Is the market for older instruments in decline?

[karlfer]

Market for older instruments?

Not specifically on Basschat, but the general market for vintage gear. Does anybody think it's in decline?
I don't mean the sort of 14 year old Precision on FEEBay at £900+, more the 60's/70's stuff.

Just seems to me they are not going out at quite the prices of a couple of years back.
Also seems to me they don't sell quite as quickly as a couple of years back.

Just a personal observation and the question is simply out of curiosity really. Any thoughts anybody?

Cheers,
Karl.

[colgraff]

I don't have any evidence to support it (but that's never stopped me), but I have always thought that vintage instruments sold more sluggishly than was believed and certainly were never investment worthy.

[Dad3353]

[quote name='karlfer' timestamp='1460113893' post='3022686']...Any thoughts anybody?...
[/quote]

I can't speak for all makes and models, but the couple of instruments that I [i]do [/i]take an interest in are becoming ever more rare for sale, and the asking prices are systematically on the increase. Some are in 'museum' condition, which could, from a certain point of view, justify their holding their value; others are shockingly badly treated, heavily modified (or butchered...), but still with an inordinately high (to me...) price tag. Asking price is not always a true judge, of course, as often these instruments don't sell at those prices, so we see the 'same old same old' appear time and time again (much like the Tennessee 15-string horror currently followed on a BC topic...). It's much the same with the amps that I look at; the 'real deal' '70s ones continue to rise in price, I'd say.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Dad3353

[CamdenRob]

I think they are just so much more expensive now that this reduces the amount of people in a position to buy one... Especially with the really early stuff.

Although an original stack knob may well be worth £20k, how many people that would want it actually have that kind of money to spend on a bass... very few I'd assume.

[JapanAxe]

For a fe months last year I was watching (early) 60s Precisions with a view to a buy, and I think there has been a slight decline in asking price, on BC at least. In the end I bought a reissue.

[chris_b]

I think all sales have/are dropping through the floor. Recession mentality is still strong and currently very few of us seem to be brave enough to throw lots of money at musical instruments, especially when the quality of the lower priced gear is so good.

Also sellers don't do themselves or others any favours. If gear doesn't sell in the first week there is an instant price drop. I wouldn't buy anything for the first few months because the price is going to keep gliding down.

You just know that, "This is my final price" will be followed the next week by a lower, "One time price". Hang on and it usually goes even lower.

If you're selling, be brave, work out your best price and stick to it.

[RhysP]

I just don't think that too many people have got that sort of money to spend these days.

[BobVbass]

I think as well as that the prices have reached the stage where it wouldn't be worth taking the bass out to a gig and risking it - my general rule is up to about a grand is something I'd take and use - over that becomes something I'd leave at home in safety and that means it becomes a whole lot harder for me to justify

[40hz]

There are a lot of people asking way, way over the odds for non-original vintage Fenders. You see a lot of those taking an age to sell, if at all. The totally original stuff has now hit such a value, it's not being sold to bass players per se but more as investment pieces. Imo,ymmv and all that.

[EmmettC]

I'm always surprised when rough but all original basses (mostly 70's) sell for less than refinished or modded examples. I was looking at the American Vintage '74 Jazz bass recently, but you can pick up a well used original 70's Jazz for the same money, definitely seem to be fetching less money at the moment.

[luckydog]

I don't think the market for vintage gear that stands scutiny is in decline, except in the sense that there doesn't seem to be as much good vintage gear on the market for sale as normal perhaps ? That is peeps seem to be holding on to what they've got, and maybe that makes it difficult to buy and so reduces demand instead of pushing up prices?

LD

[Bassnut62]

Having just sold a genuine 63P and therefore following the market pretty closely for last 6-9 months, I would say that prices have gone down abit recently; but it is often hard to find out what stuff is actually being sold for rather then what people are asking for.

I was selling this and a couple of other instruments to fund the purchase of a genuine 68 Les Paul Gold Top, which I got for what seems like a pretty low price too.

Swings and roundabouts.................

[TheGreek]

I think that many people are overpaying for, for example, mid 70s Fenders. Those of us who were playing around the early/mid 80s will remember how poor the build quality, on late 70s Fenders in particular, was. How people are paying several thousands of pounds for this stuff is beyond me.

I can understand why some, lesser known, basses from this period are selling for little or nothing - the build quality of even today's "bad" basses is far better than the BQ of some of the top items from, say, 40 years ago. For first time buyers and those less knowledgeable it's hard to see why they would want to take the risk of buying a secondhand bass. Also goes some way to explaining why Fenders and Gibsons sell while lesser known (but better built) brands don't. Rumour has it that at one time you practically couldn't give away Wals, now look at the prices they command.

I've recently managed to purchase a number of Trace Elliot items ([i]can't beat that TE sound!![/i]) at, quite frankly, ridiculously low prices. Yes, the combos are heavy and stacking more than 2 cabs anywhere can affect the Earth's rotation around the Sun but there's no denying the build quality. I've seen a 500w head advertised for £245 - now there's VFM!!

I don't expect this to hold though, it's currently a buyer's market so people will seek to get the "best" equipment for as little as, when the market inevitably swings the other way the so called, "cheap items" will start to demand a fairer price. The smart money is identifying what items these will be. We're already seeing Squiers of a certain age start to command a sensible price. Perhaps Epiphone, Peavey and Washburns will soon be the "must have" instruments...

[LewisK1975]

it's an interesting question Karl poses here, and I'm assuming that the main brand for discussion here would be Fender.

From my point of view, when I recently was looking for a 70's Jazz Bass, I really considered that it might be a better option to get a new re-issue Bass given the known patchy quality of 70's Fenders. In the end I spent a bit of time, tried a few genuine 70's Basses and lucked on a YOB Bass that was in great condition (actually the previous owner was one Mr. Steve Miles, owner of Basschat.co.uk)

There are very nice re-issues being made by Fender right now (the current Roadworns, AVRI etc), and I think a lot of folks would prefer the peace of mind of a brand new, warrantied Bass, which looks the part anyway..

[BottomE]

There are loads of reasonably priced good quality instruments these days. So much choice, internet, etc. In addition, I genuinely don't believe that a 60s Fender is going to sound £5000 better than one from the 21st century.

[thebassist]

I personally don't think vintage basses sound better than modern versions but I'm yet to play a bass that [i]feels[/i] as nice as my '64 to play.

[Zenitram]

I just bought some 1940s 12" hi hat cymbals, slightly by mistake, but I bought them all the same.

[BottomE]

[quote name='thebassist' timestamp='1460128033' post='3022889']
I personally don't think vintage basses sound better than modern versions but I'm yet to play a bass that [i]feels[/i] as nice as my '64 to play.
[/quote]
Just spotted you are a fellow Bournemouth based bass person. Nice to meet you.

[Woodinblack]

I did at one point think of getting a YOB bass, but I don't like P Basses that much, 1965 J Basses are pretty expensive and the gibsons are pretty awful around that time.
In the end I played a 1965 P Bass, and thought that you are paying for something just due to its date, that with the same money you could get something fantastic (which it wasn't) so it didn't really make much sense.

[Roger2611]

I think there has been a sustained decrease in values of older, formally very valuable guitars and basses, only an hour ago a really nice 66 strat from a top dealer went unsold at £8999.00 on Ebay, a few years ago that would have gone north of twelve grand.

My friend has a pukka 62 Strat which he retired from gigging when the insurance value hit £30.000, basically he couldn't even get insurance to use it for overseas gigs, now its value has dropped back to around £12.000 he does take it out and enjoys gigging it again even if he does keep an eagle eye on it.

There have been one or two 59 Les Paul's come up for sale in recent months, I think both were offered at less than £50.000, bearing in mind a few years back a good 59 was upwards of £250.000, that is a substantial drop in value.

I was reading recently that whilst the market is weak for the less desirable instruments, ala the late 70's Fender's, the real high end original, proper vintage gear is starting to go up in value again

[pmjos]

I think we are all too close in to this time wise. We are, on this forum, mainly within the birth of the modern guitar and bass. I'm over 50 and so I only need to think back a further 10 years and there was the birth of modern music. I dare say that Mr Stradivari's grandchildren practiced their scales on Grandad's old sh*tt*r. We are today only in the after flush of the start of custom luthiers. I think we will never know the value of what we are playing, however, something from the 60's full stop will always have kudos and value. I think values have gone down and if you shop around you can get a bargain. We will all spend 4 grand on a knackered Corsa or Focus and loose all of that value in 3 years. A tidy 65p will be worth at least another 2 grand in 4 years. I'd lay odds that you wound buy a 66 J bass for under 9K in just 5 years from now. That's an investment and you get to play something and enjoy it. Where do you hear people saying hell I can't take my 5 years old VW Polo to Tesco Its worth 6 grand! i'll walk! I think its all relative. The one thing I can guarantee is the reissue you buy today will be worth 30% of what you paid for it in 5 years.

[oldbass]

Not quite sure what Im trying to say here but for years I wanted a vintage P and four yrs ago bought one cheap which was great and it's now probably worth double what I paid. Thing is I bought a Squire VM PJ recently and now the vintage stays in it's case not cause Im afraid it'll get dinged but simply put the VM plays better and sounds better.

Edited April 8, 2016 by ians

[Funky Dunky]

I got really really lucky. I bought a '76 USA Strat in '97 for £400 and sold it in '05 for £1500. This was in eBay, and I wasn't asking anywhere near that for but two people started a proper bidding war and when it went for that money in the end I was speechless.

As for today? I think a lot of people are simply wary of paying the prices asked for vintage gear. New basses, even at the lower end of the market, are being made so well that there's no need to spend huge to get a good instrument anymore. Money's tight, dudes.

[leftybassman392]

I have an '84 Wal Mk1 for sale at the mo. It's a Lefty so usual caveats apply, but it's now been on sale for around 15 months. 2 Price drops from a value that I already thought was fairly reasonable (as did The Bass Gallery), and I recently rejected an offer from an American buyer that was around 15% below my current asking price. To be fair it has a few signs of wear (which, apparently, is a bit more of an issue than it would be with a P bass), but even so...

So in answer to the OP, yes, my experience is that prices are dropping.

[gs_triumph]

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1460134859' post='3023007']
I did at one point think of getting a YOB bass, but I don't like P Basses that much, 1965 J Basses are pretty expensive and the gibsons are pretty awful around that time.
In the end I played a 1965 P Bass, and thought that you are paying for something just due to its date, that with the same money you could get something fantastic (which it wasn't) so it didn't really make much sense.
[/quote]
You could relate that to Classic cars. You are buying style/rarilty over function. Similar type of market.