Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Discussion of vintage Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Bass VIs, Electric XIIs and any other offset-waist instruments.
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graceless
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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by graceless » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:43 am

lmfao

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rank
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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by rank » Tue Apr 27, 2021 3:53 pm

graceless wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:43 am
lmfao

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It does say he's open to offers. ;D
We are merely moving shadows.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Highnumbers » Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:13 am

What is that... 4.5 times it's actual street value (even today)?

Absolutely mental. They're either fishing or totally out of their mind.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by graceless » Fri May 14, 2021 2:07 pm

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Some nice refin price discrepancy. All are refins except the sunburst.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Wucan » Fri May 14, 2021 4:08 pm

CivoLee wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:32 pm
graceless wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:52 am
Guitar stores and manufacturers have had their best year EVER
Hopefully it's not all just boomers trying to relive their youths and we'll have a resurgence in guitar music over the next few years...
I'm pessimistic. Wartime government spending has driven people to buy just about any kind of asset, while pandemic logistics have created temporary scarcity. Once the bill for COVID measures is due and supply chain flows normalize you'll probably see an unprecedented level of selling off.

Vintage guitars will still stay expensive though due to inflation and the obvious fact they'll be always scarce. Even if people stop playing guitar the iconic stuff will be collective for generations to come.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Fri May 14, 2021 6:47 pm

People aren’t buying vintage guitars to ‘invest’ this boom, they are buying them because they have extra time and extra cash on hand from stimulus/no vacations/no eating out, etc.

Huge difference, the price increases are very supply/demand based this time and even though there will probably be a slight correction it won’t last long and won’t be significant.

What you will see, IMO, is lots of used new guitars on the market in the $1500-$5000 range as the people who decided to take up guitar for the first time don’t stick with it and want some cash back for other things.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by smjenkins » Fri May 14, 2021 7:23 pm

bterry wrote:
Fri May 14, 2021 6:47 pm
What you will see, IMO, is lots of used new guitars on the market in the $1500-$5000 range as the people who decided to take up guitar for the first time don’t stick with it and want some cash back for other things.
This makes sense to me. I could see a bunch of AO and AV65 JMs and Jags ending up back on the market for good deals after things get more normal in 6-12 months. I don't think this applies to the FSR or thin skins as these special editions tend to be, well, special to people and even at slightly inflated prices are still way cheaper than a CS guitar. That's my $.02.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by kaptainkaffeine » Wed May 19, 2021 12:18 pm

bterry wrote:
Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:21 pm

There’s a weird psychological aspect to it, plus a not-too-insignificant taking advantage of people aspect as well, IMO.

There are a lot of newcomers to the vintage Jazzmaster and Jaguar market and many of them don’t know what to pay, honestly. Add to that the big desire for custom color Jazzmasters that are incredibly hard to come by + increasing values and a few sellers who have noticed that and you get the occasional WTF.
I appreciate this thread and especially this post very much. I just started really seriously looking into my first offset this month and the prices seemed insane to me. Glad I'm not the only one. It's nice to see all the weird gouging, dubiously expensive refinishes, etc that I thought I was seeing confirmed here. With all my local stores still closed, my only recourse has been a deep dive into all the extremely online pedantic nerdery that kind of takes the fun out of looking, heh.

Turns out I've got a lot to learn if I don't want to get got. Even if I'm not looking strictly for a true vintage guitar, there are so many small things (even on the hundred thousand "new" models) that can change a price dramatically--or at least the value, whether or not that's reflected in the price. Gonna keep up the search and hope I luck into what feels like a good enough deal...I'm not a collector, I just want to make offset noises.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by graceless » Wed May 19, 2021 4:00 pm

You've just got to be really patient. I would be very wary of buying anything sight unseen online. It's sooo easy to get taken to hosetown. See if you can play one or a few in person before making a decision. The market is euphoric right now

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Mechanical Birds » Wed May 19, 2021 11:06 pm

Wucan wrote:
Fri May 14, 2021 4:08 pm
CivoLee wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:32 pm
graceless wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:52 am
Guitar stores and manufacturers have had their best year EVER
Hopefully it's not all just boomers trying to relive their youths and we'll have a resurgence in guitar music over the next few years...
I'm pessimistic. Wartime government spending has driven people to buy just about any kind of asset, while pandemic logistics have created temporary scarcity. Once the bill for COVID measures is due and supply chain flows normalize you'll probably see an unprecedented level of selling off.

Vintage guitars will still stay expensive though due to inflation and the obvious fact they'll be always scarce. Even if people stop playing guitar the iconic stuff will be collective for generations to come.
I’ve posted about this before, but yeah, for all the economic stuff we see about how as older collectors die off the market will flood and drive prices way down, when I think about that it doesn’t make a lot of sense? Like, guitar manufacturers sell guitars right now for like $7,000-10,000 all over the place, often replicas of the old ones. If a new ‘replica’ of a vintage Strat costs $8,000, there’s zero chance you’re going to see an older, real one, for any less than what Fender charges for a replica.

So yeah, ok, what is now a $30,000 Stratocaster might one day be only $15,000, but that still makes it entirely out of reach for an overwhelming majority of guitarists.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by kaptainkaffeine » Thu May 20, 2021 9:05 am

graceless wrote:
Wed May 19, 2021 4:00 pm
You've just got to be really patient. I would be very wary of buying anything sight unseen online. It's sooo easy to get taken to hosetown. See if you can play one or a few in person before making a decision. The market is euphoric right now
Getting hosed is my real fear--I'm after something to keep and to play, not a collector's item. But if I'm honest with myself, I do want a nice one. American or Japanese, maybe some upgrades before or after I get it. That alone seems to push the price up to nearly $2000 at this point. :derp: I started looking on ebay too and realized I don't know enough to separate the real ones from the scams and fakes. And why are like 90% of ebay Jazzmasters sold from Japan? One guy had over 3000 items for sale and like 25 feedback. c'mon now.

Going into a shop and walking out with a guitar seems like the best way to go, especially now that things are kind of starting to open back up. Those crazy prices are reflected in stores too, though. CME is just down the way from me so I'll pop in there sometime and see if I fall in love with something. I got the "it has to be perfect on paper" brain worms from the internet though...ditching that is probably step one.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Wucan » Thu May 20, 2021 10:48 am

Mechanical Birds wrote:
Wed May 19, 2021 11:06 pm
Wucan wrote:
Fri May 14, 2021 4:08 pm
CivoLee wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:32 pm

Hopefully it's not all just boomers trying to relive their youths and we'll have a resurgence in guitar music over the next few years...
I'm pessimistic. Wartime government spending has driven people to buy just about any kind of asset, while pandemic logistics have created temporary scarcity. Once the bill for COVID measures is due and supply chain flows normalize you'll probably see an unprecedented level of selling off.

Vintage guitars will still stay expensive though due to inflation and the obvious fact they'll be always scarce. Even if people stop playing guitar the iconic stuff will be collective for generations to come.
I’ve posted about this before, but yeah, for all the economic stuff we see about how as older collectors die off the market will flood and drive prices way down, when I think about that it doesn’t make a lot of sense? Like, guitar manufacturers sell guitars right now for like $7,000-10,000 all over the place, often replicas of the old ones. If a new ‘replica’ of a vintage Strat costs $8,000, there’s zero chance you’re going to see an older, real one, for any less than what Fender charges for a replica.

So yeah, ok, what is now a $30,000 Stratocaster might one day be only $15,000, but that still makes it entirely out of reach for an overwhelming majority of guitarists.
I don't buy the "wait for boomers to die" argument either, I think that's based off doomers who think interest in guitars will die because they aren't plastered in every Top 40 song nowadays. Once a guitar unanimously becomes "vintage" it only becomes rarer with time. And even if guitar-playing did decline precipitously stuff like vintage Fenders, Gibsons, etc. will still be of interest to collectors - just like how people piss countless dollars in art without knowing anything about it. The point is that owning stuff like a 50's Strat will increasingly be an indicator of social status and prestige.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Highnumbers » Thu May 20, 2021 12:16 pm

kaptainkaffeine wrote:
Thu May 20, 2021 9:05 am

I started looking on ebay too and realized I don't know enough to separate the real ones from the scams and fakes. And why are like 90% of ebay Jazzmasters sold from Japan? One guy had over 3000 items for sale and like 25 feedback. c'mon now.
Because there is an entire army of "resellers" in Japan who take the photos and description of guitars for sale by other Japanese dealers and post them for sale on eBay at inflated prices, hoping to be the middleman without having to actually outlay any cash. You buy the guitar, they turn around and buy it from the other Japanese dealer at a lower price and ship it to you.

So then you end up with the same guitar listed on eBay by 5+ sellers, and it looks like the market is much bigger than it is.

However, if you see something you like on eBay in Japan, use Google to find the original seller of the guitar and buy it at a much more reasonable price. In fact, I just did that last week with an original '69 Competition Mustang. There are still people on eBay trying to sell that guitar as we speak, and it's no longer available!

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Highnumbers » Thu May 20, 2021 12:23 pm

Wucan wrote:
Thu May 20, 2021 10:48 am
I don't buy the "wait for boomers to die" argument either, I think that's based off doomers who think interest in guitars will die because they aren't plastered in every Top 40 song nowadays. Once a guitar unanimously becomes "vintage" it only becomes rarer with time. And even if guitar-playing did decline precipitously stuff like vintage Fenders, Gibsons, etc. will still be of interest to collectors - just like how people piss countless dollars in art without knowing anything about it. The point is that owning stuff like a 50's Strat will increasingly be an indicator of social status and prestige.
As this thread has basically covered, Boomers don't care for offsets. Or if they do, they'll pick one up and say "nice surf guitar!" which is completely missing the point. The boomer sell-off will impact the market for some things, but not anything directly in OSG's area of focus.

To your second point, on the social status and prestige thing.... it's hard to predict the future but if history tells us anything, keep an eye on Asia. When the Japanese economy boomed in the mid-1980s, buyers flocked to the U.S. and bought containers of guitars, paying top retail prices and driving the market off. That boom ended, and hasn't ever quite recovered, but there are 1.4 billion people in China, and some of them are exceedingly wealthy, and some of them are starting to realize the appeal of guitars (and especially vintage guitars, with any sort of perceived social status ideas). I met a couple when I visited Shanghai and Beijing for work in 2019.

Point being, if this thread is concerned about the prices right now, just know that things could get a whole lot more inflated in the next decade. :whistle:

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Wucan » Thu May 20, 2021 1:01 pm

Highnumbers wrote:
Thu May 20, 2021 12:23 pm
Wucan wrote:
Thu May 20, 2021 10:48 am
I don't buy the "wait for boomers to die" argument either, I think that's based off doomers who think interest in guitars will die because they aren't plastered in every Top 40 song nowadays. Once a guitar unanimously becomes "vintage" it only becomes rarer with time. And even if guitar-playing did decline precipitously stuff like vintage Fenders, Gibsons, etc. will still be of interest to collectors - just like how people piss countless dollars in art without knowing anything about it. The point is that owning stuff like a 50's Strat will increasingly be an indicator of social status and prestige.
As this thread has basically covered, Boomers don't care for offsets. Or if they do, they'll pick one up and say "nice surf guitar!" which is completely missing the point. The boomer sell-off will impact the market for some things, but not anything directly in OSG's area of focus.

To your second point, on the social status and prestige thing.... it's hard to predict the future but if history tells us anything, keep an eye on Asia. When the Japanese economy boomed in the mid-1980s, buyers flocked to the U.S. and bought containers of guitars, paying top retail prices and driving the market off. That boom ended, and hasn't ever quite recovered, but there are 1.4 billion people in China, and some of them are exceedingly wealthy, and some of them are starting to realize the appeal of guitars (and especially vintage guitars, with any sort of perceived social status ideas). I met a couple when I visited Shanghai and Beijing for work in 2019.

Point being, if this thread is concerned about the prices right now, just know that things could get a whole lot more inflated in the next decade. :whistle:
Yep, I wouldn't expect it to be any cheaper to get into the vintage market moving forward. There will always be deals to be had if you look hard enough, but you can't expect them to last because everyone else is scouring the 'net for something.

My suggestion for bargain-hunters would be to either keep it local/low tech so you don't compete with everyone else, or buy stuff that already has several decades on them but aren't quite considered "vintage" yet - 90's guitars seem to fall under that umbrella right now. And there's been a rush on some models - I had bought a 1996 MG-69 for $500 just before the pandemic, it was laying there in Craigslist for a while because it was pretty beaten. Then I sold it mid-last year for $700 locally and I had people tripping over themselves to buy it despite the condition. Now I see online listings and nothing's cheaper than $1000.

I've even seen people slap a bridge humbucker on the Sonic Blue ones, call their MG-69s the "Kurt Cobain Mustang" without any caveat and mark up the price even more. So you could also do a bit of marketing and make up your own vintage guitar!

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