The value of "vintage" guitars

[mitchum]

Any thoughts on the discernment/fetishism/whatever that makes people pay relatively high prices for guitars that were considered "junk" back in their day? Guyatone, Framus, Danelectro, Silvertone, Univox, etc...

Ex; Framus. 15 years ago I would pick these up in pawn shops for $25-$30 dollars, replace the tuning heads, and have a pretty sweet little guitar. But a pretty sweet little $60 guitar, not a $300-$800 guitar!
I routinely see them go for the latter prices (which I would not pay)

Do any of you guys collect these types?
Who started this? David Lindley? Ry Cooder? Thurston Moore?
Is the phenomena "the poor man's classic Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, etc...?
Camp?
A search for the ever-elusive vibe?

thanks,
mitchum

[dbt]

1. I blame a guy named "Teisco Del Rey."

Before most people knew about David Lindley, "Teisco" was writing a column about cheesy old instruments in Guitar Player magazine, IIRC. He extolled the challenge of getting these aberrations into playable condition and waxed eloquent about the wacked-out tones that they could produce. He especially seemed to like the fact that most of them were butt ugly.

I suppose it was, and is, a bizarre sort of one-upmanship that drives the market for these Pieces of Feces in the 21st Century: the desire to whip out an axe that will drop jaws and stop traffic; to own something that nobody else has--or would think of having. But damned if I'd be paying $300 for something that cost $69.95 back in the day and was overpriced at the time.

Still, I remember a hideous yellow metalflake Baldwin 6-string in a music store in Malvern, Arkansas, back in 1966. That monster had four single-coils, eight knobs, eight rocker switches and a wang bar that detuned if you looked at it wrong. I'd kind of like to have that beast hanging over my mantel so I could tell everyone how I shot it out in the woods!

Excellent question, mitchum!
:hi:

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Plate Of Shrimp!

(That is from Repo Man, btw.)

At the bar near our house where we host jam nights, there is an old Baldwin hanging on the wall that is EXACTLY as you describe, except it's BLUE metalflake.

Has that cheesy vibrato that is supported on just the one side by a 3/8" compression spring. The electronics are ridiculous. So many switches, and rockers, 4 pickups.

It's weird that you remember that from the day, and it's cousin is hanging on the wall of the club by my house.
The Professor

[dbt]

3. OK, this is getting a LITTLE strange!

How many of those dinosaurs do you suppose there actually were, Prof?

:rofl:

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Let's Hope Not Too Many

POS, indeed.
The Professor

[mitchum]

5. And an excellent explanation, dbt

I had completely forgotten about Del Rey's column.
I remember not so long ago, when any sizable pawn shop would have dozens (or hundreds) of those $25-$50 junkers. Now, no more. I assume "speculators" bought them all up and unloaded them on collectors.
a few months ago, I found a Hyundai(!) Les Paul knock off in a thrift store for $10. After putting on a pair of Grovers that I had lying around (I'm a freak about tuning even with a piece of junk) it made a fairly serviceable floor guitar (think Fred Frith's table-top guitar, but lower) It's fine for dropping things onto, dragging chains across, etc... but it is barely playable as a conventional guitar. Yet, people will shill out a couple of bills for one of these. Incredible.

[dbt]

6. You see what a flood of trashed-out memories you've set off here!

LOL! I am thinking back to the Montgomery Ward catalogs of the '60s, when one could see Airline brand "guitars" with one cheap-ass pickup in a middle sort of position, a body painted with house paint, action so high you could slice cheese with it and a headstock that looked like it had been shaped by a chainsaw.

But THEN, you'd see the Airline brand on a National fiberglas-bodied electric. Even at 15, I had a serious craving for one of them beauties! When I saw David Lindley playing one, I realized that he MUST be crazed beyond redemption.

Don't get me started on amps of that genre!

Your fellow tuning freak,
dbt

[RetroLounge]

7. Oh, man, memories...

I had one of those Norma slabs of sorta-wood. This, jazzmaster kind of body, bolt on broomstick of a neck, lots of switches, plastic tuners, pickups you could sing into.

Loved getting that POS to feed back in my Marshall stack and grab the headstock and bend the neck into all kinds of screams.

But to play? Fuggeddaboutit....

RL

[dbt]

8. NORMA? Oh, the CHEESE of it all!

I hadn't thought about those beasties in decades! And pickups that were microphonic from the very start? Such TRASHY bliss!

:smoke:

[RetroLounge]

9. "Such TRASHY bliss!"

The scary thing, my parents thought they bought us a "good" guitar because Sears sold it...

:rofl:

They couldn't understand why I sold my truck so I could buy a Les Paul...

RL

[dean_dem]

10. Because not all of them were junk...

...they just didn't have the benefit of a celebrity endorsements. Take Vox amps for example, which were largely ignored until they started popping up with the Beatles and British bands that followed them.
I don't collect 'cause I fall into the "broke" musician category, but if I would I would definitely try looking for stuff that not a lot of people know about. Like the Silvertone Twin-Twelve amps, which sound amazing. Good thing so few people know about it, because it keeps the prices low.