With the retirement of Michael Pedulla, the shift in production of Ken Smith basses and the transition to the use of new apprentices by Vinnie Fodera etc I think we’ll see basses ‘made by the original’ becoming sought after, regardless of whether the instruments are any different. It’s happened before; isn’t there a ‘Dan Smith’ era fender from the 80s or something that for some reason is worth more?
A lot of the innovators from the 70s/80s are retiring or dying and I don’t know if we’ll ever have that same era of ‘new’ ideas like that, on the same scale (although I’m all for innovation, collectors don’t think like that). So the basses will be worth more and newer ones take inspiration from them.
So for a bass to be considered valuable in the future I’d say it would have to be made ‘in house’ by one of the original ‘masters’. Do you think a Sadowsky made by someone after Roger retires will be worth as much as one he made? Folks on TB are already saying that Smith basses from the ‘Ken era’ will be sought after, even though production has always been outsourced to some extent.
Any plastic components will be valuable when we run out of oil