Keep your old guitars !

[Tony Burns]

Anyone coming to the same conclusion that i have about older guitars using better materials , and higher graded tops . Its almost like their using lesser grade materials and representing their guitars as good as the models they made years ago . I recently visited a Guild dealer and played a new D-55 , sound was OK - not great -- wouldnt consider its top to be a good grade, decent , but not great - where as my 71 D-55 has a mastergrade top and i consider the back and sides to be of a higher grade than Ive seen lately, a few other Guild players have also expressed this opinion . Gibson is in about the same boat , their tops on their instruments where of a higher grade - i played a J-200 a month ago and the uneven wide growth rings on the top were pitiful . Are they trying to keep their prices in check by buying less exspensive woods ( the good stuff is probably going threw the roof ) Ive heard things back and forth about Martin not grading their tops any more , and that they just express it as good grade ( what ever that means ) I believe their getting better at building guitars as well as its sound ( in some cases )- but their cutting corners where ever they can in quality -Quite possible that their turning guitars out faster than they can find the best materials to make them-( or their just greedy or cheap ?)

 

your thoughts on this subject ?

[guitarcapo]

The wood used to make a Gibson J-200 isn't really that rare. (maple and spruce)

You can probably buy a master grade spruce top on Ebay for 100 dollars. The average stuff sells for maybe 25 bucks. If you buy in volume the prices drop further. My guess is you might be seeing the major manufacturers being really cheap on materials beause there are so many headstock worshippers out there that they an afford to be that way. Most people know that if you want quality wood nowdays you need to go with a hand builder or smaller shop like Breedlove or Santa Cruz. The big factories just don't care about details like the wood. They don't have to.

[flip333]

Uh oh.. most people know... I better get with the program:lol:

[Etienne Rambert]

Tony Burns:

I recently visited a Guild dealer and played a new D-55 , sound was OK - not great -- wouldnt consider its top to be a good grade, decent , but not great - where as my 71 D-55 has a mastergrade top and i consider the back and sides to be of a higher grade than Ive seen lately, a few other Guild players have also expressed this opinion . Gibson is in about the same boat , their tops on their instruments where of a higher grade - i played a J-200 a month ago and the uneven wide growth rings on the top were pitiful .

 

 

I remember your thread on a similar subject a few months ago. My opinion on Tacoma Guilds is still not formed. I hear mostly good & but a few troubling things like sloppy finishing work.

 

But I trust your opinion quite a lot. I've read the Guild F-50R is a J-200 killer. Have you played a Tacoma F-50R?

[Freeman Keller]

Tony, yes and no (how about that?). In my humble, we are in another great era of guitar making and values - most manufacturer are producing consistantly high quality guitar with the materials that are available (but getting scarcer all the time). I think one of the paradoxes is that the 70 were considered kind of a low point in Martin and Gibson construction (don't know about Guilds) yet there was still some pretty good material available. The last of the Braz was about 1969 (when I bought my first guitar - should have been a D-28 instead of the Yamie). But as you know many guitars from that period are considered over built and maybe not as good as the ones being produced today.

When you stop and think that both Martin and Taylor are producing about 70000 guitars a year it is no wonder that you are seeing more runout in tops and alternates to the traditional woods for backs, necks and fretboards. Taylors multiple piece necks as well as Martins wings are both attempts to get more guitars out of a given board foot of wood - and a lot of this is only due to more modern fabrication methods (cnc mills, for one thing).

But older guitars often had more hand work and of course have had 30 or so years to open up (and develop problems). My 74 D-18 is a good example of all of this - a wonderful old guitar that has developed a sound (and a great golden color to the top), but still has a lot of the issues of a 70's guitar - neck angle, pickguard cracks, worn frets, heavy braces, and a few dings. Is it as good as a 2007 D-18GE? yes and no.

For a perspective - here is a 2006 Taylor and a 1969 Yamaha. The Taylor lists for $1500 or so, the Yamie $100 when new. The Taylor is sitka over sapelle (notice the runout), the Yamie is laminated some kind of spruce over laminated some kind of mahogany. Which is the better guitar? Again, yes and no.