The Gibson ES-335

This is ’59 ES-345 serial A29674. I asked AI about it. It didn’t quite get it right.

AI isn’t doing me any favors-that is clear. Want to know something arcane about ES guitars? It pretty much used to be you had to go to this blog and search for your obscure information. This morning I did a search on Google for “First Rack ES-345” using their AI search function. I got back quotes from my posts, mostly, and one from another knowledgeable site. AI assumes I know what I’m talking about but I think AI doesn’t know what it doesn’t know (like whether information it has gleaned from its sources is correct). I was happy to see that there was attribution in the Google AI response so at least you know where it came from. But here’s the thing that kind of bugs me: I’ve spent years-decades actually-to research and write up everything I’ve learned by careful observation of more than 600 Gibson ES guitars. AI just snags it from my site and presents it to you. So, while it might seem easier to just ask AI your question about an aspect of these guitars, it doesn’t guarantee its accuracy. AI even tells you that.

What good can AI do for the vintage guitar market? I guess anything that provides accurate information about a vintage guitar can be valuable. But can AI talk about something as subjective as tone? Those of you who have bought guitars from me and have gotten my assessment of tone before you paid know what I mean. You either come to trust my (or any dealer’s) judgement or you trust AI. The problem here is that AI is pretty generic. I can assess the tone of a single guitar but it can’t as far as I can tell. I also asked it the value of a specific ES-345-serial number A29674. It told me (to my surprise) that it is a black first rack ES-345. Of course, it got that information from this website but at least it’s accurate. Then I asked what the current value is. AI said $60,000-$75,000+. Actually it’s closer to $200K. So, don’t trust AI to tell you what an instrument is worth. It only knows what it knows although I don’t know if it constantly updates. It’s hard for anyone to predict where a guitar’s value will go and maybe AI knows more than I do but I kind of doubt it. If it could do that, then it could accurately predict stock prices and we’d all get rich.

AI can be really useful as a source of information. But if it starts building killer bots, then none of this will be relevant any longer. If someone tells it to fix climate change and it figures out that the problem is humans using fossil fuels, will it simply eliminate humans? There’s certainly some logic to that but it seems a little extreme. Maybe it should eliminate only half of the humans in places that use a lot of fossil fuel. That puts us “civilized” humans at risk. I dunno, maybe that’s the only solution but it will kill the vintage market and that doesn’t really work for me.

I guess that all we can do is wait and see where all of this goes in the coming years. I’m not particularly optimistic but I’m an old guy and probably won’t live to see the final chapters. My worry is that my grandchildren will.

I asked AI about this stunning red 59 ES-335. It knew it was a 59 but it didn’t know it was red. It gave a set of values and included red ones but got the value wrong (low again). You can always ask me if AI doesn’t give you the answer you expect.

Everything is negotiable but there are a lot of factors that will limit how low a dealer will go on a given instrument or amp. This red 59 ES-335 is so rare that you can forget the negotiations.

Most sellers ask more than they expect to get for anything they are selling whether it’s their house, a car, a teapot or a guitar. It’s the way selling generally goes in the USA (it’s worse in some places). There are lots of negotiating tactics and most of them are pretty effective. If I’m asking $50,000, then offering me $40,000 gets the negotiation ball rolling. And we end up somewhere in between. If I’m asking $50,000 and you offer $2000, then you aren’t negotiating. You’re throwing out a lowball number with little expectation that you’ll get the guitar but maybe the seller is desperate. Newsflash… Nobody is that desperate. I get dozens of lowball offers every week and I usually just decline them and forget about them. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s a high end item or a low end one. Last week, I had an offer on an 18″ 1959 Lifton case that was listed for $900 (which is, incidentally, a really good deal if you need one). I got an offer for $289. I don’t get it it. I countered at $800 hoping that the lowball was an actual good faith negotiation but it wasn’t. He went away. I’ve had offers of $200 on a $75,000 guitar which is generally someone who can’t afford what I’m selling and thinks it’s funny to waste a sellers time. After all, the seller must have lots of money if he’s selling these expensive guitars and probably deserves to have his time wasted. This is turning into a rant which isn’t my intention.

It’s pretty simple. If it’s a Reverb listing that says I will accept offers, then you know I have room to negotiate. If it doesn’t say I accept offers, then don’t bother making one. I don’t usually add on a big premium in the interest of getting to a fair price. I simply offer my guitars at a fair price. If you want the guitar and it’s too much, then by all means, make me a fair offer. The worst I can do is decline. I have room on some guitars. On others, I’m up against break even-even I overpay sometimes when I really want something. Buying guitars as a dealer (and not a hobby dealer) is always a crapshoot. Everybody wants retail but dealers won’t pay retail if they want to stay in business. Whatever the spread is between what I pay and what I get (minus all the outrageous fees that consolidators want) is my take home pay. Oh, wait, I have to pay for insurance, packing materials, often shipping, storage and (this is a big one) credit card fees. So, when you see my ask, keep that in mind. You can always buy from an individual seller who might come in much lower but my experience is that the dealers are often more reasonable than the non dealers. And you usually get an approval period. That’s really important if you’re buying something that’s older than you are.

It seems that everyone believes that their guitar worth more if you’re selling it and the exact same guitar is worth way less when you’re buying it. It’s not true of course but it’s pretty well ingrained in the American psyche. The other fun negotiating tactic is telling me exactly what is wrong with my guitar (even though every issue is in the listing) and why it’s worth so much less than I’m asking. My feelings about this are “why would you want to buy it if it’s such a piece of crap? This happens at guitar shows a lot. I don’t do them as a dealer because this happened over and over again at the first and only show I participated in as OK Guitars back in 2012. But it’s a often more effective to negotiate in person especially a cash deal. Dealers want to move inventory (so they can buy more) and you know, if they are making the effort to do a show, that they are ready to deal. Lowball offers still won’t work.

There is a negotiating tactic that really isn’t negotiating and it drives me a little nuts. “What’s your best price” isn’t negotiating. I understanding trying to cut the BS of buying and selling but I think that tactic is best left out of the deal. I respond to it most of the time with a price that is below my ask and sometimes, when I really want to move something, I really give the buyer my “best” price. Maybe my response should be “how badly do you want it?” To me, it makes the assumption that I’m making a big profit and I should be making a small profit. It’s easy to find the value of most guitars by looking at the current listings remembering that most individual sellers are asking too much. Yes, and some dealers too. And even me sometimes although most of what I have stands up pretty well pricewise. Once you have a good idea what the guitar (or amp) is worth, you can negotiate by making a fair offer. I can respond by giving you a fair price. Deal?

Just because a guitar isn’t popular (or particularly rare), you can still usually negotiate a better price than the ask. Guitars like this sidejack Mosrite Ventures aren’t going to fly out the door so put on your haggling shoes and make yourself a great deal. Just don’t ask what my best price is.

When you were paid (as a band) $75 per gig, sheet music purchases were out of the question. So, we learned by listening. Over and over and over again.

In the days before guitar tabs or web sites, the only way to learn how to play a song was to figure it out for yourself. Occasionally, you would find sheet music but it was expensive. We would sneak a look at it in the store to get a missing chord or lyric but mostly we just listened to the record over and over and over again until we thought we had it. My role in the process was to figure out the chords and learn to play any solos or important lead section. Somebody else in the band handled the lyrics and the drummer was supposed to learn the drum part (which he occasionally did but mostly he didn’t).

I had taken guitar lessons for maybe 8 months in 1964/65. My teacher (Mr. Orsini) was a jazz guy who hated rock and roll and wouldn’t teach it. There weren’t a lot of choices of guitar teachers in Schenectady, NY in 1964. The upside was that I didn’t only learn cowboy chords-I learned 6ths and 9ths and augmented 5ths and all the cool jazz chords that rockers didn’t often use. They weren’t much use at first but the George Harrison started adding some weird chords to Beatle songs (which were a staple in my band at the time). He often ended a song with a 9th chord and occasionally a 6th. I knew them right away. The rest of the song was usually pretty easy at least until we got to Revolver. Learning the leads was a different story altogether. I’m not a particularly dexterous player and I’m not particularly fast. I was a pretty decent lead player for a 14 year in 1966 but I often couldn’t quite keep up with the pros I was learning from and I was somewhat baffled by double tracked leads that I didn’t know were double tracked. I remember learning the solo for the Yardbirds’ “Shapes of Things” and I got it down pretty well but the double tracking at the end threw me off. That was about as good as I got.

The other problem was that at that time, I played a 1962 ES-330 which sounded pretty great but didn’t have good access to the upper register. By 1968, I had grown frustrated with the feedback from the P-90s and full hollow 330 and bought an SG Standard. The problem with the SG was different. I understood intonation by then but could never get the G string to intonate properly. I played with 9’s back then (when I could find them) and today, when intonating an SG, I still can’t get the G string right because the guitars were built for a wound G string. What did I know…I was 16 in 1968. But at least I could reach the high notes on the fingerboard without falling all over myself.

By 1968 however, we discovered something called a “fake book”. These basically bootleg compilations of popular songs usually written out by hand or mimeographed (remember mimeographs?) from legit sheet music. They were crazy expensive ($25 in 1968 was equal to around $250 today) but it saved us a lot of time even though the books were often wrong or oversimplified. The band, in 68, made around $150 per gig so $25 was significant. By 69-70 we were good enough to charge $300 usually for frat parties at the local college (Union) but we had to play until 3 AM. That usually meant more than a few repeat songs but most of the partygoers were drunk by midnight so they probably didn’t notice.

I played with various bands until 1974 when I finally realized that I wasn’t going to be a rock star. I simply wasn’t a good enough player and figured I never would be. I was an OK backup singer…I can still harmonize with almost anything without even thinking about it. That’s a wonderful gift but I would rather have had those long thin fingers that many of the great players have and the dexterity to use them. My little hands and short fingers are not made for playing lead.

It was a very different time. No i-pad to refer to for the lyrics and no Ultimate Guitar website with every song ever written. I guess that makes it much easier to learn a song but it’s not the same. Learning by ear makes you a better musician. You learn some theory and you learn perseverence. The latter is perhaps the most important element in becoming a good guitarist.

If the market starts moving in the wrong direction, then a guitar like a 59 ES-335 is your best bet. Look for guitars that are easy to sell and are wildly popular. If you can afford a burst, then that might be the ideal purchase for right now.

“What goes up, must come down…” So said (and wrote) the recently deceased David Clayton-Thomas of version 2 of Blood Sweat and Tears. Similarly, the vintage guitar community has spoken those same words. Prices have become too high. This, along with worries about the overall economy has caused the vintage market to slow to a crawl. We’ve seen this before but not in this manner. In 2008, the bottom simply fell out pretty much all at once. I hadn’t been in the business of selling guitars for very long at that time-in fact OK Guitars as it exists today didn’t debut until 2010. For me, in 2008, buying and selling guitars was just a fun hobby so it hardly affected me. At that time my usual inventory was two or three guitars. Now, it’s 20 or 30 times as many and a bunch of amps as well.

What is a correction? In stock market jargon, it’s a drop of at least 10% and no more than 20%. In 2008, some guitars lost as much as 40% seemingly overnight (but it wasn’t really that quick…it just seemed that way. During the Covid pandemic, the vintage market went crazy. Sales nearly doubled for me and priced climbed 20% in a single year (and then another 10% the next year). The problem, as I see it, is that sellers thought that kind of appreciation was just going to continue going forward. But 10% appreciation is not sustainable even with the inflation that was occurring for everyday items like food and gasoline. This has happened before. I’ve written a few posts about a market “standoff” where the sellers dig their heels in at a high price and the buyers decide the prices are too high and they stay away.

The first symptom of this slow market standoff is increased trade deals. As far back as a year ago, I noticed that were far fewer cash deals and many more partial trade deals. Then full trade deals began to dominate-perhaps last fall-specifically in September. It’s always slow in the summer but in 2025, the expected seasonal increase in business for guitars simply didn’t happen. Since then, the market has remained sluggish with most deals having a trade element. I don’t mind trades but I’m very specific about what guitars I will take in trade. My rule has always been – don’t take a guitar that’s hard to sell for a guitar that’s easy to sell. So, I won’t take an ES-340 for an ES-335. Or a Jaguar for a Stratocaster. How does this end? Good question and if I knew the answer, I’d probably be rich by now. Here’s what I think might happen going forward:

Prices will begin to trickle downward-perhaps 5% to test the market and if that doesn’t get the market moving, then the dealers will take the lead. Dealers generally make their living only from sales of guitars and other gear. Most vintage dealers don’t do it as a side hustle. The dealers will lead the market correction. Individual sellers always believe their guitars are worth more than they are, regardless of the state of the guitar market. Dealers have to be more realistic. Desirable vintage guitars are still selling-especially mint and near mint examples and especially at the high end. Well heeled collectors are less concerned about high prices but they are often savvy investors and they know that the market for highly desirable guitars plays by its own set of rules. The burst market proves the point. The burst market has continued to rise while much of the rest of the market has stagnated.

Should you be concerned? I don’t think so. You won’t be happy taking less money for your guitar but you will be happy spending less on your next one. Also, I’m not an oracle (or an economist). I can’t predict the vintage market any better than you can. I’m pretty tuned in to the 335 market. I know that if 335’s are slow, then much of the rest of the market is predictably worse. Fortunately, 335’s are still relatively strong-especially 58, 59 and 64’s. Anything from Gibson with a 59 serial number will generally move with relative ease. That’s good news for me and good news for you going forward. Do your research. There are some excellent deals out there if you look hard enough. More advice? Buy what you really like and want to play. If you love love love your “new” guitar, you will quickly forget what you paid for it. This isn’t the time for pure investments but if this correction actually occurs (we’re not there yet) that time might be on the horizon. New buyers are entering the vintage market. My typical buyer used to be a guy in his 60’s. Now (and for some time now) the average age of my buyers is around 40. But that’s another post.

If you’re looking to trade for that 335, this one isn’t going to get you very far (not with me anyway). In a correcting market, trades are often in the mix. An RD Artist is not an easy sell so it might make sense to hang on to that one and trade something else.

Chuck Berry played plenty of rock and roll on an ES-350 early in his career and it sounded awfully good. He later switched to a 355 and other semis but back at the beginning of rock, full hollow guitars were de rigueur. That’s what Michael Fox should have been playing rather than a non existent 345 in Back to the Future.

Super 400’s, L-5’s, ES-5’s, ES-350’s and 175’s and many other vintage Gibsons fit the description. Arch Tops were the Rolls Royce of guitars during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Their popularity waned in the 60’s as rock and roll took center stage but there were still plenty of jazz players and even big bands and orchestras with a guitar player who usually played an archtop. A 335 could be described as an archtop but semi hollow archtops are another class of guitars altogether.

In the early days of rock and roll, archtops were still largely the guitar of choice. Scotty Moore played an ES-295, Gene Vincent played a Gretsch archtop, Chuck Berry played an ES-350 and so on. 335’s didn’t exist until 1958 and by then, rock and roll was here to stay. Even though Telecasters and Strats were around at rock’s outset, they weren’t as visible as the archtops with the notable exception of Buddy Holly and perhaps Muddy Waters’ gold top Les Paul. I’m not a rock historian so don’t deluge me with comments telling me who played Fenders. Of course, today, solid body guitars are everywhere-in all genres.

So, what’s different when compared to a 335 which is considered semi hollow? There’s quite a lot of overlap between, say an ES-350 and a 335. Both are capable of biting treble from the bridge pickup although hollow bodies tend to feed back at high volume. Back in the 60’s that was sometimes a plus (I played a 330 back in the psychedelic age) and it would howl and not always when I wanted it to. But it’s the neck pickup where a hollow body can do things a semi hollow or solid doesn’t do as well. Now, I always have a problem describing tone-it’s s little like describing the color red to a blind man. I guess I can call it airy. A full depth hollow body, like an ES-5, can generate a tone that sounds something like a miked acoustic. I would imagine the jazz guys love that tone which may be why they are attracted to arch tops.

There are a lot of knobs to choose from on an ES-5. It took me a minute to figure out which one did what. It’s a bit different than a 335 and, in some ways, makes more sense (the bottom ones are the bridge pickup). I had a lot of fun playing this one.

I sat down with a 1960 ES-5 (Switchmaster) that I took in trade with the intention of scavenging the PAFs and replacing them with boutique pickups like Throbaks. But I couldn’t do it. I sat down intending to play for maybe 15 minutes. Two hours later, I’m still banging away on it. I rarely play for two hours any more due to my old and worn out joints-especially my arthritic thumbs. It sounded so good and notably different to what I’m used to. I play acoustics (I have a J-200 and a Breedlove 12 string), a solid body with P90’s (Epiphone Wilshire) and, of course a 59 335. I so rarely have an arch top in stock that I simply have little experience with them. I don’t think I’ll end up keeping the ES-5 but I intend to enjoy it until somebody else wants it. It’s a shame they aren’t more practical for rock and blues-the access to the upper frets is limited and they do tend to feed back at high volume. These were the high end of the Gibson line and enjoyed a great deal of popularity until an upstart named Leo turned guitar making on it’s ear. The decline started there and never stopped.

I’m going off piste here because I’m a Dad (and a Grandad) and I’m proud of my writer son. His latest short story was just published. Enjoy.

With apologies to Mel Brooks (whose line I “borrowed” for this post, this has nothing to do with Star Wars, Space Balls or any other movie). This post is about Gerhard Schwarz and his line of repro parts branded St. Helens. Repro parts have had a heavy presence in my posts because it’s a really vital part of the vintage experience (and not always a good one). The biggest problem I have, as a dealer, is the “all original” guitar that is not. Often, the seller is just repeating what the seller before him said. That seller is sometimes a dealer but more often, an individual. Most sellers are honest but most sellers can’t tell certain repro parts from a correct vintage part. And, with the prices of vintage parts going through the roof, a single wrong part can change the value by thousands of dollars. I’m not just talking about PAFs here. The cost of a real vintage pickguard for a 58-60 ($1500) a tailpiece ($2500 or more) or a bridge ($1800 or more) will ruin your day. Enter St. Helen’s guitar parts made by Gerhard Schwarz of Germany. Gerhard has been around for awhile but this line of parts is relatively new. Do we need more repro parts?

Answer: Yes we do. There are some really accurate repro parts on the market but many of them share a common feature:they aren’t branded making identification somewhere between difficult and nearly impossible. I really like the Montreux stop tail. It has a fairly accurate short seam that is much smoother than the originals which makes them easy to recognize. Not as effective as putting the name of the maker on the part but better than nothing. The Gibson made Historic no wire ABR-1 is nearly dead on. On the older ones, you could tell it was a repro by the missing manufacturers brand mark. Gibson later added it making it nearly identical to the originals. There were still two ways to identify the repro: The letters on the underside weren’t as sharp as the originals but if you don’t have an original to compare it to, then it will be hard to know. The other way is foolproof. Look under either “E” string saddle. If there is a circular tooling mark, it’s a repro. If there isn’t, it’s real. But why am I going through all this when this post is supposed to be about St. Helens parts?

Gerhard’s parts come in this cute little “lunchbox” that has all kinds of uses beyond holding your stash, I mean your lunch. Thanks to Jim Weyandt..I borrowed this photo from his Facebook page. Note the branding on the stop tail.

Gerhard’s parts (the ones I’ve seen anyway) are very accurate and accurate beyond the cosmetics. He has duplicated the materials as well for a level of accuracy often missing but invisible. But he did something I appreciate even more than that. He branded his parts. The lightweight stop tail has a near perfect short seam correctly roughed up and it would be ready to fool the best trained eye except for one thing. There, in small but bold letters, is the name St. Helens. I’m told the early versions didn’t have the brand mark which would have made the problem worse, not better. Beyond branding his parts, he is also producing some very hard to find parts like the low profile ABR-1 found only on 1958 ES-335s . They almost always collapsed under the pressure of 12 gauge strings (those were the lightest you could get in 1958). The replacement was almost always a shaved full height ABR-1. Now, with much lighter gauge strings, the low pro ABR-1 should stand up to hard use. But most of them collapsed decades ago. As far as I know, there is only one other parts producer making this part and that’s Pigtail. Good for both of them. I bought a few of them.

I’m really happy that St. Helens and Pigtail put their names on their parts. It keeps the dishonest folks honest (or at least a little more honest) and they are providing a hard to find part for 58 ES-335’s

Gerhard also makes a compensated wraptail to replace the “lightning” wrap tail as well as one to replace the standard wrap tail that had no compensation at all (other than an angled installation and adjustable ends). The compensation is subtle so they appear, from a distance of about a foot, to be the original uncompensated type. There is also a low profile wrap tail that you can wrap over on a 52/53 Les Paul, another useful part although they have been around for awhile from other manufacturers. He makes a compensated and uncompensated version of the low profile one.

So, welcome to the rather crowded field of vintage parts makers. It’s nice to see more accurate parts and more makers. The branding is important to me so that everybody knows it’s a repro. There will still be sellers who try to pass off repro parts as the real thing but every repro part ever made has some “flaw”. The trick is to find it.

Their prices are too high. They don’t know any more than I do. They are all trying to rip you off. They are lying about their guitars. These are the typical reasons why folks don’t like to buy from dealers. Yes, there are dealers who ask high prices. There are dealers who probably know even less than you do. I’m sure there are dealers who are hoping to rip you off and there are liars. But to tar all dealers with the same brush is going to end up costing you money.

Every once in a while, I go through the listings on Reverb to see how many of them (from individual sellers) are inaccurate. There are repro parts described as vintage. This is the most common way to cheat the buyer. Parts can be some serious money. A PAF can cost $5000 or more so you would be wise to make sure the PAF is the real thing. Many, if not most of them being sold by individual or hobby sellers are either fake, rewound or repaired. Not long ago I bought a PAF from an individual seller. he, of course, insisted it was authentic but had some work done (nothing major-a changed lead wire and a coupole of changed screws. I always black light the tape and the sticker. They should glow a smooth and solid green. I noted that the tape and the label glowed a somewhat mottled blue. Closer inspection showed that the sticker and the tape had been sprayed with clear phosphorescent paint. This has become common. It isn’t an oversight. It’s a clear attempt to cheat you. The seller insisted that he didn’t do it-that he was ripped off as well. Maybe yes. Maybe no. I’ve never seen this done by a dealer.

Repro bridges being passed off as vintage is also common. I’m sure some folks can’t tell the difference but I’m going to share some information that might save you some heartache (and some money). Gibson repro bridges are very accurate. There are two ways to tell the real thing from a repro. The raised letters on the bottom are a little fuzzy on the repros but unless you have a real ABR-1 in hand to compare it with, it’s going to be difficult to know for sure. So, I’m going to give you a 100% foolproof method to tell a repro ABR-1 from a real one. Take off one of the E string saddles (either one) Under the saddle on the bridge unit itself will be a round tooling mark. Real ones don’t have it. Repros do (on both E strings). And yes, dealers get them wrong sometimes too. Caveat Emptor.

Any idea what a legit short seam tailpiece goes for these days? It’s $2500 to $3000. I’ve seen one as high as $5000. Most of the repros are really good and will sound every bit as good as a real one. Most of them don’t bother trying to imitate the short seam which makes it easy to tell them apart from a real one. But Montreux, who makes an extremely accurate repro short seam, has found a way to imitate the short seam. The seam, on the originals is a remnant for the tailpiece being broken off from the die. The Montreux simply molds the seam into the tailpiece so it is flat-not ragged like the originals. If an unscrupulous dealer or individual carefully masks the tailpiece and take a Dremel with a grinding wheel to it, it can be made to look as ragged as the real thing. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of one with this “work” having been done but I can show you a correct original and a stock Montreux. You’ll see how easy it would be to rough up the Montreux. I don’t know if dealers are doing this but get yourself a jewelers loup so you can magnify the seam. Magnified, it’s pretty easy to tell if it’s been roughed up. I don’t know of any dealers doing this but I’ve seen more than a few of them on some very expensive guitars.

What about entire guitars? Fortunately, making a fake ES-335 is way too much work and requires a high level of skill compared to other models. There are some excellent non Gibson 335 type guitars but none of them try to pass themselves off as a Gibson. I suppose someone could take one of those excellent repros and take off the headstock overlay and put on an accurate Gibson overlay. If that’s the case, you’ll have to look at other parts or construction techniques to see acts of trying to pass off a non Gibson guitar.

Finally, in this very strange market, individual sellers are asking more than dealers in many cases. A lot of individual sellers seem to think that the Covid runup is still going on. Wake up people. Covid has been mostly over for close to four years now. The rise in prices is over. The market has actually corrected by 10 to 15% but the sellers can’t bear to lose any money on an old guitar when they’ve been rising for the past 17 tears or so. But it’s over. The high end stuff is still pretty strong. The player grade stuff isn’t selling because it’s so overpriced. Compare some dealers with individual sellers. I would be surprised if the dealers are higher for the most part. You can look at my prices if you like. I price most of my guitars well below the highest priced similar guitars. Sure, I have some expensive guitars but I don’t think any of them are way out of line. I would suggest that you establish a good relationship with at least two dealers and use them to help you compare guitars and parts. I help out buyers all the time-even if they aren’t buying from me. That’s simply a smart business practice.

This is the “Baron Knoop” Stradivarius built in 1715. Must be cheap because it’s re-necked and has been refinished twice. Is that “buckle rash” on the back?

It could be said that a Les Paul burst is the Stradivarius of the guitar community. Or maybe it’s a pre War Martin D-45. Or maybe it’s David Gilmour’s black Strat that sold for $14.5 million. But the criteria for vintage guitars is very different than it is for three hundred year old violins. The record price for guitars is clearly driven by provenance. Gilmour’s refinished Strat would be worth maybe a few thousand if it wasn’t Gilmour’s. The record price of a top tier violin (Stradivari, Guarneri, Amati and a few others) is $23 million. Clearly, the price doesn’t have much to do with who owned and played it because it hasn’t been owned by anybody you’ve heard of. It’s all about tone.

We, in the vintage guitar community are obsessed with originality. I remember maybe fifteen or twenty years ago when it became a big deal to check the solder joints to be sure they were original,. A lot of folks thought that was a bridge too far (and I tend to agree). I recall selling what I called a mint guitar only to have it returned because somebody dabbed the top of the headstock with a Sharpie. I didn’t argue with the buyer-mint means mint and a touchup is a touchup. I would have taken a little bit of alcohol and removed it but that isn’t the point. That brings me to the old violins. As I mentioned earlier, the record for a Stradivarius is $23 million for “The Baron Knoop”. Another sold for $15 million and plenty of them are a million or more. None of them are original. There is a rumor that there is one that is actually unplayed but there is controversy regarding it. I can still make the point. How can none of them be original and still fetch those prices? It’s not the celebrities who have owned them. How famous is Baron Knoop (original owner of the $23 million Strad)? Not very. Virtually all of the violins have had a neck replacement. The story goes that Niccolo Paganini lengthened the scale of his violin in the hope of improving the tone. And, in fact, it did just that. Soon everybody was doing it and it became the standard. It is clear that vintage violins are judged primarily by who made them and how they sound. Think about that, Les Paul burst owners. What’s more important to you? Tone or originality. I can guess. Someone will write me and tell me about side by side tests where folks were asked to pick the better sounding violin between a Stradivarius and a well made modern violin. Many picked the modern violin. And I’ve played R9’s (and 335’s) that sound better than some of the bursts that I’ve played. Tone is worth something to guitar collectors but clearly not as much as originality.

So, the big point is that guitar aficionados and violin aficionados are very different creatures. Guitars made by hand by the best luthiers are revered by some (D’Angelicos and D’Aquistos for example) but they don’t even come close to the value of a burst (or even a 59 335). Great sounding guitars can command a premium but the tone of an electric guitar is very subjective (and highly influenced by the amplifier). Vintage acoustic guitars are more like violins. A pre war Martin D-45 or a ’39 Gibson Advanced are highly valued because they sound amazing. But originality is a still a huge factor. I had a 1942 or 43 Gibson SJ that sounded as good as any guitar I’ve ever played (and I’ve been playing since 1964). But it had a half dozen repairs and was beat to hell. It wasn’t worth much. So I guess originality still beats tone in the guitar world.

This wartime Gibson SJ sounded absolutely amazing. It sold for cheap because it had multiple repairs to the top and back and was oversprayed.

So, The “Baron Knoop” Strad that sold for $23 million has had a neck replacement and was completely refinished…twice. A burst that was refinished with a replaced neck that I owned sold for $85,000 a few years ago. It probably would have been worth $300K if it had the original neck and quite a bit more today. So, the next time you spend a lot of money on a vintage guitar, ask how it sounds before you ask about originality. Both are important even if we guitar enthusiasts seem to have it backwards.

Refinished and re-necked 1960 Les Paul. Sold for $85,000 a few years ago. Not exactly cheap but the deduction for the finish and the repair was around $250,000.

One of the things I really like about guitar folks is their belief in magic. There are so many urban legends, myths, assumptions and magical thinking that they sometimes play a bigger role in the purchase of a vintage guitar than the science (and reality). So, let’s have some fun with them. And don’t take my word for what is myth and what is real. I only know what my eyes and ears tell me and that might not be the same thing that you get from your eyes and ears. Let’s start with ears.

Old wood sounds better than new wood. Real. Old wood grew more slowly making for tighter grain and more density. New wood is is generally grown much more quickly making it less dense. Since sound travels through a solid better than through a liquid or a gas, it makes sense that old wood is more resonant. Another factor is moisture. The moisture in new and old wood is, I believe, about the same at the outset. But old wood has had more time to dry out and, again I believe that dryer wood is more resonant than moist wood. “Roasting” of wood kind of proves this to me.

Ebony fingerboard has more “snap” than rosewood. Myth. First of all, there isn’t a whole lot of either in ES guitars (and most others) so the idea is that there is a difference in the actual tonal quality of the wood. True if the guitar is made from this wood. But a thin piece of ebony isn’t likely to change much of anything in the tone department. I believe most folks think the snap has to do with the response of the strings when pressed down on a piece of ebony rather than rosewood. Actually, you’re pressing down on the frets, not the wood. I have pretty good ears. I don’t have perfect pitch but I have a well developed sense of frequency, timbre and pitch. I’ve played dozens and dozens of ebony board ES-355’s and hundreds of rosewood board 335’s. I don’t hear the snap. Maybe you do. More power to you.

The fingerboard on this ES-355 is ebony. It is harder than rosewood and a bit smoother too. The question is whether it actually has an effect on the tone of your guitar. I think not. The conventional wisdom is that it enhances the highs thus imparting more “snap” to your notes. I think not.

White PAFs sound better than black ones. Myth and Real. This is my theory and I think it makes a lot of sense. The amount of wire wound onto the coil of a PAF varied immensely back when they were made. There was no stop mechanism on the winders. The person operating the winder stopped when the bobbin appeared to be full. Most winders would likely stop well before the bobbin was totally full because if they went to far, they had to stop and unwind the excess wire or start over. I’m sure they had daily quotas and didn’t want unnecessary delays. Err on the side of caution as it were. The wire was dark brown-almost purple and the bobbin was black so it was hard to see just how close to the edge you were when winding the pickup. Enter the white bobbin and the same dark wire. Now the winder could see much more clearly how much room was left on the bobbin thus allowing for more turns and a “hotter” pickup. I have measured hundreds of PAFs and the white ones are consistently higher DCR. That doesn’t necessarily make a better sounding pickup-there a lots of factors but it certainly makes them different and, to my ears, often better sounding. Note-it’s a theory not a law. Perhaps the musings of someone with too much time on his hands.

This stripped ’59 ES-345 was my main player for a few years. It had three extra holes in the top and a load of other issues but it had a pair of factory installed double white PAFs and they sounded glorious. But did they sound glorious because they were white?

I’ll do one more and this, by far is my favorite. Early Marshall cabinets have a rather distinctive grill cloth. Jimi Hendrix often used these cabinets with the “pinstripe” grill cloth. It’s kind of fragile and it’s become somewhat mythical. Mythical grill cloth? Well, apparently there are folks who believe that Hendrix’s distinctive guitar tone is due to his excellent playing passing through this “mythical” grill cloth. Is it possible for grill cloth to influence tone? Maybe. I don’t know but if it does, I don’t believe it would be to the extent that you can actually hear a distinctive difference. More likely, some grill cloths are more transparent than others so maybe some tone could be impeded by an overly dense cloth. But c’mon, Hendrix’s tone is because of the grill cloth? Hey, you know, I have this bridge in Brooklyn and it’s for sale for cheap…I can make you a deal…

Who knew that the Stratocaster was the Breakfast of Champions? But Jimi’s real secret weapon is the “pinstripe” grill cloth. Without it, Jimi was just another picker.

I’m sure there are lots more of these guitars driven myths and if you have one, send it to me or make a comment. I love this stuff.