The Gibson ES-335

This Guild Thunderbird is a very cool guitar (it has a kick stand). They were never popular but it’s still a very cool guitar. I bought this on impulse from the nice folks at Southside in Brooklyn and it sat in my shop and online unsold for years. Then Covid happened and the Thunderbird and all the other unsold not so popular guitars flew out the door.

I love a rising market. A rising market is an active market and and active market is good for everybody. The Covid pandemic wasn’t good for much but the increased “home” time brought a lot of new players and lapsed players back to the guitar after years or even decades of disinterest. The result was a very fast runup in prices and a considerable broadening of the market. Guitars that nobody wanted were suddenly flying out the door. My favorite example is a Guild Thunderbird that I bought on impulse because I thought it was a very cool (and a good playing) guitar. I must have had it up for sale for at least three years with no interest at all (write yourself a note…50’s and 60’s Guilds are great guitars and are massively underpriced and underrated). The Thunderbird sold early on during Covid as did many other sleeper guitars that were sitting around unsold and unplayed. For the core of the vintage market (Gibson, Fender and Martin), the prices just kept shooting up and this kept going for two years. Imagine a stock market where every stock goes up every day for two years. It can’t go on forever no matter how badly you want that to happen.

The Covid runup is over and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the high prices have leveled off. The bad news is that the high prices have leveled off. Depends if you’re buying or selling. Well, I do both and I have to strike a balance between profit and activity. The majority of sellers seem to believe that the appreciation they’ve gotten so used to will last forever. It’s over. But folks are still asking prices that are unrealistic and reflect the notion that the rate of increase is the same now as it was in 2020-2022. A good current example is a 1960 Bigsby ES-345 at $47,000. Or maybe a 64 Bigsby 335 for $43000. Even in the middle of Covid, these prices would have been unrealistic. I sold a Bigsby 64 not too long ago for $28,000. I sold a 60 (stop tail) 345 not too long ago during Covid for $26,000. I don’t know the marketplace for every guitar from every era but I know 60’s ES guitars and at least half the guitars listed online right now aren’t going to sell at their asking price. Probably more than half.

More good news. The market finds it’s own equilibrium. If a seller lists a guitar for a crazy high price, it will almost certainly sit for long enough that the seller will reconsider. If the seller is hoping that some billionaire collector will buy it because its chicken feed to him, the seller is delusional. I actually have a couple of billionaire clients and they are cheap. OK, frugal (how do you think they got to be billionaires). I am currently slowly lowering prices trying to get a handle on the market’s “set point”. Buyers will always negotiate and often lowball but they won’t let a well priced guitar that they really want get away. I’m a buyer too and while I can negotiate pretty hard, there are always guitars that I buy with my heart rather than my head (a bad thing for a dealer but a good thing for that same heart).

What I’m trying to accomplish here is to give all of you a dose of reality. I want you to get the guitar you want at a price that is sensible for the guitar market going forward. Nobody wants to buy at the top and watch the value drop but, as it turns out, a lot of guitars got bought at the top of the market and will eventually be sold…many at a loss. Buy smart and that won’t happen. Unfortunately, many of you bought during the pandemic and you paid top dollar. If you bought in 2022 and you need to sell now, breaking even is what you can expect-at best. I bought in 2022 just like you did and I’m probably going to take a loss on a few of them. But I can wait the market out whereas you may not be able to. My unsolicited advice is don’t be greedy. Price your guitar fairly so it will sell quickly. A stale listing (and I’ve got a few of them) is a tough sell. Besides, if you lose on the sale, you can make it up on the next one that you buy (and there’s always a next one).

I don’t have a crystal ball but I have some pretty good insight into the ES marketplace. Take the advice or don’t take the advice. It’s still the same old buy low sell high. Don’t buy as a pure investment. Buy something you will play and love. They aren’t mutually exclusive. There are guitars that are better insulated from a fickle market but that’s a whole other post. I’ll get to that one next.

Hey Bulldog. Another impulse buy and Covid sale. I can be really impulsive about buying oddball guitars and I could do an entire month of posts about all the “unusual” guitars that I simply had to have. As good as the Guild T-Bird at the top of this post was, the Vox Bulldog (can you say Mosrite?) wasn’t so good. Looks pretty cool but if that’s what you want, buy a Mosrite.