Vintage guitars: Rare, beautiful and investible
August 29th 2008 05:26
By Chris Champion
There are 10, perhaps 15, global high rollers in the vintage guitar investment business, and their god is a 93-year-old genius named Les Paul. About seven years ago, a 1958 Gibson Les Paul "standard flame top" sold for US$85,000. This year, it sold again for $400,000.
The high rollers chase the mint condition classic guitars from the big three makers - Gibson, Fender and Martin - which sell regularly today for more than $100,000. Below the top tier is a strong and growing collector interest in less-than-pristine units from the fabled 1950s, with instruments rarely changing hands for less than five figures.
There is a revered vintage guitar magazine, a detailed annual vintage guitar price list, a stockmarket-style index with 42 guitar constituents, many dedicated blogs and other web sites and an indisputable passion amongst aficionados.
And above it all strides the name of Les Paul. Born in Wisconsin in 1914 and still playing music in New York, Paul has arguably done more for the guitar than Antonio Stradivari ever did for violins. Paul is a master of many trades. He is a legendary jazz musician and rock guitarist (in 2003 Rolling Stone magazine named him the 46th best ever). And he is an inventor - as a teenager he invented a harmonica holder and, later, he invented multitracking, which so changed the studio recording process, and pretty all the innovations which make the electric guitar what it is: close miking, echo delay, reverberation etc.
The electric guitar, remarkably, is almost unchanged from those 1950s and early 1960s days when, led by Les Paul, it was created. Or as Australian musician and unabashed Les Paul fan Greg Champion puts it, "No-one has managed to improve it since then."
The appeal of guitars (and it should be explained here that electric guitars dominate the high-end sales lists - only occasionally do acoustic guitars, usually pre-war Martins, compete) as a collectible commodity can not be disputed. But that is not necessarily the same thing as a vibrant investment market. For investors looking for opportunities for the 20 per cent of funds not prudently tied up in the safety nets of stocks, bonds and retirement portfolios, vintage guitars make an interesting option, but are they a mature investment category?
American collector Andy Rappaport, who runs a venture capital firm, told National Public Radio in 2006 that, "My guitar collection has outperformed almost anything else that I've been investing in over the last 10 years".
The Vintage Guitar Price Guide index, which tracks sales of 42 elite guitar models, shows an average price for those 42 of US$3,500 in 1991, $13,000 in 2006 and $24,000 in 2008.
Music legend Les Paul
Vintage guitar dealer Rick Sand-Vliet, of Perth, Western Australia, says the big spenders come mainly from the US and Japan. These are the collectors with the wherewithal to bid for the best examples when they become available. The people who can chase the price for a Les Paul 1958 standard flame top to $400,000. They are a select band, and they are connected with an equally select group of elite retailers - three or four in the US, one or two in Europe, another one or two in Japan, and Sand-Vliet, who has been in the business since 1985.
He says the value of vintage guitars has been rising steadily for 30 years, and has no doubt they will continue to do so, offering calculated investment opportunities for the discerning buyer in the same way that fine art or antique furniture do.
"Hand-made craftsmanship, rare materials, and design expertise, combined with limited production, results in a market for these instruments that can only continue to grow in value," he says.
"Further, I believe that now is a particularly good time to invest in vintage instruments. Safe, profitable opportunities exist at every price range and in every area of special interest.
"And vintage guitars offer a rare opportunity to combine smart investing with genuine pleasure and fun, just the same as fine art. Owning a vintage instrument is more than investing in a sound appreciating asset, for that is what you will be buying. It is something of beauty that can be displayed with pride and can always be picked up and played at any time."
From an analytical viewpoint, the combination of rarity and popularity alone guarantee investment opportunity. Add to this a reasonable assumption that, over time, the vintage guitar market place will see a growing number of investment-oriented buyers trading bids with the pure collectors, and value growth prospects look sound.
FOOTNOTE: A biographical, feature length documentary titled Chasing Sound: Les Paul at 90, made its world premiere on May 9, 2007, at the Downer Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Paul appeared at the event. The film is being distributed by Koch Entertainment and was broadcast on PBS on July 11, 2007, as part of its American Masters series. In June 2008, an exhibit showcasing his legacy and featuring items from his personal collection opened at Discovery World in Milwaukee.
| 25 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
Subscribe to this blog
