Old Fashioned Values - The Vintage Guitar Market

When movie actor Michael J Fox, as time-travelling teen Marty McFly, returned to the 50s in Back To The Future and played a new Gibson ES-345TD, he must have had a shrewd idea he was holding a potential investment. We all now know how the value of top-level vintage instruments of the ’50s and ’60s has appreciated over the past decade, and they’ve been joined by selected ’70s and ’80s ones as time has gone by.
 

But when pop group McFly (who borrowed Marty’s name) did a gig at Wembley six months ago, Phil Harris, guitar renter to the stars, found they weren’t into hiring vintage axes to put the icing on their big day. ‘I said I’d take a ’59 Les Paul Standard there for Tom, who plays a ’59 reissue, and an original 1950 Nocaster for Danny, who plays a reissue. They didn’t even bother to make the call. No interest.’

In Harris’s view, Tom (27) and Danny (26) are typical of young players today who choose Gibson and Fender as they would their clothes – purely as a label. ‘They just play what they think is fashionable right now. It’s like jeans and T-shirts to them.’ 
 

And what of pre-aged relics? ‘If people want a guitar that’s been towed around a car park, they pay £800. They’re not going to pay 20 grand for a real fiesta red Strat. It’s like buying a pair of jeans, cutting a hole in the knees and letting them fray – there’s no interest in original Levi’s with frayed knees. They couldn’t care what year or what part of the world any part of their gear comes from, and that’s the view of the young generation coming through.’ If this is typical, then people who have invested in vintage instruments as an investment have a problem on their hands.