Will modern Gibsons become collectors items?

[Whitecat]

Based on sheer numbers, I'd say probably not.

There are probably a handful of limited editions that will be more desirable than others, yes. And these will indeed be US models.

But in general - look at just how many Gibbys are on sale at any one moment in time around the entire world.

The reason the guitars from the late 50s/early 60s are collectable is that there are so few of them.

If something isn't rare, how can it be valuable?

[frans]

To answer the question: No.

[emitsweet]

Originally Posted by bigbongo

Don't know too much about modern new Gibson guitars as I only currently have a Ibanez and a Tom Mates custom Tele, just wondered what you more knowledgable people thought in the modern Gibson line would be possible collectors items in the future?

Presumably the US made one's are better investment for starters?

maybe some newer custom shop models. Some mid nineties USA models are starting to be sought after. They made some great guitars up until about 5 years ago.

[thebennyd]

Gibson's focus in the 50s, 60s, & 70s was to create instruments of unparalleled quality. The luthiers took their jobs personally. Nowadays, their focus seems to be to interface with guitar center to sell as many g*ddam* guitars as possible while saving money, cutting corners, and alienating the environment. Hell, when I was living in nashville, they were looking for luthiers on craigslist. Friends who have worked in their factory have stated that employee appreciation and treatment leaves a lot to be desired; who's going to put their heart and soul into what they do if they have a horrible boss?

To echo what has been said a million times over, quality control off the production line is a joke. There ARE great guitars in the mix, but (and this is the case with vintage gibsons as well) you have to play a ton of them to find one thats right.

With sub-par QC, shady operations, focus on quantity versus quality, and less than ecstatic & prideful employees, how could they be producing classic instruments? Isn't it funny that the 59 lp is the holy grail & nothing thats been made since compares to it? Nothing they make today will, either. It's not valuable just because its old. It's just a sad sign of the times & the negative effects of capitalism. Instead of making them more efficient & precise, technology made them lazy & money made them hungry.

Will a 2012 LP be as valuable in 2075 by comparison as a 1959 LP is now? Who could say? Personally I doubt it. Will it be as fine of an instrument? Absolutely not.

If you haven't noticed, gibson is living in the past, re-issuing their classic instruments versus focusing on creating the next classic. I still do have faith in their custom shop & find the quality to still be wonderful. But you're not getting that straight off the wall at a big box store.

IMHO,

-B

[thenoodle]

My vote is yes... anything old and in reasonable shape becomes sought after by someone somewhere.

I've owned six Les Pauls in my life. The most recent three were bought in 1974ish. My white/black Les Paul Custom was not anything special imo. I bought it new for $500 and sold it for about $2000 a couple of years ago.

It wasn't even in the best shape since I used it in bars during the entire disco era. But... old is old. Therefore.. there were kids drooling over it to buy.

I've been playing a black EPIPHONE Les Paul Custom Pro for a couple of weeks over at GC and that thing feels/sounds EXACTLY like my Gibson white/black Pro that I bought for five hundred and sold for $2000.

Ya know what I'm gonna do? Buy the black Les Paul Pro now for $500 (ah.. just the same as 1974 pricing... cool). I don't CARE that it says Epiphone on it. For all intents and purposes.. it IS my 1974 Gibson Les Paul.

And some kid in 2050 WILL buy it from me for a lot of money. I just know it. It'll be about then anyway before I get tired of it like I eventually do with all my guitars.

The Epiphone name won't mean a thing. In fact, by 2050, Gibson may have long ago yanked the plug on using the Epiphone name on a Paul .. making the Epi version most rare and most sought after. Ya never know. Gear people are crazy when it comes to old stuff

I may also buy the actual Gibson version of what "was" my 1975 Deluxe. That one is also fairly cheap, feels like my old Deluxe, and isn't at ludicrous pricing like some Gibsons.

I don't buy guitars with an eye for how much I can sell them for. But my mid 70s Pro/Deluxe/Standard were NOT really all that well made. IMO.

Keep something long enough.. someone will pay a good price if the item is from the Gibson machine in some form or another.

[emitsweet]

Originally Posted by thebennyd

Gibson's ........ 70s was to create instruments of unparalleled quality.

70s Gibsons are worse than the new ones. Norlin era was a really bad time for them.

[thebennyd]

Originally Posted by emitsweet

70s Gibsons are worse than the new ones. Norlin era was a really bad time for them.

Originally Posted by thebennyd

IMHO,

-B

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

Originally Posted by thebennyd

Gibson's focus in the 50s, 60s, & 70s was to create instruments of unparalleled quality. The luthiers took their jobs personally. ...
-B

This is not exactly true. If you talk to experienced luthiers who have worked on old Gibsons, the typical comment runs along the lines of, 'they didn't know what wood to turn into guitars and what wood to burn in the furnace to keep warm...' There are many very fine Gibson instruments from that era, but 'unparalleled quality' is only relative... relative to maybe, Gretsch who used questionable components, or other manufacturers who were trying to pump out less costly instruments. This doesn't show up so much on the solid bodies, but on thee higher end hollowbodied guitars.

[thebennyd]

Originally Posted by Bill@WelcomeHome

This is not exactly true. If you talk to experienced luthiers who have worked on old Gibsons, the typical comment runs along the lines of, 'they didn't know what wood to turn into guitars and what wood to burn in the furnace to keep warm...' There are many very fine Gibson instruments from that era, but 'unparalleled quality' is only relative... relative to maybe, Gretsch who used questionable components, or other manufacturers who were trying to pump out less costly instruments. This doesn't show up so much on the solid bodies, but on thee higher end hollowbodied guitars.

You guys are getting hung up on that statement, but you're missing the point. I didn't say they succeeded, I said it was their focus.

i.e. regardless of the lack of knowledge of those aforementioned variables, the human variable seems to have brought more to the quality of the guitar than it does today. It was meant in context of my entire thought above, mostly as a commentary to the correlation between their widely-known questionable business practices & laughable QC, versus current employee satisfaction/give-a-f*uck and rate of production in today's much more technologically advanced environment. Technically speaking, with what they have at their fingertips today, they should be making guitars that blow what they made 60 years ago out of the water. It's not happening.

Sure, a gibson from 50 years prior will always fetch a nice price from a buyer; but Gibson is not, and might never be, what it once was. For those of you who really believe otherwise, thats just fine. Give me a 2012 or a 1978 on spec, regardless of intrinsic "value", & I'll take the 1978 any day of the week, no matter what crappy "era" it was a part of. You certainly don't have to sift through as many turds to find a winner the older they get. Workmanship and attention to detail are either out the window, working in the custom shop, or building quality guitars without the name Gibson on them.

It seems like many like to read until you find something you disagree with & can't wait to counter. I'll be sure to put any objective statements in my last sentence as opposed to my first.

Again, all IMHO,

-B

[machoboy]

Absolutely not. Gibsons are just as common as your Ibanez these days.

I simultaneously like my Gibson and regret buying it. I like it because I've had it for a long time and it sounds good -- I regret buying it because I've basically replaced all of the hardware, refretted and refinished it and for the money invested I could have gotten a much better guitar from a company relying less on "legendary status" and more on quality control. Gibson supplied the wood, I actually ended up re-making the guitar.

I think the best (electric) guitar I've ever played was a custom shop BC Rich. Just beautiful, everything oozing quality. A lot of Gibson purists would scoff at this since BC Rich mostly makes pointy halloween costume guitars for 11 year olds and most people ignore their "serious" high end domestic models, but I'd bet one will retain more value than a Gibson in 30 years.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

I'm pretty much a fan of vintage instruments, and in particular Gibsons. I've owned a boatload of them, and the only reason that i don't still own them is that I've retired, moved to a much smaller home, and just don't have room. I currently have two Les Pauls (one a 70s Deluxe, one a custom shop 57 reissue), a 1960 Melodymaker, a 1965 Firebird 12 string, and a custom shop Lucky Strike 336. Nobody has to sell me on the value of the old ones, I'm with you all the way. Just pointing out that they are not -all- gems, that's all. And I'm pretty much not interested in new Gibsons... or Fenders, or Gretsches... my heart is in the guitars that i wanted when I was 14, that the rockers who knocked my socks off played in the 50s and 60s and early 70s. A champagne Gretsch Jet, a 325 Rick, a White Falcon or Penguin, a 1964 Jazzmaster, a National ResoPhonic, the plexi Dan Armstrongs... I could list the guitars that I'd love to have for days... even the Italian Voxes, the Teardrop and Phantom... not good guitars but if they were good enough for Brian Jones, they're good enough for me.

If I'm looking at a new guitar outside of a custom shop, it would be from one of the boutique makers, or possibly PRS. There is where there is that attention to detail and desire to make a quality instrument lies today. The large companies are trying to stay alive, and I hope that we never lose Gibson or Fender, but they won't survive by selling instruments to me.

[John Eppstein]

Who can tell?

It all depends on whether there continues to be an unlimited stream of bozos with more money than sense who are willing to pay far more for a used guitar than it's really worth.

Considering the current decline in the music industry I wouldn't bet on it.

[Larry Mal]

Just to clear up one thing, nothing that says "Gibson" on it is made anywhere other than the United States.

[bigbongo]

So what are a few of todays guitars made with 'love', is it really only the 'custom' marked models?

PRS is on that list but who else?

Edit: Jeezus, just seen the price of top line PRS not far off £8000!

[machoboy]

There are a lot of small luthiers who make their stuff from scratch for not much profit who would make you 10x the guitar PRS or Gibson could give you for the same price.

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by bigbongo

Edit: Jeezus, just seen the price of top line PRS not far off £8000!

Oh, they can go even higher in Private Stock. £10k+ is not impossible.

But you can go as low as a Mira for £1200-ish and get an awesome guitar.

Most of the money you pay as you go up the range is for trimming, blingy wood and lack of availability - in my experience most of the guitars are built and set up with equal care. That said, PRS are a bit guilty of running too many "limited runs" ... seems like every other month there's some kind of limited edition best-ever for a 30% premium over the closest core production version of the same guitar.

(disclosure: I used to hate PRS, but came around recently once they sorted out their pickups - took 'em long enough, but now they are making serious guitars that actually sound good. I think until about 2 or 3 years ago that wasn't the case, IMO. They're probably the one major brand I'm OK with buying blind, for example, because the consistency is so good).

So back to the core topic sort of - not sure if any of these PRS will ever really be collectable either. I don't think they exist in the same numbers as Gibson, but they're still somewhat mass-production, and the brand cachet doesn't go back nearly as far...

YMMV.

[machoboy]

It's not just the numbers, it's cultural. I used to know a guy who worked in the vintage guitar room at rockwalk/guitar center in Hollywood where they have stories of this stuff hanging on the wall and $100,000 guitars will come and go.

It's not studio musicians with reverence for the instrument buying it... It's aging baby boomers who grew up during the hippie era and want to play mary had a little lamb on something jimmy page might have coughed on.

PRS will never have that but I'm afraid modern Gibsons won't either. It was a one time deal. The best guitar investment you can make right now is small luthier stuff that players will want to buy after you're done with it -- but we aren't talking $100,000, we're talking retaining stock value.

[axeman_uk]

the short answer is no the long answer is you only have to look at comics to see what will happen to the modern gibsons , 50's - 60's comics first editions and new appearences of characters are worth alot of money and this started to become apparent in the late part of the last century, people started buying more comics and putting them away (maybe to put there son/daughter through collage) fast forward in time all these new comics are pretty much worthless no way near the value people thought they were going to be, to many in exsistance in mint condition, same thing will happen to the new gibsons to many people collect them as an investment/cool item to have and dont really play them or have 2-5 of them and only really play 1 of them the others sleep in there cases in mint condition .

[_Ludovico]

Originally Posted by axeman_uk

the short answer is no the long answer is you only have to look at comics to see what will happen to the modern gibsons , 50's - 60's comics first editions and new appearences of characters are worth alot of money and this started to become apparent in the late part of the last century, people started buying more comics and putting them away (maybe to put there son/daughter through collage) fast forward in time all these new comics are pretty much worthless no way near the value people thought they were going to be, to many in exsistance in mint condition, same thing will happen to the new gibsons to many people collect them as an investment/cool item to have and dont really play them or have 2-5 of them and only really play 1 of them the others sleep in there cases in mint condition .

Exactly. Old Gibsons are worth alot because in those days people did not buy them to collect them and they've become rare and sought after. If people start buying instruments with the intended purpose of keeping them locked a few decades and raising their value, the "mojo" vanishes. Same for everything "collectible".

[kennybro]

I sincerely believe that the era of collectable guitars is pretty much closing out, except for a few prime Martins, Loar F5's and 58-60 Pauls, and well-known, hand-made pieces from builders like DAngelico, Jimmy D'Aquisto, Benedetto. Maybe a few more. But seems like the "stupid prices on assembly line guitars" era has had it.

Just a feeling that's been growing for 5 or 6 years. Many are still offering at way high prices, but far fewer takers except for truly exceptional pieces. Shows are getting dismal and very pedestrian. Prices have plummeted since 2005 with no sign of recovery, so the investment aspect that drove the market for so long is shot. And, the people who fueled the big end market, i.e. professionals with big bucks who wanted to recapture rock-n-roll youth, are all retiring and trying to sell their collections.

It was a hell of a weird ride, that's for sure.

[kafka]

Categorically, I'd say no. However, there will always be room for exceptions. Any time you can build a community of people who decide that something is desirable, there's the possibility that demand will exceed supply. The desire to own something rare or exceptional will always cause some people to place a premium on some objects that are under-appreciated by the larger market. Given that the number of collectors has increased dramatically over the past 20 years, I'd say that there will always be certain models that will command a premium over more common variations.

[Bristol Posse]

In a world where people will pay hundreds of dollars for a Beanie Baby anything is possible

I'd say, that just like a Beanie Baby, The limited run stuff like Pearly Gates or Slash etc. models will likely garnish the higher prices

I know that none of my Gibsons are likely to be worth too much, I play them and customize them too much, which is after all what they are for. Well maybe my 97 Smartwood, That is still stock except for a refret and they stopped making them, but I really don't care what the dollar value, the only value to me is in how much I love to play it.

[electricity17]

I'm not sure what dollar value "collectable" starts at, but I think the recent Gibson Historic guitars are very well made and people will continue to want them. You're not going to see people pay 50's Gibson prices for them, but I think they're going to be desirable for players for awhile, especially if Gibson drops the ball at some point and quality goes south. I don't think I'd "invest" in them if I wasn't planning on playing them.

[CupofTeaProd.]

I think the custom shops/historics will take the place of vintage guitars. Once the vintage guitars have turned to dust, all you'll have left are custom shops. Besides its all about play ability. If it doesnt feel right its not for you. I have two custom shops ES/and 1960 50th anniv (version 1)., 94 LP (killer), but the one I almost love as much is my 94 Washburn semi-hollow HB-35. You can pick one up for $400.

I wouldnt worry about how much a new LP will be in the future cause we dont know and have no control over. Just play and enjoy the guitar.

[axeman_uk]

[QUOTE=Bristol Posse;8452388]In a world where people will pay hundreds of dollars for a Beanie Baby anything is possible

QUOTE]

i remember a time when ty beanie bears comanded such money , now you cannot even give them away.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

Originally Posted by machoboy

... It's aging baby boomers who grew up during the hippie era and want to play mary had a little lamb on something jimmy page might have coughed on.

.

That is not fair... it may indeed be boomers buying $4k, $6k, $10k instruments... but you've no right to dis their playing abilities. A LOT of these guys play very very well.

Places like GC are creating a high dollar market that did not exist before, where what we both might consider to be less than collectable instruments are pulling down a lot of money.

In terms of the high dollar instruments, the last time I saw CSN, Still's tech had put out the word that he was looking for instruments. And when a local movie star came to (what was then my...) town to shoot a film, he had a guy scouring the countryside searching for instruments. Not long ago three guys from up north came to my (new...) area, took out adds, and stayed in a local motel room buying instruments for three or four days. This is where the high dollar market is procuring instruments, apparently it supports that kind of travel, and it is not average boomers doing the buying.

Plus, -boomers- are retiring now. You are thinking of someone much younger. Whomever can fund a $100,000 guitar has a better chance of being a dot com-er, or someone in the theater/entertainment/music, or someone who has done very well in business... way out of the league of a typical boomer with kids and grand-kids, living in the fixed-income world of retirement.

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by Bill@WelcomeHome

In terms of the high dollar instruments, the last time I saw CSN, Still's tech had put out the word that he was looking for instruments. And when a local movie star came to (what was then my...) town to shoot a film, he had a guy scouring the countryside searching for instruments. Not long ago three guys from up north came to my (new...) area, took out adds, and stayed in a local motel room buying instruments for three or four days. This is where the high dollar market is procuring instruments, apparently it supports that kind of travel, and it is not average boomers doing the buying.

The only people buying big $ instruments anymore. People who buy $1M paintings and such. The mass craze is over.

[_Ludovico]

Well, to give a positive perspective on the matter, I'd say it might help people to cherish their own guitars longer and take better care of them for a long time,

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by _Ludovico

Well, to give a positive perspective on the matter, I'd say it might help people to cherish their own guitars longer and take better care of them for a long time,

there ya go!