should I get a vintage guitar?

In a while I'm gonna get a lotta money. (my bar mitzvah, cause im jewish. I want to spend my money on a guitar. Hopefully a telly. Should I buy vintage or not

Not unless it's cheap/your Dad/Uncle/Older brother is in the music business,lots of stuff masquerading as vintage is...rubbish,and overpriced. It takes an expert to buy vintage gear,all mine are modern.Suggestions for an absolute beginner :

1.)
Yamaha Pac 112 -nice small neck,very tough contruction and electronics,get a painted one as the bodies are tougher, i have a natural finished one and its as soft as a bolied egg.

2.) Cort Cl 100/200 Les Paul ish and excellent for the money.
If you play already :A Yamaha S(B)G or one of the faded Gibsons,will see you right, -probably too expensive if you're not sure you want to keep on playing the guitar.


In the end it's up to you -get what your hand can "fit",will make a long note *without* being plugged in and do TRY to ignore the name on the headstock,let your ears decide.

On the other hand nothing modern has
that extrordinary feeling a vintage instrument has.
I always knew my friends father had an old
guitar in his closet, but I never cared that much.
Then two weeks ago, I asked if I could look at it,
and guess what he was hiding in his closet:
A 1965 Fender Stratocaster.
I was so happy!
I must have played that guitar for like 2 hours.
The sound was incredible, although a bit too vintage
for my metal-needs.
But it was a wonderful guitar.
So I would recommend you to buy a vintage guitar, because its just plain wonderful.

But I do agree with James that you need someone
with fair knowledge of vintage guitars.
Otherwise you could get stuck with a really
expensive guitar that sounds like crap.

What I would do is I would take the guitar
I want to buy (before I buy it) and take
it to a vintage guitarshop for "testing".
If the seller doesnt want to get it "tested",
then there's probably something wrong with it.
Its sort of like buying an old car.

i want to get a vintage guitar because the value goes up. Also, I hate the look of the new string holders (whatever their called). Even though you can intunate them or whater they are messed up lookin.I like telecasters because they are twangy guitars. And I'm not an (absolute) beginner. Im just bored of my samick.

I used to have a re-issued '62 Jap-Strat. I liked it a lot more than either the modern versions, or axes actually made back then. I really don't get into the inflated prices paid for 'vintage' instruments that just happen to be old.

The hands know when they're holdin' gold; the ears know when they hear the voice of God. The name on the headstock makes no sound at all; the date on the paper is just a number.

Most certainly, but if youre want a vintage
because the value goes up, then the name and
date is everything (almost).
I saw a Fender -52 in a guitarshop recently.
It was all broken, the paint was long gone,
the pickups were covered with rust,
the bridge was broken etc etc.
It costed 10.000 $ !!!

The only way a fool can justify that purchase is the hope of finding a bigger fool to sell it to.

The guitars price was so high because the electronics AND the bridge can be replaced for a humble price of 200-300$
while the 50 years old wood is something you cant get in a new guitar ..
The price gets so high beause the wood gets better all the time. if something is wrong with the body of the guitar, the wood has cuts or something that it doesnt worth the money but basicly the wood itself can be sold as it without all the electronics and still be very expensive

Vintage prices do keep going up, now only people who collect can afford to lay out the kind of cash it takes for a real vintage guitar that will most likely only collect dust in a room full of other old guitars that are collecting dust, if you want to play it, instead of just look at it, buy something like a Tom Anderson, they play great and sound great and who knows in 10 or 20 years they might be collectible. Something rarely said about the vintage guitar and amp market, in the past, you had your pick of the best sounding, best playing models/pieces, now everyone is one the bandwagon and everything vintage is "Great Vintage Blah, Blah, Blah", somethings are just old, and the market is just being pushed higher by people willing to spend money on old junk......................

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i want a good sounding guitar that is valuable. you guys make it seem like that is so hard to find. i like the sound of telecasters, so that is the good sound. i want my guitar to be valuable, and vintage is valuable. There! thats why i want a vintage telly.
vintage= valuable
telly= good sound

right?

i guess theoretically not all vintage sound good, but hopefully my uncle or dad and friends dad (they all play guitar)will help me find a good sounding one.

Get in touch with PonyOne from this site. If he hasn't already sold it, he may still have a very special Tele for sale. Check it out.

oh? who is that? I dont have the money yet, i get it in january, but id like to see the guitar. I got this book on telys which is kinda neat. and this magazine with like a billion guitar websites on it.

So what I should have written was:

Get in touch with PonyOne from this site.

I don't think that vintage guitars are a good investment right now. They're very expensive, especially for anything in good, playable condition. They're also restrictive, in that changing the pickups can slash the value by as much as 75%.

I would suggest buying a very good quality new guitar instead. There are a huge number of makers out there who are producing absolutely mindblowing guitars; Suhr, Anderson, Gordon Smith, Grosh and many, many more. Make sure the rest of your rig is of a similar standard too; buy a decent amp, decent cables, a good guitar case and so on.

The vintage market right now is insane. I do not think that it makes any sense whatsoever to buy a vintage instrument in order to play it; they're simply far too expensive, no matter how good they are. I know that there's a certain kudos, and some vintage guitars are very good guitars in themselves, but for the money you can get a fantastic new guitar that will be a joy to play. And playing's what it's all about, isn't it?

i think if i decided not to get a vintage guitar, i would still get a nice telly and i would probably have money left over for another guitar or nice amp. i still kinda would like to buy a vintage one, though

We all would like a nice vintage guitar, but all things considered it doesn't make alot of sense for a player, check out Fender's Custom Shop, they make some great vintage reproductions, and here's a thought for you, you can buy tommorow's vintage guitar today, I never thought the 70's& early 80's stuff would be collectible, but I was wrong as usual! A trend I have noticed over the years is that quality guitars always go up in value when given enough time..........

I think has gotten way to much complicated.
Vintage tele's sounds great, and their value
will most likely go up over the years,
so I think you should buy one.
Theres not more to it!
You know you cant think to much about these things.
Gogogo!

then maybe id get a vintage guitar and a warlock or something for playing.

I have just got a new PRS CE24 and I can’t imagine anything nicer. I parted with a shed load of cash for it (got it new) and found it hard to justify spending that much until I played it.

Prior to getting it I had a good look around and decided that I was going to get the best (in my opinion ) guitar I could afford and the PRS (on a budget of 2k) left me enough to get a line 6 guitar port.

On reflection I have no regrets and I came home in budget with a fantastic axe.

Happy shopping
S