For those with vintage instruments...Do you play them?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dvon1981
  • Start date Start date

Do you play your vintage guitar/bass

  • Yup, it was made to be played

    Votes: 58 93.5%

  • No, too scared to damage it

    Votes: 4 6.5%
  • Total voters
    62
yeah..I think you ought to play the Ric if you want to. But to take it further, maybe I am an old fogie...but not unlike many here. I can't really consider some of these guitars as "vintage" because we either bought them new or close to new back when, and/or that is what we learned to play on, and calling them "vintage" is just TOOOOO WEIRD!! Sure...I bought a real '67 V in 1967 for a couple hundred, SG's were dime a dozen along with all the strats, ...oh..a Gretch duo-jet for $200... just typical examples. The price of new Les Pauls nowadays, along with some of these Strats just wants to make one puke :mad:

one last item...my 1967 Guild Starfire III that I got for $100 about 25 years ago... I at least do still have that guitar. Sounds like do-do...but plays like butter.
 
I wouldn't use the Ric as a daily practice beater but sure...work out a tune, record the old girl...take her out on a gig from time to time...they hate being locked up...one day after storing her for several years you open the case n ouch! the binding has popped the neck joint swelled up and now she's kindling.
 
I don't understand why someone will pay thousands of dollars for an old strat. The old ones are good guitars, but not THAT good IMO. NO GUITAR WHATSOEVER is worth more than $500 to me. Actually, if someone is a strat player, $300 should be the abosolute top dollar you should have to dish out on a guitar. I've seen alot of very nice used american strats go for around $300. A mexican strat with some custom shop pickups is a very good workhorse guitar also ($175 to $200).

I wouldn't have a guitar that I was afraid to play by the way. Im a player, and the only way I can really appreciate a guitar is to play it. If I want to look at a valuable guitar, I have a vintage guitar book that I ocasionaly thumb through. Others, many with more money than sense, like to own rare vintage guitars...but don't know how to play a guitar.
 
I can't really consider some of these guitars as "vintage"

Right on, mixmkr. I paid $425 for the Country Gent in '82 and the dealer was sooooooo glad somebody took it off his hands! I mean, it wasn't a pointy solidbody, no pink finish, nothing cooooooooolll. Back then, they were all "used" and priced accordingly. One of the problems now is that it's as if the same thing happened to used cars and '87 Yugos were selling for $100K. If you don't believe me, check out the gits in a typical pawn shop. If it has strings and a few dings, it might as well be one of Clapton's old axes....Me, I'm glad I bought mine when I did. I couldnt afford 'em now.
 
I play my '66 Mustang all the time. Still plays and sounds pretty good.
 
I don't exactly have any "vintage" instruments, but I'm guilty, nonetheless.

I have some newer guitars that are so "mint" that I'm reluctant to play them, as well as some 80's "vintage" Tascam recording equipment, that's so mint that I'd hardly want to touch it. Sometimes I buy two or more of a single item, for this and other reasons.

Is that a waste? :confused: Should I be embarrassed to admit that? :confused: Do I need help? :eek:


The oldest guitar I have is an '82 Ibanez Blazer, and that's not "vintage", is it? That Blazer is a well played axe, and I have some other well played '80s Ibanez Roadstar II's, but I have some other newer guitars that are in like-new condition, in cases, that I hardly ever play.

The Tascam 246 is '85-86, and that's not exactly "vintage" either, but,... y'know, it's all relative.

Mint and mint-in-box items always sell best on Ebay, no doubt, and it's usually a good value. New-Old-Stock and Mint-in-Box are best tags for brand new, like new and new-old-stock items. I'm talking about music and recording equipment, eh. :rolleyes:

I don't know. I'm ambivalent about it. You (I) want to play the brand new guitars, and maybe at the same time you (I) don't want to mark the guitar all up. Anyway, I like to break out different guitars, once in a great while, but I'll keep one simple, trusty axe handy, most of the time. I'll just play the Squier Bullet, & keep it by the bed. I'll keep an acoustic (Mitchell MD-100), and currently an Ibanez SGR-200 bass. A guitar I kept around and played a lot has been my Ibanez Blazer, & Roadstar II guitar and bass, but now even they're "collectible". Heh. Anyway, for the record, I always keep a few instruments around for playing. Some things don't get used much as others, but I try, and I have enough things that it borders on being a "collection".

I'm guilty. I'm probably obsessed. I admit I bought a new (used/like new) guitar very recently on Ebay, with this very idea in mind. I have my "pristine" guitar mainly in-case, & my "hands-on" guitar, of exactly the same kind, for regular use. I don't see anything wrong with that idea, so I'm sorry. :eek:
 
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lpdeluxe said:
...Ain't no room around here for slugabeds.
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Hey! you made me get my dictionary out!

(At least I can now claim that this forum is educational!)
 
Anyway,... Anyway,...

You all probably think I'm crazy by now, by that paragraph above,... but it's not necessarily handling damage I'm worried about when I have my various guitars out. AAMOF, I'm enough of a player to not tear up a guitar just by playing it. Heh.

No. Anyway,... it's usually other damage the guitar might incur incidentally, other than playing wear, such as something falling on the guitar and chipping or scratching it. Or, your friend doesn't see your guitar in the case on the floor, and steps on it,... or spills beer on it,... or it just falls off it's own stand, and the stand scratches it. Yes, folks, all these things have happened to my guitars, at various times, for one reason or another, and it happens, & that's the way it goes. Something fell off my desk and chipped my Squier, and the exact thing happened again and scratched my MD-100, so what can you say. Got me twice. All these random things happen to guitars, from time to time, or at least they do to mine.

That's the type of damage one might get a bit concerned about, (other-damage) and it concerns me. Not playing wear, necessarily, although I'd never buy a new floor model from Guitar Center, because they always had visible handling damage. That's another post, I guess.
 
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Play them???? Hell yes. I have a number of vintage axes and I play them all. I have been collecting for 30 years now. I have always made money on trades and sales on my vintage stuff.

Now as far as playing them, do you think that holding something worth a lot, makes you play better? I don't know, but I do know it makes me feel better, and if I feel better, I perform better.
 
The only vintage pieces I own now aren't really playable. An old Hagstrom 12 string somebody let dry out, and a Framus that probably sucked the day it was made. Some people have all the luck, though. My old girlfiend Maureen Fleming is a recording artist in San Diego. When she was 16, she told her mother she was interested in guitar. Her mother said, "Grandma's got an old one she'll probably give you".
An 1896 Martin parlor guitar in the original case, no scratches! It turns out her grandmother turned a trick for it in 1906, which makes her one of the highest paid hookers of all time! I got her some gut strings, and the thing has been used on 3 albums now.-Richie
 
Just this week,...

Even after I told my wife not to put the kid's skateboard in the studio, right there on the floor, because it would end up scratching the blue Ibanez bass, she did it over & over anyway, and the blue bass got scratched!

Doods, that's why I feel best when nice guitars are stashed away safely. I'm always getting damage from incidental stupid shit that just happens, when you leave your instrument out on a stand.

I still play almost every day, and I admit I'd get better useage of all my gear if I put it on a rotation plan, but otherwise I keep 2 guitars & 1 bass handy at all times. Even if they get damaged, which makes my blood boil. :mad: :eek: I admittedly don't have anything "vintage", but I have some nice stuff.

I tell'ya what though, I don't subscribe to the idea that if I buy a nice guitar and keep it stashed away in the closet, that it takes a guitar out of the hands of another hungrier or worthier player. I don't buy off on that, and I'm not sympathetic to that view.
 
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Surely....I have a Selmer MkVI that I play every chance I get. Not a guitar.....but if I can ever get that old Gretsch from the guy down the street who doesnt play anymore, ill be playin that one too.

I dont have it in me to simply 'collect' good intruments. :)
 
Certainly this is a subjective, personal thing...

...as to what you choose to do with your money and your classics.

If a guitar player chooses to make a given guitar a museum piece, I can barely understand it. Actually, no I can't.

If a non player shows me some sweet string box he's collected and then says "Oh it never gets played. I can't play a note", my skin crawls.

I know a guy who is a personal friend of PRS and has one of the first experimental ones Paul ever made. He plays it. Not alot, but he grabs it off the wall every once in awhile.

The ONLY real beauty, IMHO, in a guitar is what happens when you play it.
 
Larry Gude said:
The ONLY real beauty, IMHO, in a guitar is what happens when you play it.
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Damn straight!!!!!


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thanks Light...

...I don't want to belabor the point...well...yes I do.

When I go through a museum and take in some sculpture or painting I nod my head 'knowingly' of the inspiration and technique that went into it's creation and am happy just looking.

I go into a good guitar store or see somebodys 'vault queen' and I'm restraining myself from grabbing every last one and see how it plays, how it sounds. Hell, I'm a lefty and the first thought I have at seeing some ancient Martin is whether or not there's another nut laying around so I can re-string that bad boy and jam.

It's tourture as a lefty in a world gone right, or 'wrong', as the case may be!

Vintage stores are even worse. Maybe my leftiness has made my opinion on this subject more acute?
 
Originally Posted by Larry Gude
The ONLY real beauty, IMHO, in a guitar is what happens when you play it.

If you want to own art, buy a painting - if you want to create art, play that guitar.
 
I have a vintage Kustom 150 T&R amp. I love it and it's my main amp.
I also have a vintage acoustic guitar... not a good one...
An early 50s Silvertone. I don't play it much...
I don't play acoustic often at all.
Though I have 3 of them.
 
I don't see why you all get upset with someone who wants to put a guitar behind glass. It's their money and their choice.

Think about this, really talented musicians, generally speaking, are poor and broke and can't afford to spend 5-10k on an axe. Collectors on the other hand, usually have a great job, not in music, so they can afford whatever they want. With that said, collectors are usually to busy to just sit around and play to get good, because they are trying to make money, where musicians spend their time playing and not expanding their carreer (yes, there are exceptions). So, I respect the tallent of a musician and equally respect the collector.

By the way, the collector is not taking a good piece of equipment off the market from "real" players, becasue the real players can't afford to buy it!!
 
I guess I've gone to far...

I don't see why you all get upset with someone who wants to put a guitar behind glass. It's their money and their choice.
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Please, by all means, put anything you like behind glass and look at it. It's merely my opinion. I'm not truly upset.

Someone else pointed out that by taking instruments off the street for collections and driving the price up collectors ARE taking instruments away from poor artists. This is true. To what extent, I can't quantify but there is, obviously, an impact.

A funny part of all this is that Strats in particular gained fame by being cheap and able to withstand the road back in the day. It's what a working player could afford. To truly walk in the footsteps of legends one would go buy the cheapest thing he can get his hands on that holds up to the abuse of the road.

In any event, collect away. I'm gonna go jam.
 
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