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To print article, click Print on your browser's File menu. Go back Posted 1/28/2006 |
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Extra Rare guitars, $50,000 per string (Page 2) of 2  PreviousHe's well on the way, owning 60 choice J-200s now. Since he can only play one at a time, does it ever concern him that the instruments are being kept out of the hands of musicians? Too expensive to actually play? "I don't think most musicians can afford to play guitars like this anymore," he says. "They're too expensive, too risky to perform with. You wouldn't play a Stradivarius in a country band, and that's what these guitars are like now." Yasuda still performs -- he's appeared on the Grand Ol' Opry dozens of times -- and he used to loan rare instruments to musicians for their recording projects, but the value they now hold has raised insurance issues. He hopes to eventually open a museum. That, or they may go back on the market. "I'm going to die someday, and my wife sure doesn't want them around," he says. Some longtime collectors and dealers worry about the implications of the instruments languishing in vaults and display cases. "It's like selling Disneyland to the Martians or something," frets Soest. "These things were made to be played and enjoyed." He concurs with other experts, though, that there's no shortage of excellent instruments today. Johnston says, "I have less patience than I did 20 years ago with musicians hollering about collectors buying all the good stuff, because the new instruments available now are so much better than they were 20 years ago. That's true for the top-line guitars, but also moderately-priced and even cheap guitars are good. You can get a Chinese acoustic guitar for well under $500 that you could be confident stepping onto any stage with. And if you have $1,000 to $2,000, there's a lot of fine stuff." Another longtime dealer, Rick King, who owns the Tacoma, Wash., Guitar Maniacs shop, says, "I remember people whining 15 years ago that 'collectors are buying all the good guitars and putting them in display cases!' I haven't seen that it's stopped anyone from making music. There's this basic economic theory that when the demand for an item exceeds the supply, the value goes up. As musicians, we tend to forget this basic economic theory, which can lead to the basic sour grapes theory of 'waa, waa, waaaa.'" Junior Watson takes it all in stride "Let them all fight over it. I've got what I need," is how blues guitarist Junior Watson regards the vintage market. He's had vintage Gibson and Fenders in the past, and now can't afford them. Even the oddball budget instruments he favors, such as the Harmony Espanada (a 1950s department store arch top that unaccountably has aluminum rims, like a dinette table), are in collectors' sights now. Watson paid $50 for his decades ago, and he'd be hard-pressed to buy another, since they now sell for up to $2,500 on eBay, with ads that invariably trumpet "Junior Watson plays one!" These days he favors a '50s Harmony Stratotone (which, along with Tom Waits and John Hammond playing them, has helped nudge prices from $250 five years ago to $1,600 today) and a Strat copy he pieced together from $400 of aftermarket parts. "After I scraped the finish off the neck with a razor blade, it sounds and feels so close to a '57 Strat now that it's insane," he claims. The boom in guitar investing is a tide that's raised all boats. Even some of the '70s Fenders and Gibsons, whose questionable quality spurred the rise of the vintage market, can sell for thousands today. Brands that once sold for $39 in department stores and drug stores -- such as Silvertone and Teisco -- have their collectors. Some name companies also made guitars under different brands, such as some 1930s Montgomery Wards Radio King guitars that were made by Gibson. Such esoterica, and the terminology used in the guitar world (see "Building a six-string portfolio" for a small sampling) suggests you had best be an informed consumer before you put your nest egg in a guitar case. There are scores of books on guitars, some of which go into great detail about how to verify their authenticity. Vintage Guitar magazine is also a monthly source of info. It's a good idea to have any potential investment checked out by an experienced dealer or luthier, because many things that aren't readily apparent can be wrong with an instrument. Even if a guitar isn't going to be played, its playability remains a major factor in its value. Playing it, though, just might be of value to you. Johnston says, "I tell people that the only way they'll be sure of a good return on their investment is to enjoy the guitar and play it. Then, if it doesn't go up in value, they can still look back on the experience fondly. Whenever people buy an object purely as an investment -- whether it's a ring they don't wear, a car they don't drive or a guitar they don't play -- I think they're setting themselves up for disappointment, because who knows what the market will do tomorrow?"
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