The Gibson ES-335

I don’t generally re-run a post (except for the Christmas poem) but when I tried to write a new Mothers Day post, I couldn’t do much better than the one I wrote 8 years ago. Here is a post about my Mom.

Did your Mom yell at you to turn that thing down? Did she tell you that there was no future in being a guitar player? That maybe you should be a doctor or a lawyer or maybe a nice accountant? Mine did not and that’s just the beginning.

My mother had nine children (all boys in case you think it was going to be easy). She’s been gone since 2011 but I think of her much more often than one day a year in May.  She always encouraged her sons to play a musical instrument. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was mandatory. We had a spinet piano in the living room which she played often and competently. She could sight read like you read the newspaper but she would never be mistaken for a musician. Still, there were show tunes coming from the living room. Each of my brothers played at least one instrument. None of us were good enough to make a living at it but most of us stuck with it. I took violin starting in the 4th grade. I wasn’t very good. My parents added an organ to the living room when I was around ten (not a chord organ either-a real dual manual, no fooling’ around full pedal board pro Allen) and I took lessons on that too. I wasn’t very good. My oldest brother, Ben-who also played violin, took to it and then there was Bach coming from the living room.

The Beatles showed up in 64 and I bugged my father endlessly to get me a guitar and he came home one day with a flattop Kay that cost $15. I started guitar lessons and quit the organ. I still had to play the violin in the school orchestra (I switched to upright bass that same year). Mom made sure I practiced like she did with every other brother and every other instrument. The big surprise was that I was pretty good at it. They agreed to get me an electric guitar (Fender DuoSonic and Princeton amp in 1964) and my younger brother, Brian, who already played the oboe, albeit not that well, took over the Kay. He would take over the DuoSonic when I got the Fender Jaguar in 65. I would often practice in the living room with the amp turned up to somewhere around 11. And then there were Beatles songs coming from the living room. My Dad would come home from work and yell at me to turn it down but Mom never did.

When she was in her 50’s, Mom decided it was time to learn another instrument. She asked me to help her find a cheap and playable guitar and we ended up with a German Framus flattop that had good action and she taught herself to play. I helped her with chord charts but she wouldn’t have it. She had to read music – not some chart. That was cheating. Just the notes please. She never got that far but she was never one to shrink from the task at hand. Mom had no fear. She learned to windsurf in her 60’s, built a path down to the lake behind our house, wallpapered the bathrooms, made a quilt out of my Dad’s old neckties and about a zillion other “projects”. She never excelled at any of them but showed a level of determination and ingenuity that has influenced me throughout my life. If someone says that something is so simple “…even your Mom could do it…”, they didn’t know my Mom.

So thanks Mom. Thanks for the encouragement, your example and your unwavering support. And thanks to my wife, too, for carrying on the tradition of superb mothering. Our son is a pretty good guitar player and can play the piano better than my Mom thanks to the support of his Mom. In our house, there was Chopin and Gershwin and Lennon and McCartney coming from the living room.

So, if you read the first installment of Fedex Follies, you know that Fedex somehow misplaced a 50″ box. Or maybe there was an airline strike that only affected large boxes or USA bound shipments or some other not too credible excuse. It was missing and unscanned for just about a month. It arrived a month and a day after it was shipped so all’s well that ends well, right? Not quite.

It is never easy to get a refund of any kind from Fedex. And, to be fair, it is hard to get a refund from any service company. Fedex does have a guarantee but they don’t make it easy to use it. If you call and say my package was late, they will immediately start making excuses-weather being the most common. Then, they will tell you that no refunds are processed until the invoice has been sent. Then, if it’s more than 14 days after the invoice has been sent, they will disallow the claim. Dem’s da rules according to Fedex’s “Terms and Conditions”. We’ll get to those terms later.

The guitar, a 60 ES-355 finally arrived on April 22nd which was a Friday. I went through the guitar over the weekend and put in for the refund online on Monday April 25th. My claim was denied because Fedex says the invoice was more than 14 days old. Wait a second. I just got the guitar on Friday, so how can the invoice be 14 days old. Well, as it happens, they processed the invoice on April 12th a full ten days before the guitar was delivered. I get and pay the invoices online so it wasn’t sitting in a pile of invoices on my desk. I was not happy. I called Fedex.

Them: “We’re sorry about the delay but we can’t issue a refund if the invoice is more than 14 days old”. Me: “But the package was just delivered a few days ago. How can the invoice predate the package by ten days?” Them: “We can’t issue a refund if the invoice is more than 14 days old”. Me: “Connect me with your supervisor”. Then they cut me off. I called back and asked for what they call the “customer advocate” who is supposed to be on your side. She started the same script and I stopped her. Me: “Would you look carefully at the dates?” Them: “Oh. I see the package was delivered on the 22nd”. End of conversation. They approved the refund. It took about a dozen phone calls to try to find the guitar and to get my refund. Time on hold was probably at least 90 minutes. I should send them a bill.

Terms and Conditions. Who reads the terms and conditions? Every time you buy something online a box pops up and you immediately scroll to the bottom and check the box that says “agree”. Nobody actually reads the text. But in the case of Fedex and vintage guitars, it’s going to cost you. When you enter the value of the guitar into the shipping form, you expect that you are buying insurance for that value. $25,000 guitar coming from EU? They’ll charge you $306 for “insurance”. But the terms and conditions state clearly that the limit for guitars more than 20 years old is $2000. If you pay the $306 and the guitar arrives safely, you think nothing of it. You paid for insurance and you didn’t need it. Always the best outcome. But what if they lose the guitar or break it? Fedex has a decent track record with guitars that I’ve shipped. They have lost one and broken four in twenty years. At the time of the first broken guitar, I hadn’t read the terms and conditions. When I put in the claim for half the value of a broken 64 SG, they told me they would cover up to $2000 but only the repair-not the diminished value. Them: Read the terms and conditions. So, they will take your money for so called insurance with no limit. But try to collect and the limit is $2000 no matter how much “insurance” you bought. I have asked Fedex to add a pop up box telling you about the limit if you enter more than $2000. They haven’t done so. Don’t give them your money for nothing.

The Fugitive. MIA 1960 ES-355 mono. These are not cheap and you really don’t want to lose one. It eventually arrived after a month on the road.

On March 20th or so, I bought a 1960 ES-355 from a seller in Europe. Nothing unusual about that. I paid for the shipping and Fedex was the shipper. The guitar was properly boxed, the paperwork completed (including the form that is supposed to notify customs that it is a USA made product returning to the USA so that no duty is collected) and off it went. The guitar was scanned in Sweden on March 22nd. next stop was Denmark, the same day. At 3 AM on the 23rd it was in Paris. Then it disappeared. Now, I’d love to spend a month in Paris but the idea of my guitar spending a month there (without me) isn’t what I had in mind. No scans as of March 27th. It should have at least left Paris by now, right? It was shipped International Priority. Online tracking said “operational delay” whatever that means. I hit the phones.

Them: “Fedex, please describe the reason for your call.” Me: Missing package.” Them: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that.” Me: Missing package. Them: “You want to ship a package.” Me: REPRESENTATIVE. Them: “Please say or enter the door tag number.” Finally I get to the international folks and the rep tells me that there is an airline strike and no planes are leaving Paris. I go online to check flight schedules out of Paris (you can see the Fedex flight schedule online). Plenty of flights. I call again. After the usual ordeal of talking to a recorded voice, I’m back at international. This time I ask for a supervisor. The guitar is now 12 days on the road. Them: “The guitar is in Paris” Me: Why hasn’t it been scanned in the last 10 days? Them: “It’s in a container.” Me: How do I know it didn’t walk out the door with one of your employees?” Them: No, it’s definitely there.” Me: “I expect a phone call every day until the package leaves Paris.” Them: We’ll be happy to do that. They don’t.

I get in touch with the shipper to get him up to speed and ask him to talk to Fedex as well. He gets a similar story. It’s now more than two weeks. No scans, no calls, no guitar. I’m back on the phone. Me: “Where’s my package?” Them: “We’re not sure. I think it might be lost. Maybe the label fell off.” Me: “oh crap”. I should mention that this happened once before. That time it was a 345 coming from Greece and the guitar was lost for about 3 weeks. It did finally arrive though. I wasn’t so sure about this one.

You should know that Fedex will take your money if you write in the actual value of the guitar supposedly “insuring” it for that amount. BUT, in their terms and conditions, they state that the limit on vintage (more than 20 years old) in $2000. So, they’ll take a huge pile of money from you if you don’t know that and then, when they lose (or break) your guitar, they will tell you to “read the terms and conditions”. I’ve been trying to get this changed for at least 8 years now. The declared value on this guitar was, if I recall, $2000, the limit for vintage. That’s all I could possibly get from them even though it was worth more than ten times that. I have an outside policy so it was fully insured but nobody likes to make a claim because the rates go up.

After another 3 or 4 phone conversations, the guitar turned up. The guitar was finally scanned again on April 20th, nearly a month after it was shipped. It appeared to be on the move, finally. Customs had it for a day in Indianapolis and it was delivered, intact, on April 22nd. It doesn’t end here though. You didn’t think I was going to pay the $500+ bill they sent, did you? Tune in for Part two soon.

It always happens this way. The market heats up and everybody thinks their guitar is worth way more than it is. Asking prices have skyrocketed due to a number of factors. Demand is up since the pandemic began because pandemics are boring and vintage guitars are not. Supply suffered for nearly a year because everybody was buying and nobody was selling. Inflation creeps in and the prices surge again. The stock market sags and folks are moving their money into collectibles and other hard assets. With all these factors converging, it’s no wonder the market is so strong. Add to that, the conventional wisdom that vintage guitars have been undervalued since the crash of ’08 and you have a nearly perfect storm for prices to rise.

Up front, I will stick my neck out and say it isn’t a bubble. Or at least not only a bubble. The factor that makes it look like a bubble is sellers testing the market. I could put an average 59 ES-335 out there for $75,000 like a couple of dealers have and wait for someone who “has to have one today” or I can price that guitar at $65,000 and know that it will sell at a fair price. Individual sellers are doing the same thing. So, you put that 60 ES-345 out there at $44,000 and then wait for some billionaire with more money than brains to come along? Problem is that most billionaires (and millionaires) didn’t get to be billionaires by overpaying for stuff. But, it’s your guitar and you can ask anything you want. I test the market too but when something that should be popular doesn’t sell in a few weeks, I know that something is amiss and it’s usually the price. I’ve said this before…the only reason something doesn’t sell is because the price is too high.

So, as a buyer, you need to get comfortable with negotiating. It doesn’t make you a cheapskate. It isn’t insulting. And if you won’t negotiate, then you could be missing a great deal. Most folks are happy to adjust their price to make a sale. Just be smart about it. If there’s a guitar out there listed at $30,000 that you really like but you feel it’s overpriced what are you going to do? You can wait out the seller and hope he comes to his senses or you can make an offer. The worst the seller can say is no. Actually he can call you names and insult your mother but the sentiment is still “no”. It’s pretty easy to get a handle on the market. Look at similar guitars, look at selling prices and not asking prices (Ebay let’s you see that). Reverb is kind of useless for that because they give you a list of selling prices but not much more information than a general condition. When you have decided on what you think is a fair value, start your negotiating within striking distance of your intended price. Don’t start at 50% of the ask. Lowballing is the fastest way to rejection. Nobody likes that type of negotiation. The seller probably has a bottom in mind but if you ask “what’s your bottom price?” the likely response is that it’s the listed price. That isn’t negotiating.

Charlie’s Rules of Negotiation: 1. If the asking price seems fair, negotiating probably won’t get you anywhere. 2. If the price is high, start 10%-20% below your hoped for final price. 3. No lowballing. A lowball is 50% of the asking price or less. Nobody likes it and it will generally shut down negotiations before they begin. 4. Don’t list everything that’s wrong with the guitar in order to justify your offer. You don’t have to justify your offer. If the seller doesn’t include the issues in the listing, you might want to look elsewhere. If he does include them, then telling him what he already knows is simply annoying. 5. Be nice. 6. Be prepared to walk away. You can’t negotiate if you’ve already fallen in love. This is hard but there will almost always be another. 7. If these rules don’t work, then feel free to break them. Again, the worst that can happen is the seller says no.

I negotiate nearly every deal I complete as a buyer. I will pay the ask if it’s fair. I won’t overpay for a guitar no matter how much I want it. As a seller, I’m always willing to listen to an offer. I try to price my guitars fairly but that doesn’t stop me from listening to a fair offer. Lowball me and I won’t counter, I’ll simply reject the offer. I won’t say nasty things about your mother. If you know nothing about guitars and you’re selling a family heirloom, I’ll encourage you to do your research to come up with a fair asking price or, more often, I will simply make you an offer. Looking at Reverb and pricing it like the highest price guitar that looks something like Grandpa’s old Gibson is a recipe for failure. Buying and selling is fun. The best way to keep it that way is to treat folks fairly and make a deal where everyone is happy. There’s no negotiating that point.

This 59 is, in my opinion, the best sounding ES-335 I’ve owned. It is a thin top mid 59 with a 58 FON and serial number A30248. It has a big neck and a pair of double white PAFs. The weight is in the high 7’s and I don’t know why it sounds as good as it does. I’m sure it’s a combination of factors.

“I pulled into Nazareth, I was feelin’ ’bout half past dead…”

How else could I possibly start a post called “The Weight”, right? Was I pulling into Nazareth, PA to pay a visit to the Martin guitar factory? Or was it the other Nazareth about 5700 miles away. I’ve been to one but not the other (and not the one you think). That said, we’re going to look into the weight of these guitars I write about and whether it has any bearing on tone or value.

The Les Paul folks are obsessed with the weight of their guitars. And I guess that makes some sense given the huge range of weights that Les Pauls come in. If it weighs 8 pounds fifteen and a half ounces, it’s OK. Over 9 pounds and a good percentage of the buyers look elsewhere. Folks that play 335’s are a little less weight obsessed but it is still often a factor in the purchase of a vintage ES guitar.

There are really just two factors that are affected by the weight of the guitar in question. The big one is comfort. The smaller one is, arguably, tone. The weight range of a 335 is from around 7 lbs to around 8 lbs 12 ounces. The range of a 345 or 355 can be as low as 7 and a half pounds to as high as 10 lbs. Much of that is the Varitone circuit. The choke alone weighs around 10 ounces and the entire stereo VT unit adds about a pound (including the choke). Add in a Bigsby at 12 ounces or so and getting up to 10 lbs is pretty easy. Most modern players remove the stereo VT circuit so even the heaviest 355 stereo can get down below 9 pounds. That seems to be most players comfort cut off (especially older players like me). Obviously all that extra weight from circuitry doesn’t have anything to do with tone beyond what the Varitone itself actually does. But what about the wood? That’s where most of the weight lives.

The typical early 335 weighs in at 7 lbs 10 ounces or so. The lightest I’ve ever had was 7 lbs 2 ounces. It was a 62. Interestingly, a 58 and some 59’s have thinner depth bodies than later ones-by as much as a quarter inch. I don’t know how much a quarter inch of maple guitar rim weighs but it can’t be more than a couple of ounces. A 58 or 59 has a substantially larger neck than a 60-63 so that’s probably something of an equalizer between early and late 335’s. The difference is only a few hundredths of an inch but that much mahogany can add a few ounces as well. The thin top of the 58’s and some 59s is also a factor-one less layer in the plywood. Another factor is the center block. All 345’s, nearly all 355’s (including most monos) have the center block cut out to accommodate the choke. 335’s have the same cutout starting in a few guitars as early as 61 but it wasn’t standard procedure until 1965. It was done on 335’s to make it easier to install and remove the harness. It had to go through the f-holes until they decided to add the cut. The cut in the maple block can knock off a couple of ounces as well but, more important to tone, it adds some air and often a noticeable bit of additional resonance. That’s another post though.

It is impossible to quantify the tonal differences between a light guitar and a heavy guitar. Differences in the weight of maple plywood, rosewood and mahogany are largely due to moisture content and density. After 60 years the moisture has to be pretty much gone but density is another matter. I’m no expert in wood and its acoustic properties but damned if I can find a consistent difference between a 7 pound 335 and an 8 and a half pound 335. If I look at my favorite 335’s, the weight of them varies considerably. Most are 58’s and 59’s so maybe the heavier big necks makes a real difference. Or maybe its the long magnet PAFs. Or maybe its the thinner top. I could, I suppose, take a heavy 335 and a light one and swap the pickups and all the parts and see how much of the tone is in the wood but that would only tell me the difference between those two guitars. I don’t think it’s that simple. If it was, then we could say that, in general a heavy guitar sounds better (and what’s “better”) than a light one or vice versa. But there are simply too many factors involved in tone to try to isolate just one of them and say it’s the game changer. And besides, it’s way too much work.

My conclusion? To me, weight is a factor. But not a tonal factor. It’s strictly comfort. While I don’t play gigs any more, I still would rather stand for two or three hours with 7 lbs on my shoulder than 8. Or 9. Or 10. But when I buy a 335, 345 or 355, I don’t even ask the seller the weight. I expect the 345’s and 355’s to be in the upper 8’s and into the 9’s (mostly 355’s with Bigsbys) and I expect the 335’s to be in the 7’s. I’ll buy a 335 with great tone over a light weight one every time. Tone simply carries more weight. But it doesn’t weigh more.

The heaviest of the heavyweight ES guitars would be a stereo ES-355. The stereo/VT circuit weighs close to a pound, the Bigsby adds another 10 ounces and the Grovers and big headstock add a few more ounces. They can get to ten pounds pretty easily but most are in the low 9’s.

In my last post, I tackled the slippery subject of rarity. The next subject is a little less slippery and applies to every guitar (and amp) model ever made. Condition is always a factor in the value and pricing of anything. Even a used Ford Pinto in mint condition is worth a lot more than a driver. Always has been, always will be. The guys who collect action figures are fanatics about this with original packaging required for mint status. Fortunately, with guitars, mint doesn’t require the original box but it’s still a pretty rigid classification. And it counts.

I’ve written about the “curse of the mint guitar” and it applies. If you buy a mint guitar, you are going to want to keep it that way, so no gigs unless you have complete control over the situation. Wear out those frets and your mint status goes away. Bend a tuner? Same. Smack the headstock into a cymbal, yep. No more mint. Because it’s so difficult to keep anything decades old that gets handled, even with careful use, in mint condition, these guitars command a serious premium. I’d like to be able to say it’s 20% or 30% or some fixed percentage but it doesn’t work that way. It depends, as you might expect, on desirability and, to a lesser extent, rarity. Finding a mint 59 Silvertone is probably just as hard as finding a mint 59 335 but the premium is going to be very different. Even the premium for a mint 335 compared to a mint 355 is going to be different. So, let’s stick to 335’s.

I’ve owned over 400 ES-335’s built between 1958 and 1964. And another few hundred 345’s and 355’s. Out of that number there have been perhaps 6 mint 335’s. My definition of mint is this: No wear of any kind. No checking. The finish sinking into the grain of the wood is acceptable but dings and scratches through the finish are not. A small mark here or there that is not through the finish is, to me, generally acceptable as is minor tarnish (but not wear) to the nickel. Even new, unplayed guitars can have a mark here or there. I will mention the term “dead mint”. Dead mint is not a single mark anywhere. I’ve never seen a dead mint 335 from 58 to 64. Close but no. So, if I describe a guitar as mint, it might have a tiny dent somewhere. That’s controversial, I’m sure, but that’s why the term dead mint exists. And nobody who has ever bought a guitar from me that I have described as mint has ever complained.

So, how do we value a mint 335? Well, it varies with the overall market to some extent but I generally add 10-15% over the value of a no issue 9.5 condition (I usually call these 9+). That’s more like 30% over an “average” 59 with a minor issue or two. I hesitate to quote sales figures because it changes so rapidly. A mint 335 is an investment that will always lead the market upwards and generally lag the market going downward. There will always be collectors who want the best possible example of their favorite guitar and will pay that premium no matter which direction the market is headed.

This 1961 Byrdland is super rare. Only about a dozen made but you could probably score one for under $20K. Why so little? Because most collectors don’t really want to spend a lot of money on a Byrdland. Rare doesn’t always translate to dollars.

The great paradox in vintage guitars is about rarity. Bursts aren’t rare (1600 or so built). They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Blonde 335’s are somewhat rare (211 built) but not crazy rare. They cost in excess of $100,000 in this roaring fire of a market. Stratocasters are as common as Lincoln pennies (well, not quite) but certain rare custom colors can cost close to $100,000. But even a Burgundy Mist Strat isn’t as rare as, say, a blonde 1961 Byrdland (12 made) or a 59 blonde Epiphone Sheraton (3 made). And those two guitars won’t even get you $25,000. That’s still a lot of money but the price and the rarity are not forming a neat and orderly line that follow conventional logic. Clearly rare doesn’t really count. Or does it?

Let’s look at two factors instead of just one. Rarity and desirability. How many are there and how many people want one. Ah, the old supply and demand thing. You know all that. Supply and demand applies to vintage guitars for sure. But there’s another factor. It applies to serious collectors and definitely not to players. That factor which goes beyond desirability and rarity is not easily defined. It’s the great desire to have something that will make your friend’s jaw drop. It’s a “where did you find that??” guitar. You could also call it a “I’ve never seen one of those!” guitar. It seems that every big collector with the means has at least one burst, black guard Tele, 54-57 Stratocaster, blonde ES-335, Gold top Les Paul and a lot of other guitars that take a somewhat less exalted place in the man cave. But which one does this collector take out of the case and show you when you walk in to see his wonderful collection? More often than not, it’s the one you’ve never seen. The one you didn’t know existed. The one you can’t find that you’ve always wanted.

These unicorns are often special order guitars and are rare beyond rare. Some are one of a kind. Some, maybe one of a dozen. Great examples? Black ES-345’s (there are five from 59), blonde ES-355’s (I know of 4), black Les Paul Standards (I know of 2). Fender didn’t do special orders like Gibson did. There are some really rare Fender colors but there are more of them than you might expect. A Seafoam Green Strat will impress your friends even if it’s a color they wouldn’t actually want. Sparkle finish Strats and Teles command some serious outlay and will always dazzle when you open the case. No one knows how many there are because nobody kept track.

When’s the last time you saw a sunburst ’59 355 (rare) in mono (rarer) with a stop tail (rarest). I know of only one. Gibson stopped making blonde 335’s in 1960. So, how about a blonde 63 (one of two blonde block neck 335’s known). Or a greenburst 335? There are two green ones I know of but only one greenburst. Then there are guitars that seem common but are crazy rare. A 1958 335 in red? There’s one. 59 335 in red? There are 6. All crazy valuable because they are not only rare but they are rare often one off versions of really desirable guitars. So, what are these guitars worth? That’s a post for another day.

One offs and rarities have been incredibly strong lately. This blonde 68 “long neck” 330 is an affordable rarity that would enhance any collection. Yeah, those black 59 345’s I had would be a nice addition but the six figure price tag isn’t for everybody.

In part one, I laid out what was going on in the vintage market in 2021 and tried my best to interpret it. Hindsight is always 20/20, so it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Looking ahead is not an easy thing to do and I am making a very strong disclaimer that I don’t have a crystal ball and anything I write is sheer speculation. I come at it with logic and experience but, truthfully, I have no idea what will happen next. Being a little less than a hundred years old, I have limited experience with pandemics. Nor with insurrections, climate change and bizarre conspiracy theories. All these things affect the vintage market in some way. I just don’t know how but I will take a crack at it if for no other reason than to entertain.

At the start of the pandemic, I thought the market, which had been steady and strong, was going to tank. Folks were out of work (especially musicians and restaurant workers-often the same people) and the economy was headed for trouble even if the Federal Government was handing out money with reckless abandon to small businesses, large businesses who said they were small businesses and just about everybody else. It must have worked because the market took off like a rocket. So, we still have a pandemic and it seems to be getting worse. The worse it got, the stronger the guitar market got. So, it is logical to expect that the market will continue to rise and folks will buy a lot more guitars in 2022. I don’t know if it will surpass 2021 in sales but I don’t see why it wouldn’t as long as Covid continues to be a big factor in everyone’s lives. The government handouts have slackened for individuals and small businesses but the payout for infrastructure projects is likely to put a lot of money into a lot of local economies. Good for the guitar market.

But what about the other stuff? Bad political behavior is nothing new and doesn’t seem to have a big effect on the market. The midterms aren’t until November so, I don’t expect much impact from that front until late in the year and then only if the republicans take back the congress. Interest rates are bound to rise but they are rising from nearly zero so how much will it hurt? A lot of folks buy guitars on credit but they already pay ridiculously high rates so high interest seems to be baked in already. Don’t ask me how credit card companies can get away with interest rates in excess of 18% when they can borrow money for virtually zero per cent. Climate change is a slow moving freight train that will cause massive problems eventually but much of the American public doesn’t acknowledge that a problem exists until it directly affects them on a daily basis. So, it won’t cause much alarm in the guitar market this year unless a tornado flattens your house and your guitar collection with it (“save yourselves, I’m going back in for the dot neck…”) A weak economy could be trouble but it doesn’t look that weak right now. Unemployment is down. Jobs are fairly plentiful and if it wasn’t for that pesky pandemic, things would calm right down and the guitar market would chug along like it has for the past 13 years.

Supply chain issues and inflation (both due largely to the pandemic) are driving factors, I think. The well heeled collector has a lot of cash and wants it to work for him. That cash had been on the sidelines for a number of years but with inflation ramping up, it’s a losing proposition to leave it as cash. Tangible goods are, they say, the answer. Up goes the collector market as long as inflation continues. The player grade market tends to follow the collector market and, even though the folks buying the player grade instruments don’t have a lot of cash on the sidelines, they are still buying. We all feel pretty bad with the ongoing pandemic and getting a new guitar makes us feel good. For a while, anyway. That’s a huge factor. I don’t know about you but even though I buy close to 100 guitars a year, every one I open feels like Christmas morning or my birthday. Feeling down? Buy a guitar. Feeling bored? Buy a guitar. Feeling good? (although I can’t imagine why) go play your guitar and decide you need another one.

My prediction is that this strong market is going to be here for a long time. I believe the guitar market has been undervalued for decades and this pandemic fueled correction will endure. The rising values will probably slow down and even eventually even stop but the market is, in my opinion, not going to tank. It can’t burst if it isn’t a bubble. Now go back and read the first paragraph.

Amps were lagging badly in 2021 but they are poised to move. Tweeds big and small have already taken a big leap forward as have Marshalls and small blackface Fenders. There are still bargains galore but don’t snooze for too long. In a world where a Dumble can sell for $175,000, anything is possible.

59 ES-335’s were the star over the past year. Tough to find and selling in a day. On January 1, you could buy a collector grade one for around $50,000. By midyear, they were impossible to find and pushing $60K. By the end of 2021, you would be paying $70,000 or more.

It was 2006 and I was a relative beginner in the vintage market as a hobby dealer. I would buy something on Ebay that seemed well priced (usually a 335) and then sell it a few weeks later, always at a profit. The market was rising so quickly that you could buy a 335 for $10,000 on Monday and sell it on Friday for $11,000. Certain guitars hit price points that will still make your head spin. Then 2008 and the Great Recession took all of that away and we all licked our wounds and went back to whatever it was we were doing before all that madness. It was a bubble and all bubbles eventually burst.

Fast forward 12 years. It’s 2020 and the guitar market has been rising slowly and steadily with some dips and some surges but generally, the market rose in a civilized, non frenzied manner. It hasn’t reached the rarefied air of 2007 into 2008 even after all those years. Some guitars reached new heights by 2020 but most were still sitting at levels below their peak. Then the pandemic hit. You can go back and read what I wrote back then. At first, I thought the market would tank. When it didn’t I tried to make sense of the beginnings of a buying surge into the face of Covid 19. Was it new buyers who, with lots of time on their hands, were returning to the guitar dreams of their youth? That was part of it. Was it players who just needed something new to break the monotony and stress and boredom of lockdowns and working from home? Yep, that too. The cheap stuff was selling, the collector stuff was selling and everything in between was selling. The prices didn’t take off right away though. And then they did. I thought, at the time, that it was a bubble and I said so. Wrong again.

It seems, in hindsight, that 2020 was the calm before the storm although you wouldn’t have thought so at the time. Guitars that I had in my inventory for four, five even six years were suddenly selling at their asking prices. Guitars I took in trade like ES 175’s and a Guild Thunderbird and a bunch of Rickenbackers. Good guitars but not good sellers. But they all sold. In fact everything sold except amps which are still lagging a bit. Then it was 2021 and the market just kept on going. Not going crazy but moving briskly up in a more bubble like way. The asking prices started outpacing the selling prices on sites like Reverb. The market was being pushed and tested every day mostly by individual sellers at first but then by the dealers who didn’t want to be left in the dust if this surge was for real. Turns out it was (and is). In February of 2019, a Bigsby 64 ES-335 in 9/10 condition was a $16,000 guitar. By February of 2021, it was a $24,000 guitar with some asking prices breaking $30,000. That’s a 50% rise over two years. Lots of guitars had similar gains.

Part of this was driven by seriously diminished inventory. For example, In early 2021, there simply weren’t any 1959 ES-335’s to be found. For the first time in a decade, I didn’t have one in stock. I had a waiting list of seven buyers. They sold the same day I got them. The price in 2019 was usually around $38,000 for a clean stop tail with minor issues and $45,000 for a collector grade stop. A year later, if you could find one in 2020, a 59 was $50K-$52K. By early 2021, they were at $60K and they were still impossible to find. Then, as vaccinations became available, and people got back out in public and things were looking like they might be getting back to normal, the market slowed. By the Summer, folks were back at the beach and seeing friends and finally feeling like the end was in sight. But it wasn’t. Delta hit and we took two steps back. The guitar market, by September, had heated back up and prices surged in a way that gave us all whiplash. But it wasn’t just the pandemic causing the run up this time. Inflation and supply chain issues had become major concerns. There is a lot of cash out there and, with rising inflation, your bankroll was losing buying power every day. The stock market was looking like the wrong place due to a shaky economy largely due to supply chain issues along with inflation (and of course the pandemic)

The result, in the Fall of 2021, was a steep rise in collector grade guitars. It seemed there was no stopping it. The high end stuff just kept on rising, almost daily it seemed. This trend was given even more steam when the Omicron variant hit. Suddenly, everybody is scared again and many are locking down until better times emerge. Interestingly, a lot of collectors saw the huge rise in prices and started testing the market with some of their high end instruments. This alleviated the shortage of collector grade guitars to an extent but the prices seem to keep going up. By year end, there was one 59 335 on the market at $75,000. A few 58’s at $50K-$60K and a few 60’s in the same ballpark. Good quality 345’s and 355’s have surged 30% in just 18 months with 59’s leading the way up. 18 months ago, a 59 345 would cost you $20K-24K. Today, a 59 345 ranges from a low of $26K to a high of $40K for sunbursts. Where is this market headed? We’ll look into that but don’t expect me to fire up the crystal ball. I’ve been wrong more than I’ve been right this year.

The really rare stuff shot up as well. Anything in black was especially hot. This one of a kind 63 probably set records for a 63 ES-345 and two black 59 345’s changed hands for well into 6 figures. Three red 59 dot necks (out of 7 made) sold in 2020 to serious collectors. If it was rare, it was gone (usually in a day).

If the pandemic ever ends and I reopen, it won’t be in my old caboose. The train car was sold and is being turned into a residence if the town approves it. If they don’t approve then maybe I’ll reopen right where I was for 6 years.

Sadly, my shop is currently closed. Pandemics and guitar shops do not coexist well so until this is over, the doors are closed. I’ll reopen when it makes sense to do so-probably in a different location but maybe not. This is the only post I ever re-run. I could try to write another Christmas poem but I know my limitations. My wife and I wrote this one while on vacation (remember vacations?) in Mexico in 2015 and have run it every year since at Christmas. Read on.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the pad

I was playing my Gibson- not great, but not bad.

I remembered a blues lick and played it with flair

Just like in the days when I had all my hair.

The block necks were hung not too tight or too loose,

As I waited for Santa inside my caboose.

I had them all tuned and I played every one.

The truss rods were perfect, the strings tightly strung.

**********************************************

All of a sudden on the roof of my shop,

I spied an old fat dude just reeking of pot.

He fell off the roof and into the snow.

I asked him right in. Why he came, I don’t know.

There was ice in his beard and mud on his boot,

And I thought only rock stars could wear such a suit.

He took down a red one, just like Eric C.

His fingers flew faster than old Alvin Lee.

***********************************************

It was wailing and screaming all over the town.

I could hear my Dad yelling, “Turn that damn thing down!”

Who knew this weird guy, such a flash with a pick

And a love of guitars, would be old Saint Nick?

I couldn’t believe all the sounds in my ear.

He said, “You get good working one day a year.”

Now Jimi, Now BB, Now John, George and Paul

Would bow to this master, the best of them all.

************************************************

“You remember that Christmas back in ’63?

When you found a new six string left under your tree?

You started to doubt that I was the truth,

But my gift to you then was a link to your youth.

So for all of the years that would come in between,

Way deep down inside, you’d still feel like sixteen.”

He picked up some cases by Lifton and Stone,

Some old Kluson tuners and a worn out Fuzztone.

************************************************

“Now, Charlie Gelber you must hear my pitch,

‘Cause this is my time and payback’s a bitch.

The 335 please, the red 59.

I gave you your first one, now this ax is mine”.

And quick as a flash it was stuffed in his sack,

And he waved a goodbye as he snuck out the back.

He jumped in his sled and sparked up a j,

Flew into the sky and was off on his way.

So if feeling sixteen is what sets you right,

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

By Charlie and Victoria Gelber

With apologies to Clement Clark Moore

This is the actual guitar I was referring to when the post was written. I didn’t own it then but I own it now (for the next few weeks anyway, then it goes to the next owner. It’s a near mint red 59 stop tail.