Time For A Game Of: What Is It Really Worth?

[debian]

1962 Sunburst Jazzmaster

It's all original, clean, it's got the slab board, clay dots, and 1962 is a great Jazzmaster year. BUT...it's sunburst, by far the easiest color to find. Maybe a cool looking sunburst, but if you missed out on it, another would come up sooner rather than later. I just don't see spending more than $8k on this, but something tells me this will sell for much more than that, probably $13k or $14k USD.

Anyone else have a price prediction on this? Agree or disagree?

[windmill]

Strats, teles and Gibsons of that era all go for more than that.

Just sayin

☺

[Embenny]

A clean slab board '62 JM from a dealer has not been anywhere near $8k for quite a while now.

[debian]

A clean slab board '62 JM from a dealer has not been anywhere near $8k for quite a while now.

That's all fair enough, but it's not exactly clear what it is actually worth either, because these listings disappear and there's no indication of whether they sold for list or for less. I don't think it's obvious by any stretch that these (not necessarily slab board) are selling for asking price, but if they are, then that's what I wanted to know. Yes, part of my post is wishing they were lower, but it's also wanting to know if the prices are really being met. I can't imagine anyone being willing to pay $16k for that guitar, even with the somewhat rare features, but maybe they are?

[graceless]

$16k is dreamin (and it's been sitting there for a year which proves this)
I'd venture 10 or 11 would have it sold in a week or two.

I remember playing a quite clean '60 JM at Norm's in 2021 with a price tag of $9600.

The market is a LOT softer now.

[debian]

$16k is dreamin (and it's been sitting there for a year which proves this)
I'd venture 10 or 11 would have it sold in a week or two.

I remember playing a quite clean '60 JM at Norm's in 2021 with a price tag of $9600.

The market is a LOT softer now.

I have wondered about this too. I'm sure it depends on the dealer, but is a starting point of 20% off reasonable these days on vintage?

[Embenny]

The market is weird now. Nobody has money, so things aren't selling. But prices are not dropping much, because people seem to be fine with holding on to these guitars until they do sell.

So it's really just a game of chicken. Either the owners of these vintage guitars will eventually cave and lower their prices, or the economy will pick back up and they won't have to. We are in a holding pattern where it could go either way.

I've seen fewer crazy deals listed locally this spring and summer than I did during the pandemic guitar-buying craze, which is weird given how much of a seller's market that was. We have a "guitar season" because nobody can be arsed to meet up for gear deals when it's -25 outside, so usually spring brings an explosion of local ads.

This year has been super slow, not just in terms of things selling, but in terms of how many guitars are being offered. I used to see at least one really appealing guitar a day come up for sale here the last few summers, but right now it's more like one per week or less. And when I list things, I get almost no trade offers, vs getting like 5-6 garbage offers a day from 2020-2022.

So it went from being a seller's market to being neither a buyer's nor seller's market. It's just a dead market all around.

[PapaB]

What is worth? Here's a popular answer, and probably not too far off actuality: 60% of average asking prices on reverb and various other sites. The bigger the sample size, the better .... Average old prices too (within reason), just don't adjust for inflation.

That's what the big guitar chain store will give you for it if you decide to sell it to them.

(Now, if you were born in '62, or used to own a '62 and reminisce about it, or a favorite artist owned this model, or this year has some innovative feature that makes it slightly more valuable than others, pickups or the like ..., then it's more valuable to you, "the" prospectors buyer. Or if you want it today, can't really go to the store and pick these up very easily.)

[Highnumbers]

A clean slab board '62 JM from a dealer has not been anywhere near $8k for quite a while now.

Yeah, anybody thinking $8K is dreaming and must have slept through the entire pandemic.

Even early veneer board sunburst JMs are in the $12-15K range depending on condition. There's enough of these guitars around in sunburst that pricing them out isn't too difficult.

A slab board '62 sunburst JM in good shape is pretty squarely a $12,500 guitar +/- 10% depending on who is selling it (i.e.. a random private party seller on Reverb cannot achieve the same kind of prices a reputable known dealer can).

[graceless]

As a reference point for recent sales, in April I paid $6100 on reverb for a refin '63 with original pickups, one new pot, and a '61 case. Does an original finish for a one year earlier model warrant a $10k increase? Not in my view Somewhere around 10-12k is more realistic. I waited a couple years for the right model at the right price to pop up and have become quite the little vintage Fender offset price nerd in the process.

[Highnumbers]

$16k is dreamin (and it's been sitting there for a year which proves this)
I'd venture 10 or 11 would have it sold in a week or two.

I remember playing a quite clean '60 JM at Norm's in 2021 with a price tag of $9600.

The market is a LOT softer now.

I have wondered about this too. I'm sure it depends on the dealer, but is a starting point of 20% off reasonable these days on vintage?

When inventory was low during the pandemic, many dealers started buying guitars with margins as slim as 10-30% and if they're still sitting on any of that stock, there's no way they'll consider discounting their entire profit margin.

There are certainly many dealers and individual sellers who aim sky-high with the pricing though, so you really just need to know if the asking price on a guitar is already within range for that model/year/condition before assuming a large discount like 20% could be negotiated off the top as a starting point.

[debian]

A clean slab board '62 JM from a dealer has not been anywhere near $8k for quite a while now.

Yeah, anybody thinking $8K is dreaming and must have slept through the entire pandemic.

Even early veneer board sunburst JMs are in the $12-15K range depending on condition. There's enough of these guitars around in sunburst that pricing them out isn't too difficult.

A slab board '62 sunburst JM in good shape is pretty squarely a $12,500 guitar +/- 10% depending on who is selling it (i.e.. a random private party seller on Reverb cannot achieve the same kind of prices a reputable known dealer can).

Yeah, so I'm here and can read this. Are you awake? Not really cool to slag on me, especially when the point of this post is me admitting I don't know what they sell for, in case you missed that part.

Also, veneer does see asking prices in the $12k - $15k range, but these sit all day, every day...for years in some cases. So yes, that does make it difficult to determine pricing.

[Embenny]

As a reference point for recent sales, in April I paid $6100 on reverb for a refin '63 with original pickups, one new pot, and a '61 case. Does an original finish for a one year earlier model warrant a $10k increase? Not in my view Somewhere around 10-12k is more realistic. I waited a couple years for the right model at the right price to pop up and have become quite the little vintage Fender offset price nerd in the process.

Was it from a dealer though? You can still find good deals, they're just always from private sellers (usually local ones who aren't listing on Reverb).

Also, the traditional wisdom regarding pre-CBS Fenders was always that refins lose 30-50% of their value vs clean original finishes.

So if your $6100 guitar was from a private seller, that would probably be a $7000 guitar from a dealer, which would be an $11-$14k guitar from a dealer in all-original condition depending on how clean the finish is.

I'm not saying it's "worth it" as a buyer or as a guitar player, but that's "what it's worth" in terms of market realities. All-original pre-CBS Fenders have long since crossed into the collector market, which values things differently from the player market. Originality and condition vs price work on an exponential scale in the collector world vs more of a linear scale for players. An original pre-CBS guitar in 9/10 condition is worth a lot more to a collector than an 8/10, a 9.5/10 is worth a lot more than a 9/10, and a 9.9/10 is worth an absolute fortune compared to even a 9.5/10.

That's why us players so frequently pick up refins. I own 4 currently (2 jags, 2 Mustangs). They often look as nice (or nicer) than clean original examples, and feel/sound just as good, but they're a fraction of the rarity and a fraction of the price.

Jazzmasters escaped the eye of collectors for decades compared to Strats and Telecasters, but those days are long gone at this point, so the exponential price scale at the top end of originality and condition is now in effect.

[debian]

What is worth? Here's a popular answer, and probably not too far off actuality: 60% of average asking prices on reverb and various other sites. The bigger the sample size, the better .... Average old prices too (within reason), just don't adjust for inflation.

That's what the big guitar chain store will give you for it if you decide to sell it to them.

(Now, if you were born in '62, or used to own a '62 and reminisce about it, or a favorite artist owned this model, or this year has some innovative feature that makes it slightly more valuable than others, pickups or the like ..., then it's more valuable to you, "the" prospectors buyer. Or if you want it today, can't really go to the store and pick these up very easily.)

Thanks, that is very useful to know! Some of this is probably well known if you've been actively following vintage guitar stuff for years, but not so obvious if you haven't (like me). I appreciate you providing more context.

[Highnumbers]

A clean slab board '62 JM from a dealer has not been anywhere near $8k for quite a while now.

Yeah, anybody thinking $8K is dreaming and must have slept through the entire pandemic.

Even early veneer board sunburst JMs are in the $12-15K range depending on condition. There's enough of these guitars around in sunburst that pricing them out isn't too difficult.

A slab board '62 sunburst JM in good shape is pretty squarely a $12,500 guitar +/- 10% depending on who is selling it (i.e.. a random private party seller on Reverb cannot achieve the same kind of prices a reputable known dealer can).

Yeah, so I'm here and can read this. Are you awake? Not really cool to slag on me, especially when the point of this post is me admitting I don't know what they sell for, in case you missed that part.

Also, veneer does see asking prices in the $12k - $15k range, but these sit all day, every day...for years in some cases. So yes, that does make it difficult to determine pricing.

Chill out.

You're the one who started a thread called "What is it really worth?" and then answered your own question in the first post, followed by your own prediction of its market value. It seems like this entire thread was designed to argue with people.

If you truly don't know much about the vintage guitar market, and current values, then ask the question and sit down.