babbalute wrote:
My friend in The Netherlands went to the Vintage Guitar Show/Sale in Veenendaal earlier this month. They have this apparently every year or so. People show of they vitage guitars and other other accessories and some are for sale others not. Includes bothe shop owned and private guitars. I doubt there would have been any bargains even with the not so good economy there as well looking at the prices of the items.
Depends on what you call a "bargain". The economy is what it is and it's a buyer's market and cash is king. Even George Gruhn has had to drop his prices a bit over the last couple of years.
Not that the stuff gets cheap, just less expensive.
Maybe something that could be organized here in SA as well. Doubt we will find anything big numbers of vintage guitars here and from visiting the forum lately they would be mostly F-strats I asume ? (t.e.c)
The market and interest is too small here. Guys who have truly collectable instruments will not try to sell them here if they know what they're doing. They will find a middle man who will sell it for them in the USA. Sure, they'll have to pay the middle man, but they will still get more money that way.
Serious collectors actually watch South Africa. They will know, for example, that so many '60 Les Pauls were shipped to SA. They will know what the serial numbers were. They will have a good idea of what is where in the market and so they will calculate that X 1960 Les Pauls are lying under beds in SA. In recent years 2 or 3 Gibson Mastertone banjos have come to light here.
Hugh's Fine Guitars currently have a '57 and two '60 Les Pauls for sale as well as '62 SG (hardware chromed for some reason), a 1951 L50 and a 1941 L4. Oh... and '56 ES175. So there is some good stuff here.
