Year Ender-335’s
Dot necks continued to be the leader of the group.
They were strong all year with the 1960 models showing considerable growth, especially the early ones with the 59 features. This is a 61.
Well, that just about wraps up another calendar year and that means it’s time to look back and assess what happened. Specifically, I want to look at the vintage guitars market. We will leave politics alone. I have some pretty strong opinions but they are largely irrelevant when talking about old guitars.
2016 was, to a great extent, an “up” year. Values for nearly all vintage guitars were up incrementally. Most have kicked up value wise in the single digits-10% or less. A few have dropped a bit (like 50’s and 60’s Strats) and a few have shot up significantly (like blonde 335’s). Even though I’m pretty active in vintage guitars that aren’t 3×5’s, I don’t think I sell enough of them to identify major trends in value based solely on my own experience. While it’s true that I sold around 10 vintage Strats this year and felt a clear and present downward pressure on price, I will leave it at that. No analysis, no insight beyond simple observation. But the 58-64 335 market is my market.
There are lots of dealers who are way bigger than I am-by orders of magnitude bigger. I keep, at most, 50 guitars in stock at all times-mostly ES335’s, 345’s and 355’s from 1958 to 1964. There’s an occasional mid or late 60’s example and maybe an 81-84 here and there but you can count those on two hands. There are dealers with many hundreds of vintage guitars and a few with over a thousand. But, I don’t think you’ll find another who bought and sold nearly as many early vintage ES models as I did this past year: More than 70 on the buy side and 65 on the sell side. That puts me in a position to identify and quantify the trends in this very narrow market.
Most striking is the scarcity of really good original early 335’s. Collectors and players have been enthusiastically buying up the good ones for more than twenty years and there is a very finite number of them and it isn’t a big number. When you take away the ones that have been broken, refinished or heavily modified, the numbers are all the more striking. There were only around 600 335’s built in 1959. Given the number of guitar players out there, that’s not a big number. How many are left in the “wild”? Judging by my experience this year, not very many. The majority of the 59’s I saw this year came from collectors or players thinning their herds. That’s fine-it keeps the market moving but to find an uncirculated one owner 59 has become a once or twice a year experience. My experience this year with 58’s was largely the same. As you move into the 60’s, the numbers go up and by 64, Gibson had made more than 1200 335’s which is probably why I see so many more of them. So, which 335’s did what in 2016?
The big story this year is the incredible scarcity of blonde 335’s. I saw only 3 this year. A very nice bound 58, a near mint 60 (which I still have) and a Bigsby 59. I know of a sale of a 59 at $90K at the high end and a sale of a 60 Bigsby (by me) with a few issues at $40K. My stop tail 58 sold at $82K. That’s up nearly 20% over last year. Asking prices have reached $100,000 (and that’s a 60).
Early dot necks (58-early 60) were very strong this year but too many dealers are being overly “ambitious” in their pricing and the guitars are sitting for months (or years). This hurts the market because the individual sellers think their guitars are worth the asking price they see on Reverb.com or Ebay or Gbase. So, I get offered average sunburst 59 335’s at $40,000 or even more, which, of course, they aren’t worth. I don’t know what others get for their guitars, but I know what I get. Top dollar for a sunburst 59 is around $45K. And that’s for a no excuses, hundred percent original guitar in near mint condition.
Later 60 and 61 dot necks are, of course, less popular due to the thinner neck but that seems to be changing. The trend toward huge necks seems to be reversing. I think folks talked up the big necks and made them a big deal but practicality has overtaken the “mine’s bigger than yours” attitude that has prevailed for years. I’m seeing more players asking for slimmer necks and that recent trend is driving up not only those those years but 62’s and 63’s as well. 2015 was pretty flat for 60-63 but 2016 has seen a pretty good bump both in stop tails and Bigsbys. Stop tail 60 dot necks are well into the $30K plus range and 61’s are approaching $25K or more. As always, a mint example is going to command a premium.
Early blocks from 62-63 (small necks) were up as well. The real world price hasn’t cracked $20K despite what so many sellers are asking. I sold around 15 62 and 63’s this year and never once cracked $20K. Finally the venerable 64, still the easiest 335 to sell, has bumped up in value in 2016. The red stop tails are the leader but sunburst stops are just as valuable-they just don’t sell as fast. Even though the vast majority don’t have PAFs, they still command prices equal and sometimes greater than the 62-63s with them. Bigsby’s in top condition have passed $15K and are heading up and top condition stop tails are likely to push past $20K any day now.
Next we’ll look at 345’s and 355’s.
Block necks have broken out of their 2015 doldrums. This is a mint 64
I always enjoy your year-end market reports and look forward to Part II. Happy Holidays.
Interesting…I paid at the top of the price range (from another dealer though I’d have preferred Charlie!) for my early ’63 335 because I was looking for a large neck profile and factory stop TP. The guitar also had, not that I cared, one PAF and one patent # pup. The condition was, again, not that I cared, near mint. I actually prefer a guitar in more worn condition so that I don’t have to worry as much about it at gigs…with rare exceptions (unless you paid way too much for it) what you paid for the guitar won’t matter after a few years…Happy Holidays y’all! RAB
I just wish I had the money to be able to afford this sort of stuff now. But, there again, if I had the money, could I justify spending it like that now? I’m just thankful that I bought my vintage pieces many years ago when I could afford them!
Rod, good points. I was the laughing stock of my home town when I paid $1,000 cash for a ’59 Cherry Sunburst Les Paul (as we used to call them back then) in 1970…$1K for a “used” guitar? You could buy a brand new SG for much less! But I showed them! I sold the Burst for a huge profit a few years later, $2,500!