Vintage strats

EttieneB · 2011-10-26T19:40:19+00:00

So ive been looking around just to see what a proper 1960-1965 strat would go for and now robbing a bank seems like the best way to get one! Does anyone have an original of that era and are there peeps u can buy them from here in SA? Thoughts?

MIKA-the-better-one

you know so many guys are concerned that these lovely vintage strats are locked away, safe, insured, never to be gazed upon ........ I just hope that they are played, a bonus would be if they were played out in a public place.

EttieneB

MIKA the better one wrote you know so many guys are concerned that these lovely vintage strats are locked away, safe, insured, never to be gazed upon ........ I just hope that they are played, a bonus would be if they were played out in a public place.

VellaJ

MIKA the better one wrote you know so many guys are concerned that these lovely vintage strats are locked away, safe, insured, never to be gazed upon ........ I just hope that they are played, a bonus would be if they were played out in a public place.

Very true. I can see why they're doing it (if it's an investment thing) but I couldn't do that. If I have such an amazing item (in any context, including vintage cars, etc) why not use it for it's intended purpose?

Bob-Dubery

MIKA the better one wrote you know so many guys are concerned that these lovely vintage strats are locked away, safe, insured, never to be gazed upon ........ I just hope that they are played, a bonus would be if they were played out in a public place.

Well an oke can do what he wants with his guitar. There's plenty of axes of all sorts that lie under beds and aren't played. Buying a rare guitar as an investment is not exactly artistic, but it's not something that anybody can deny.

I do know a guy who has lots of good guitars. I've played some of them. He likes them to be played, but he's not going to lend them out for public use - that's just too risky.

People with rare cars (or even ordinary cars like mine) don't make them available to the general public, and I don't see why guitars should be any different.

My Morgan was loaned out for a gig once, before I bought it (the previous owner is a good friend of mine). It came back with a lot of marks on the back of the neck. I know who did it. I won't name the name here, but I won't lend him a guitar. I also declined to lend it to some lady who approached me at an open mic night, said she'd forgotten to bring a guitar and my guitar sounded SO much better than anything else she'd heard and it was just what she needed to play a few songs. Sorry. Not on. She told me that she was with somebody else that I knew, and this was true, and I have no reason to believe she was hanging around looking for a guitar to half inch - but I had little difficulty in saying no to her.

OTOH when Stratisfear played at TJ's he used one of my guitars (he had his pick, he went with the Larrivee but could have used the Morgan) and he had it for about 2 weeks in all. He's cool. I know how he looks after things and he can borrow a guitar from me any time he likes.

So no reason why anybody should just lend an axe to somebody else - especially for rock 'n roll gigs or tours. If you want to, then fine, but nobody should be entitled to an expectation that you'll lend any given guitar out.

Interestingly George Gruhn believes that collectors put more guitars into circulation than they take out, and that they actually preserve the truly rare stuff that might otherwise get butchered. See http://www.gruhn.com/newsletter/newsltr28.html

VellaJ

X-rated Bob wrote
MIKA the better one wrote you know so many guys are concerned that these lovely vintage strats are locked away, safe, insured, never to be gazed upon ........ I just hope that they are played, a bonus would be if they were played out in a public place.
Well an oke can do what he wants with his guitar. There's plenty of axes of all sorts that lie under beds and aren't played. Buying a rare guitar as an investment is not exactly artistic, but it's not something that anybody can deny.

I do know a guy who has lots of good guitars. I've played some of them. He likes them to be played, but he's not going to lend them out for public use - that's just too risky.

People with rare cars (or even ordinary cars like mine) don't make them available to the general public, and I don't see why guitars should be any different.

My Morgan was loaned out for a gig once, before I bought it (the previous owner is a good friend of mine). It came back with a lot of marks on the back of the neck. I know who did it. I won't name the name here, but I won't lend him a guitar. I also declined to lend it to some lady who approached me at an open mic night, said she'd forgotten to bring a guitar and my guitar sounded SO much better than anything else she'd heard and it was just what she needed to play a few songs. Sorry. Not on. She told me that she was with somebody else that I knew, and this was true, and I have no reason to believe she was hanging around looking for a guitar to half inch - but I had little difficulty in saying no to her.

OTOH when Stratisfear played at TJ's he used one of my guitars (he had his pick, he went with the Larrivee but could have used the Morgan) and he had it for about 2 weeks in all. He's cool. I know how he looks after things and he can borrow a guitar from me any time he likes.

So no reason why anybody should just lend an axe to somebody else - especially for rock 'n roll gigs or tours. If you want to, then fine, but nobody should be entitled to an expectation that you'll lend any given guitar out.

Interestingly George Gruhn believes that collectors put more guitars into circulation than they take out, and that they actually preserve the truly rare stuff that might otherwise get butchered. See http://www.gruhn.com/newsletter/newsltr28.html

Agreed. But I'm not sure Mika was talking about the axes being played by the public. I think he just wanted the general public to see them being played ?

rikus

Slightly of topic, but... I recently had the good fortune to visit Guitarcenters in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The LA shop has the AMAZING reserve room where the premium vintage stuff is stored.

I walked in and was greeted by a room wall to wall with vintage stuff... this is the fender side of the wall (I was too enthralled to take pictures, but the SO snapped a few)

The very friendly sales assistant said I was free to play anything I wanted and asked whether there was anything specific I wanted to play.

I spent quite a bit of time with this original 57 champ (which I could crank ever so slightly)

My favourite guitar was this 65 Strat... going for a cool $21k. Oooodles of tone and super sustain!

(Un)fortunately I left the shop without swiping (but I wasn't so unlucky at the San Francisco shop, but I'll wait until I get it back from Foster van der Merwe before I post anything on more ? )

Hammeron

21 thousand American dollars......sheesh!!!

Hammeron

You get collectors and you get musicians.
You get collectors who are musicians and you get musicians who are collectors and vice versa.
It is sacreligous to have these works of art hanging in glass cabinets. They must be played.
Their value is not only in what they are and what they look like, but how they play and how they sound. :?

Bob-Dubery

Tamla Kahn 'Hammeron' McMahon wrote You get collectors and you get musicians.
You get collectors who are musicians and you get musicians who are collectors and vice versa.
It is sacreligous to have these works of art hanging in glass cabinets. They must be played.
Their value is not only in what they are and what they look like, but how they play and how they sound. :?

But how do they sound and how do they play?

I'm not convinced that old = better. I think for a while it was true because the QC on some famous brands slipped in the 60s and 70s. To me it's not an issue of age (I think in acoustics age does make a difference, but some would argue that the old axes start to decline eventually anyway) but of quality. As with anything that is made, there are, roughly speaking, two ways to go about it: Build down to a price or build up to a standard. There are plenty of superb contemporary instruments that are built up to a standard and consequently play fab and sound fab (and aren't cheap but cost significantly less than a pre-war Martin).

vic

Buying antiques or vintage instruments is like buying into history....the old armoire was there when Simon van der Stel ruled at the Cape, the '60's AC30 was part of the "British Invasion" and the 50's Les Pauls and Fenders were around when rock 'n roll was born.....
Apart from the quality aspect,the fact that only a "few" of these were made is another attraction to collectors....

AlanRatcliffe

X-rated Bob wrote I'm not convinced that old = better.

Likewise. Wood quality is generally higher, but manufacturing quality was inconsistent.

I've owned two different '68 Strats and they were both complete dogs. Sold 'em both on for a few hundred rand a piece (hey, it was the '80s... who knew?). I ended up with a Japanese one (that I shouldn't have sold), followed by a Mexi, followed by the one I built - all far better than either the vintage examples or the (supposedly top-of-the-range) 1979 "The Strat" that I bought new in '82 from Magnet Music. To be fair, the vintage examples for all their faults, still walked all over the '79 and I have since played many great versions of late '60s Fenders, but very few nice '70s models (good ones do exist, but are rare - I can't believe the prices they are felching [sic] these days). But the '60s models weren't all players.

guyfeld

EttieneB wrote 50k isnt that bad i was expecting much worse!! Lets put it this way if u buy it now for 50 it will most likely double in ten to tweny years and they still sound awesome!!
I only know one guy that has a 50-something strat and he wont even let u touch it!!

I once had an L-series Strat that the late Syd Kitchen worked on and restored for me years back, and though it looked the "bee's knees" it sounded and played like a dog in my opinion!
I think the Roadworn Mex (which looks exactly the same as the L-series did) blew it away in every respect. I can't remember who I sold that L-series gtr to..one of those dudes from a comedy pub band in JHB, if I think.

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