair?

In brusque: a lot. Ii guitars with the exact same make, model, twelvemonth, and stop tin vary drastically in price due to the electric current condition of the musical instrument. Serious collectors care quite a flake about this, and the mantle of "all original" tin be very difficult to find for a particular model.

Original parts

Guitars are by design highly modular instruments, and guitarists are tinkerers by nature. This ways that many instruments volition have replacement parts that were not what came out of the factory. Mutual examples include pickups, tuning machines, bridges, nuts, control knobs, potentiometers, and plenty of other components, all of which volition decrease the value for collectors. For cornerstone vintage models from Gibson and Fender, replaced pickups are probably the nigh damning in terms of retained value.

Even instances where the replacement office really improves the sound or playability of the guitar are considered serious detractors for collectors. A re-fret, for example, which is often a necessity to go along an old guitar playable, can be a negative for a buyer searching for that magic "all original" distinction.

Original finish vs. refinished

Like parts, the originality of the stop on a vintage guitar is crucial to determining its value on the collector'southward market place. Oftentimes you'll see a guitar labeled as "refinished" or as a "refin" which means that it was repainted at some point in its lifetime. Refins vary a bit as well, with some representing a professional, delicate undertaking and others existence little more than garage spray pigment jobs. Even the best of refins, still, can reduce the value of a vintage guitar past around 50%. If, for example, we had an original Processed Apple tree Cherry Stratocaster from 1962 that was faded and scratched throughout the body with just a faint hint of original Fender factory carmine pigment, information technology would notwithstanding be more valuable than one with a glistening, spotless not-original ruby finish.

Activity, cracks, and other potential repairs

In addition to original parts and finishes, due consideration should be given to other physical properties of the instrument which impact its audio, playability and structural integrity. These include whether in that location are any cracks in the torso or neck, if the cervix is bowed or warped at all, what the activity of the strings relative to the fretboard is like, and an countless list of other factors. Acoustic guitars have an additional set up of concerns including separation in the bounden on the trunk and lift of the bridge away from the top of the guitar, along with deterioration of the bracing within the guitar.

There are more potential issues than can be listed here, but the best fashion to make sure you'll be happy with a purchase is to read the description of the guitar, await at all images and videos, and inquire questions if anything is unclear.

Headstock breaks

An mutual problem for many vintage guitars (Gibsons in item) is the dreaded headstock break. The bending of the headstock of a guitar relative to its neck is an important blueprint gene when it comes to hitting the correct action of the strings on the fretboard. Yet, combined with the high tension of the strings on the guitar, that angle leaves the musical instrument vulnerable to potential cracks and breaks if the guitar falls over over or gets drunkenly knocked into the body of the bass on stage. Headstock repairs are a common job for luthiers, but fifty-fifty the finest repair leaves the guitar worth much less than its pre-break self.

Player Form vs Collector Grade

A term you seen used a lot effectually Reverb is "player grade." We like this term and so much, we even have a curated set with some of favorite player form guitars. Histrion grade refers to a vintage guitar that is non-original to the point that it'due south of less involvement to a collector than it would be to someone who'southward just looking for an crawly guitar to play. These are commonly guitars that take seen a lot of utilize and potentially conduct non-original finishes, parts, or both.

On the other terminate of the spectrum is "collector grade." That besides has a curated set page for it featuring some of the best best eye candy on the whole site. These are guitars that are in all-original or about all-original condition, and every bit such, tend to carry cost tags that put them out of the grasp of most casual players. While that may seem unjust, that's the reality of the market. We just telephone call 'em similar we see 'em.

Does originality thing to me?

It might not. For lots of players, the priority isn't going to be to detect something that'south exactly the same every bit it was the day it left the manufactory. The priority is finding a guitar that sounds and plays corking, and has a lot of grapheme. Certainly guitars that are not all-original can satisfy those needs. It's important to remember that no two guitars are alike, and the quest for one that strikes your particular balance of all of the above is what makes guitar collecting so much fun in the outset place.

Which vintage guitars are worth the near?

When information technology comes to electric guitars, the nigh valuable regular product instruments are usually considered to be solidbody electric guitars fabricated by Gibson in the late '50s. These include the elusive original run of Flying Vs and Explorers, every bit well every bit the fabled Cherry Sunburst Les Paul Standards produced from 1958 through 1960, known simply as "Bursts." A lot has been written nearly these instruments but suffice it to say they rarely come up up for sale and when they do, the prices are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For Fender, the about sought-after instruments come from between 1950 and 1964 which is known as the "Pre-CBS" era as information technology predates the indicate when the CBS corporation causeless ownership of the firm. With Fender, original custom finishes like Seafoam Greenish or Shoreline Gold can increase the value substantially, but even these are non worth quite every bit much as the highest-terminate Gibson models. Across the limited color examples, the primeval Telecasters and Broadcasters (the predecessor to the Tele) rank as the most prized.

On the audio-visual side of things, dreadnoughts made by Martin from 1933 up until World War II carry the stardom as almost valued by collectors. Gibson jumbo acoustics such as the J-45 from this era and into Earth War II are as well at the top of the list, simply non quite as valuable as, for example, a pre-war Martin D-45.

Note that the above examples do not include one-of-a-kind creative person-owned or historically significant individual guitars, which can fetch considerably more at auction. While guitars similar Eric Clapton's "Blackie" or Bob Dylan'south original sunburst Strat have sold for shut to a 1000000 dollars, this is a separate category from what is referred to as "regular production" instruments. Another musical instrument instance would be the early guitars of Paul Bigsby which were hugely influential on builders like Leo Fender and Semie Moseley of Mosrite. These guitars would potentially sell towards the top of the best range, but actually never entered full production the manner a Gibson or Fender did making it difficult to generalize.

Where do vintage guitar dealers get all these guitars?

There are many unlike places where professional person sellers detect their guitars. Here are a few key places:

• Guitar shows

  Around the earth, various organizations hold guitar shows where dealers can come to buy, sell, and trade their wares, also as play loud Stevie Ray Vaughan licks to testify off to their peers. For a long time, these events were considered the epicenter of the guitar trading earth. Nevertheless, in recent years, online sales have diminished their importance somewhat. That said, they're however a lot of fun, and there are still plenty of great deals to be found at your local guitar bear witness.

• Ordinary people

  For many dealers, having a reputation as the place to go to sell a guitar locally is by far their biggest buying asset. Brick and mortar shops rely on "walk-ins" as a great way to learn guitars that have yet to hit the general marketplace. Virtually will exist upwardly front in saying they're offering a wholesale price lower than what information technology will fetch on the open market, only the advantage, of course, is the convenience of an immediate sale.

• Online

  Vintage guitars of every stripe are listed on Reverb every day, and many of our buyers have made a habit of checking frequently for a new find. Dealers are constantly on the prowl for good guitar buys, and sites like Reverb brand it that much easier.

• Other dealers

  At guitar shows and online, dealers are constantly trading and selling to each other, and a single vintage guitar can really become around. Sometimes on Reverb, nosotros'll see the exact same guitar sell multiple times from dealer to player to collector to dealer and and so on. It'southward the circumvolve of guitars, and information technology moves usa all.

Beyond that, in that location are plenty of other avenues for finding vintage guitars. The most successful sellers are the ones who keep their sources secret, so your best bet is to keep an eye out on Reverb.

How has the vintage guitar market fared over the years?

That'southward a not bad question, I'm glad it was frequently asked. Starting in the early '90s, the vintage guitar market went through a major period of growth that last upwardly until the recession hit in 2008. The about dramatic change came in the form of a speculator bubble between the years of 2005 and 2008. Prior to the '90s, the concept of the vintage guitar was not as cemented every bit it is today. Sure, at that place were prized instruments worth more than others, but it took the combination of a number of factors to really drive prices as loftier as they got. Many observers notation that the blast and bubble of pre-2008 represents a period when the baby boomer generation—the generation that came of age with rock 'northward coil and the Beatles, and experienced the original electric guitar blast in the '60s—carried the most purchasing power against the backdrop of a strong economy. This expansion and increase in the marketplace attracted speculators which acquired the increased growth simply prior to the recession.

What Does the Time to come Hold for the Vintage Guitar Marketplace?

If you could answer this question accurately, you'd stand to make a lot of money. Like whatsoever investment or collectible market place, it's difficult to predict exactly what volition happen to the vintage guitar game, though plenty will try. Equally the baby boomers carry less weight and purchase less, it stands that there will be fewer collectors buying, thus lowering values. The idea is that the rise generation of potential buyers but will not carry the same reverence or passion for the guitar their parents did. For evidence of this, merely turn on any top 40 radio station.

Currently, nosotros seem to be in something of a normalized plateau of guitar values, though interest in specific brands or models does change. One interesting phenomenon is the expanding interest in secondary vintage brands like Harmony, Guild, and Teisco. Since most of the actually central iconic guitars from Martin, Fender and the residuum of the usual suspects got snagged up during the blast of the '90s and early 2000s, the newer generation of guitarists have gravitated towards lesser known models to go their prepare of authentic vintage mojo. These sorts of guitars accept increased in value somewhat, though are still no where most the range we see for conventionally popular guitars.

What'south my guitar worth?

This very well may be the most oftentimes asked vintage guitar question of all. The answer is that your guitar is worth whatever someone will pay for it. Make a listing on Reverb and see what the marketplace offers. You'll need an request price, and for that we recommend because what'due south written above about status and originality, and consulting our Price Guide.

Where can I learn more about vintage guitars?

At that place are lots of nifty resource out in that location to learn more well-nigh vintage guitars. For i, our Price Guide features comprehensive information on lots of vintage and non-vintage instruments and other gear with estimates on current values equally well equally images and groundwork information. We also have tons of manufactures on Reverb dealing with topics such as Stratocaster History, Martins from the '70s, and more vintage topics. Take a look at the Reverb News page for more info.

Maybe the nearly widely used book on vintage guitars is the Gruhn'due south Guide which includes exhaustive information on well-nigh of the major brands.

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How Old Does Gear Have to Be Before Its Considered Vintage UPDATED

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