I'm old enough to remember when no one wanted these (Vintage Fender content)

[headless]

A 1976 Fender Starcaster (their version of the ES-335, sort-of)---$4000:

 

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/msg/1625277700.html

 

Maybe my sister's 10 year-old boy is correct when he says that his Pokemon cards will be worth a lot someday.

[AL30]

HA !! Yeah me too. My buddy had one. He just (within the last year) traded it for a high end Guild acoustic plus a few grand on top of that. Weird huh?

AL

[guitarcapo]

I was born too late in life. I ALWAYS wanted stuff like that. But I was only 12 years old when that guitar was made. By the time I started playing guitar and had enough money after paying my student loans off out of college...the "vintage guitar craze" was already peaking (around the early 90's)

Good vintage guitars were always just out of reach. I remember a 1959 Les Paul for sale at Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island NY in 1991 for sale for $20,000.

I had $10,000 in the bank at the time just out of college. I seriously thought about borrowing money to buy it....Now they cost $350,000 or whatever. But back then, $20,000 might as well have been $350,000.

But I guess on the bright side, NEW gear is really cheap for the quality you get.

[rockstrongo]

It's ridiculous just how high prices are now compared to only 10 years ago.

[Furtive]

I had $10,000 in the bank at the time just out of college. I seriously thought about borrowing money to buy it....Now they cost $350,000 or whatever. But back then, $20,000 might as well have been $350,000. But I guess on the bright side, NEW gear is really cheap for the quality you get.

 

 

It seems to me that a lot of people forget this. My father bought his house in 1970 for about $30K, and now it's worth around $350K. I also remember when I started playing in the late 1980s, there were plenty of used guitars in the $200 range, but most guits under $150 were pretty sketchy or needed work. And $200 had a lot more buying power 20 years ago.

[bluesway]

hehehe. how badly are you kicking yourself about that one?

 

...i'm still pissed that i didn't get in on Google stock when it was freshly opened at around 150 bucks JUST A FEW YEARS AGO because it was too expensive! what an asshole i am.

[bluesway]

. . . . Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island NY . . . .

you mean "mecca," right? ....that store is a dream

[in_rainbows]

Chris Walla from Death Cab gave the helped give the Starcaster a name among the Indie scene. They're actually fairly sought after for mellow Indie Rock nowadays.

[mrbrown49]

I blame the hipsters for this one.

[cbh5150]

It's ridiculous just how high prices are now compared to only 10 years ago.

Yup - not too long ago, one could barely GIVE away a '70s Fender...so bully to those who kept them

[=JL=]

I was born too late in life. I ALWAYS wanted stuff like that. But I was only 12 years old when that guitar was made.

 

 

You, like me, were born at exactly the right time. You could have picked that guitar up for peanuts when you were twenty.

When I was 17 I used to jam with a couple of friends. I was unemployed and the other two were struggling hill farmers, but we were all playing battered pre-CBS Strats, they were the only playable guitars we could afford.

[docrock55]

hehehe. how badly are you kicking yourself about that one? ...i'm still pissed that i didn't get in on Google stock when it was freshly opened at around 150 bucks JUST A FEW YEARS AGO because it was too expensive ! what an asshole i am.

Thats OK. My uncles tried to talk my father into buying some stock from a local shoe company back in the day. Dad didn't think it was wise, uncles bought in. No biggie, just Nike stock:facepalm:

[Roy Brooks]

The seller says the frets are "a bit worn". It really depends on how worn the frets really are. Most Starcasters I have seen for sale in good shape have been more than $4000. I might pay that much for a Starcaster. But only if I don't have to have things repaired on it.

[Carbohydrates]

Just wait for another 10 years to pass and something that's cheap and mostly ignored right now will become iconic and expensive. Perhaps a Mustang? You can get vintage 'stangs for under a grand. Perhaps something in antigua! It would only take one big rock star getting famous with an antigua Fender. Just look what happened with silverburst.

[EllenGtrGrl]

You know what are just as bad? Blackface Fender amp heads I got my blackface '65 Showman, and my Blackface '65 Bandmaster both for around $400 back in 1990. Nobody really wanted them. All everybody wanted were tweed and blackface Fender combos. Nowadays, they go for at least 4 or 5 times that!

70s Tele Customs, Tele Thinlines, and Tele Deluxes are the same way. I was visiting an old boyfriend in Minneapolis, in the early 90s. They had Tele Deluxes, and Customs, both with the Wide Range humbuckers, by the truckload, that were going for only about $250. Ditto for 60s Gibson Melody Makers (I almost bought a '61, going for $175). NOBODY Wanted Them! Nowadays, $1500 barely gets you started in the eBay bidding for those guitars.

[FoonkySteve]

This looks like another oppertunity for me to mention the starcaster re-issue petition! The link is below, if you have love for the starcaster, give it a wee sign eh? Last count 68 sigs! only about 2000 to go!

[chadd]

Yup - not too long ago, one could barely GIVE away a '70s Fender...so bully to those who kept them

In the early 90s I scored a bunch of mid-70s les pauls for $500 or less. Unfortunately I needed money and sold most of them for not much more in the late 90s. Now I see them on eBay for $2 or $3k or more.

[guitarcapo]

70s Tele Customs, Tele Thinlines, and Tele Deluxes are the same way. I was visiting an old boyfrined in Minneapolis, in the early 90s. They had Tele Deluxes, and Customs, bothwith the Wide Range humbuckers, by the truckload, that were going for only about $250. Ditto for 60s Gibson Melody Makers (I almost bought a '61, going for $175). NOBODY Wanted Them! Nowadays, $1500 barely gets you started in the eBay bidding for those guitars.

I just won this 1965 Melody Maker on Ebay for $600 including shipping, The original pickups were replaced with Rio Grande P-90's and the tremelo was removed for a stop tailpiece. Two mods I probably prefer as it makes it more like a lightweight vintage SG...but it's also why I got it so cheap. Unmolested examples seem to cost $1,000 and up. In terms of raw value it looked like a good deal to me. You get 50 year old wood with a one-piece Honduran neck and one-piece honduran body and a Brazilian rosewood board. That would cost more than $600 to build today in raw parts including the pickups even without the headstock logo. I'm going to rock that baby out this summer.







BTW check out the switch location and the output jack location! FAIL! gotta switch that out...

[EllenGtrGrl]

I just won this 1965 Melody Maker on Ebay for $600 including shipping, The original pickups were replaced with Rio Grande P-90's and the tremelo was removed for a stop tailpiece. Two mods I probably prefer as it makes it more like a lightweight vintage SG...but it's also why I got it so cheap. Unmolested examples seem to cost $1,000 and up. In terms of raw value it looked like a good deal to me. You get 50 year old wood with a one-piece Honduran neck and one-piece honduran body and a Brazilian rosewood board. That would cost more than $600 to build today in raw parts including the pickups even without the headstock logo. I'm going to rock that baby out this summer. BTW check out the switch location and the output jack location! FAIL! gotta switch that out...

In spite of the switch location, it sure looks nice!! Yep I just kick myself for not buying that '61 Melody Maker. But, when I ran it through a Marshall, it squealed like a pig, which didn't make it of much use to me, for the hard rock band I was in at the time. It's too bad - it had a nice neck.

[guitarcapo]

Pickup swap! Feedback is never a deal breaker for me if the guitar plays well and sounds good played acoustically. A lot of those older pickups weren't wax potted...and sometimes you can kill the problem by just dipping the coils in candle wax melted in a pot on the stove etc if you want to stay "original.

If I don't like the boutique P-90's in this baby, I'm just going to stick them on Ebay and buy some SD Seth Lovers for it. I also have a few vintage Gretsch pickups...But I dunno that might look wrong. One is a 60's Supertron and the other a Hilotron...I dunno

[Muddslide]

Yeah, when I first started playing, old guitars were just "old guitars."

I bought several pre-CBS Fenders (Teles, Strats, P-basses) in the $500 range back then.

I also remember seeing two different Starcasters in the $350 range. Played them and liked them, but not enough to warrant buying one (I was a solidbody guy.)

I also remember a guitar shop in Tulsa that had--literally--racks of all models of old Danelectros for $50-$75 each.

[guitarcapo]

My friend paid $560 for a 1959 Dano off Ebay the other day. He loves them and has about four of them. They sound o.k. but every time I pick one up it feels like the cheap pressed-fiber discount Sears guitar it is to me. I get no feeling of mojo playing one...more like I'm playing a Wal-Mart toy guitar or something.

Especially since I just snapped up that 1965 Gibson Melody Maker with a pair of nice P-90's for the same price.

 

Different strokes i guess.

[zenbu]

 

I was born too late in life.

 

 

 

 

really?...so how old were you when you were born? Just playin with ya.,...but yeah, same thing has happened to older MIJ and you don`t even have to go that far back...prices on some `80s MIJs have gone through the roof in the past 5 years alone, I bet many guys who used make fun of those are now paying big bucks for some of em. I`m in a smaller city over here with fewer people looking I guess and I do occasionally bump into bargains but they are fewer and farther between now.

[mike.sartori]

If people hated and didn't want these old guitars 30 and 40 years ago, does that mean that in the future people will be paying boatloads for todays schecters?

[Muddslide]

My friend paid $560 for a 1959 Dano off Ebay the other day. He loves them and has about four of them. They sound o.k. but every time I pick one up it feels like the cheap pressed-fiber discount Sears guitar it is to me. I get no feeling of mojo playing one...more like I'm playing a Wal-Mart toy guitar or something. Especially since I just snapped up that 1965 Gibson Melody Maker with a pair of nice P-90's for the same price. Different strokes i guess.

Nah, no way would I compare a vintage Dano to the Melody Maker really (and congrats on a great deal on what I'm sure is a killer instrument!)

I do dig the old Dano vibe, but I was just saying if I had known what they'd be going for these days, I would have snagged all those Danos I could have, stuck 'em in a vault and started selling them now for 10 times as much as I paid.

When I THINK of all the old 60s guitars and amps and basses I sold right before the Internet really became commonplace and sites like eBay started causing "collector's" prices to skyrocket...well, I really just can't think about it.

Then again, I was fortunate to have been able to score lots of great old gear on the cheap in the late 70s and early 80s.

Then again again, since I no longer have any of that stuff, what does it matter?