after the gold rush
We join Dan Orkin of Reverb.com to find out more about the current state of the vintage-guitar market and hear his expert tips on how to get a great deal on your next second-hand or vintage guitar – and avoid expensive mistakes…
Reverb.com's Dan Orkin shares his expert take on the vintage-guitar market
As content director for online marketplace Reverb.com, Dan Orkin has his finger on the pulse of the vintage market. Here, he explains how to get a good deal on a fine old guitar – without getting burnt. How is the vintage guitar market at the moment? Is it a good time to buy vintage? “Generally speaking, the vintage market has been relatively flat for the past few years. There are always going to be flare-ups in particular areas of interest, or trends that come and go. But, as far as opportunities for a general buyer go, it’s not a bad time to be looking. It’s not like things are overpriced, as they have been at certain periods in the past. There are a lot of good opportunities out there. That would be my first high-level observation.” What’s the best approach if you’re interested in buying online? “The general things that apply to buying anything used, especially online but in person too, are obviously applicable to guitar-buying. Reading every bit of description, looking at every picture, getting the sense of what you’re getting into when considering a vintage purchase – that’s square one.
“With Reverb, for example, we make it easy to communicate with the seller and open up a dialogue before making a bid. Ask questions, ask for clarification, try to engage the seller in an open relationship there. What we find is that the people who are into vintage guitars generally love talking about it, and they’re usually very passionate about it – and they’ve bought that guitar for a reason.
“Even if it’s a shop, the people who operate most vintage guitar stores around the world don’t buy a huge volume of stock. They buy stuff they’re interested in or they’ve researched stuff as they’re buying it. Typically, they know a lot about it and they have some inventory on hand. So, if you open up that dialogue, it does more to build confidence in what you’re buying than any amount of googling.
“I’ll give you an example. There is a shop I love called RetroFret in Brooklyn. It’s one of the best vintage guitar shops in the world, if you’re interested in obscure and rare, funky, acoustic instruments, for example. The people who do the descriptions and do the research for their shop, on their website and also on Reverb, write very detailed and long descriptions. To some degree, that’s going to help to sell the instrument. But it’s also a labour of love. Whoever is doing their purchasing and selling, they’ve put a lot of research into it – and they use all the minutiae and details to really paint the picture.
“For me, that kind of passion exists in every nook and cranny of this market. So, when you’re looking to buy something, making that connection and finding where that passion exists, I think it’s the most powerful tool and the most potent way to be very confident in what you’re buying.” What are the most common mistakes people make when buying vintage? “Let’s say you’re after a 1964 SG. You find the listing, you see a low price tag, you get blinded by the numbers, you think you have a good deal and hit ‘buy’ and make an offer. But you might have missed some important details, such as the fact that the ’64 SG has non-original pickups or a headstock break that’s justifying that price. Then you end up in a situation where you get the guitar and you’re not happy with it and you have to open up a dispute. It’s not fun, especially when it could have been avoided by paying attention to the details.
“If the detail of a guitar isn’t fully apparent from the description or the images, it benefits to ask questions
upfront. Like I said, any seller – whether it’s a shop or a private seller – who isn’t prepared to go the extra mile to give you the information you need, to make you feel confident in buying a valuable instrument, is maybe not the best seller or person you want to be doing business with…
“The majority of the sellers who operate in these waters are excited to talk about this stuff. And if there are any details omitted, it’s often not because of lack of care, but just an oversight of some kind. So, looking at the pictures, looking at the details, getting clarification… taking those extra steps is what people need to do.” What are good ways to work out the right price to pay for a piece of used gear? “On Reverb we have a Price Guide that we’re very proud of, and it has pricing details on a very wide swathe of the vintage guitar world, and every other piece of music gear as well, beyond just vintage guitars. So that gives you a good baseline.
“If you’re looking at a listing on our site, we’ll often have a widget on the righthand side, that kind of gives our price tag data and gives you a broad estimate. It might say, for example, 1964 Strats are selling between $10,000-$15,000, but they also convert it into pounds and euros, depending on where you are in the world as well – a little magic touch.
“Beyond that, you can search for existing listings on other platforms as well, of course. You can also post on forums or Facebook groups, to get other people’s insight. Obviously, you have to take that information with a grain of salt, because there are a lot of armchair experts out there, who might not know what they’re talking about! However, if you can combine all the data together, you’ll often end up with a good idea of what the rate is. But with some instruments – especially rarer stuff that you might only have one or two sales over the past couple of years to go off – the market changes [rapidly]. A record of a sale from 2010 might not mean that much in 2018.
“Occasionally, you have to take a leap of faith. But you also have to ask yourself what price you’re comfortable buying at? What alternatives might be cheaper? For example, somebody might be interested in a ’64 Stratocaster and that might cost $10,000 minimum. But they could consider a post-CBS Stratocaster, a ’67 or ’70 Stratocaster, for less money than that pre-CBS one. And then you have to compare. Is a pre-CBS Fender so important to you that you want to pay extra? Or are you just going for an instrument that plays really well? Should you get a modern reissue? There are many options to weigh up.
“As far as getting a good deal goes, to me, the negotiation process is the fun part. If you spend any time at guitar stores, or vintage guitar shows where the whole community comes out and wheels and deals in person ... there’s a lot of people in this industry who love the thrill of the negotiation and that whole process. With Reverb, we try to make it easy to simulate that experience through the website and app. You can make an offer on the majority of vintage-guitar listings on the site. When you make an offer you can include messaging and then do any negotiation you’re comfortable with.
“In my experience, most vintage guitar specialists –whether they’re independent collectors or big operations – expect some negotiation. The listing price is usually just there as just a listing price – the best-case scenario. Typically, we find people getting discounts. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but 20 per cent off the list price is common. Sometimes people can get even better deals.
“One thing you see is a guitar that’s been listed for more than six months and the seller hasn’t changed the price – they’re just waiting for an offer to come around. Often people make what might be construed as lowball offers on older listings just because it’s sitting there.” Is it still ’Bursts that command the most money at the top end of the vintage market or are there any rivals? At the very top end, which I guess we could define as the $50,000-plus mark – choose your currency – that stays relatively static. The only exception to that would be celebrityassociated guitars, autographed guitars, guitars that were used on records. Those
“Most specialists – whether independent collectors or big operations – expect some negotiation”
are unpredictable, they come to market once in a lifetime, depending on what it is.
“But in terms of production-level guitars, it’s still the ’Bursts, the 50s Gibsons, the pre-CBS Fenders – especially rare-finish Fenders – that command the highest prices. It isn’t something I’ve looked into on a data level too much, but my understanding is that, right now, early Telecasters and Broadcasters and other early Fenders, stuff like that, from the 50s, are also doing well. There seems to be a real interest in Blackguards.
“Generally, I think the market on Stratocasters has been a little soft for the past few years, relative to Jazzmasters for example, which did go up in price a bit. Telecasters are the cooler guitars right now, I guess. I think there has been a sense that Stratocasters are sort of a safe choice and people have moved away from them a little bit. That said, Strats have shown signs of having a bit of a revival recently.
“And there are other things. Travis Bean guitars are popular this year – I’ve seen prices go up on those. Those sell for maybe $6,000-$10,000, but there is a limited supply of them and there are more and more people interested in aluminium-neck guitars, so that’s kind of found its way all the way to the top of the scale there.” Down at the working-musician end of the vintage market, what’s a good buy? “I think the Dan Auerbach/St. Vincent Harmony story has kind of been told. I think that was a thing where we saw prices of the other ‘department store’ guitars go up, more so than they ever had before. I think that’s kind of cooled off a bit, to the point where a lot of the good ones have been bought.
“The problem with those guitars is that it’s difficult to generalise with pricing, because the consistency is lacking. There are some amazing buys for the money – you could buy a Harmony Rocket, like one of the hollowbodies that played well, for $900. That could be a good buy, if you get one that is really great. But you could also get one that doesn’t play well or stay in tune and then it’s not so much of a good buy…
“It’s much the same with the Japanese vintage guitars, the Teiscos and Conrads of the world. That’s a similar story, where I think there was a certain class of people, maybe younger players, who wanted to buy some cool guitars but couldn’t afford the key American brands, so they kind of gravitated towards that. There is a huge community of people who are really enthusiastic about those guitars – and one of the reasons they are is because there is so much mystery around it.
“A lot of people I know who are into Japanese vintage guitars do it to unlock the mystery around it and figure out who made what and when, because there is little documented evidence, the way we have for Rickenbacker or Martin or something. I think this is a similar thing [to the surge in prices for department-store guitars] where that’s cooled off a little bit – but there are still obviously a lot of people who are interested in it.
“I’ve seen a lot of interest in the past couple of years in some lesser-known European vintage brands. That would be Italian brands such as Eko and Framus, the historic German brand. Then there is a whole sea of just, frankly, abysmal instruments from different factories making guitars in the Soviet Union. Those guitars are sort of the new frontier if you don’t want to get into the whole Japanese thing. But they’re not good instruments. If you buy them, you’re buying them as kind of an aesthetic thing. But that’s legitimate – I don’t necessarily criticise anybody for doing that.
“As far as good buys go, I think there are a lot of excellent guitars that are not ‘peak vintage’. Peak vintage would be a 60s Stratocaster, for instance. But if you’re just looking for an old vibey Strat, a Mocha one from the mid-70s can be a good buy – if you get one that didn’t suffer from quality- control issues that era was associated with. Again, I think because of the consistency issues with 70s Fenders, getting a good one relies on communicating with the seller before you commit to purchasing it.
“For a while, I would have included Guild in that list. Guilds, in terms of just cool vintage guitars, were one of the best-value buys for many years. But I’ve seen prices on those go up a little bit, to
“A lot of people who are into Japanese vintage do it because want to unlock the mystery around it”
the point where the deals are now a bit fewer and further between.” How does modding affect value? Are there things that should be avoided? “The irony of the whole modding thing – as it relates to vintage guitars – is that, in most cases, the reason the owner wanted to mod the thing was to make it better. You don’t swap tuners because your guitar already stays in tune – you swap because you want the guitar to stay in tune better.
“Often, the modifications, even if they do lower the value, will still improve the playability or quality of that instrument. I’d say the three big categories in modification are tuning heads, pickups and related electronics. Then there’s finish, refinishing, which may be in a category of its own, but is certainly important.
“With finish, a guitar could be stripped bare, it could be battered to heck and look really worn. So somebody could refinish it, to improve the quality of it. But a refinish on any vintage guitar is going to lower the value. In the case of a vintage Fender, where the finish is one of the most important aspects to a collector, it can decimate the resale value, even if that finish makes the guitar look nicer.
“It’s the same with pickups. A good example would be 70s humbuckers, where the pickups that Gibson were making were fine, but the first generation of after-market pickups came along around the same time. So, you’d have a lot of people putting in the DiMarzios or higher-gain pickups, to make them a bit more edgy, a little bit higher gain.
“Today, people tend to want a more conventional PAF-style Gibson pickup but you might find one that has these DiMarzios or EMGs, or whatever it is, installed there instead. That will lower the value quite a bit, even if they’re very good pickups and the installation has been done well.
“It’s similar with tuning pegs. People change tuners because the guitar is not staying in tune. Well, that’s the sort of mod that decreases value a bit less than non-original finish or pickups, especially because the original tuning pegs will often still be in the guitar case, so if somebody wanted to reverse the work they could. But in the case of something like an early-50s Gibson or a pre-CBS Fender, regardless of the quality of the replacement tuners or any improvement in the tuning stability, the desirability of owning a guitar the buyer can label as all-original often trumps everything else.”
“Somebody could refinish a vintage guitar to improve it, but a refinish is going to lower its value”