Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I read this newsletter written by guitar expert, George Gruhn with fascination! How do you feel this article applies to your Rickenbacker instruments let alone all your gear?

It's a long read but well worth it! I have to split this up in two posts.


Collectors vs. Musicians

Periodically, and usually in periods when prices on vintage fretted
instruments are rising rapidly, we hear more and more complaints that rich
collectors are pushing prices so high that the finest guitars, mandolins
and banjos are being taken out of the hands of musicians. Not only is it
claimed that musicians are being deprived of the opportunity - or, as some
would go so far as to say, their right - to play these instruments, but the
public is also being deprived of the experience of hearing the best
instruments played by the best musicians.
This is hardly a new complaint. It's been circulating for almost 200 years,
ever since the emergence of violin collectors in the early 1800s. And the
argument was as groundless then as it is now.
The basic premise is that collectors are greedy hoarders who take
instruments out of circulation and in effect deprive needy and deserving
musicians of fine original vintage instruments. Let's address the last part
of this premise first. Are musicians really deserving of these instruments?
Well, yes and no. We would all prefer to hear the finest musicians playing
on the finest instruments, of course. Would we want to hear Sam Bush, for
example, play Bill Monroe's 1923 Lloyd Loar-signed Gibson F-5, which is now
owned by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum? Absolutely. It's no
different than when the owners of Stradivarius violins loan them out to the
top violinists. Few could argue that by virtue of his talent, Bush deserves
a turn on Bill's F-5.
But would it be okay if a legendary mandolin player took a Loar F-5 and
sawed off the fingerboard extension, threw away the pickguard, installed a
pickup with a jack mounted through the rim, and played it hard, night after
night, until the frets, fingerboard and finish were completely worn out? Of
course not. That would be an outrage. Fortunately, we don't know of anyone
who's done all of that to a Loar F-5, but we do know of a mandolin player
who dug out the Gibson logo, scraped off the finish and broke the headstock
scroll of his Loar F-5. It was Bill Monroe. And you don't have to go very
far in the bluegrass mandolin world to find another seemingly egregious
example of 'customizing' by legendary musicians. This time it was a 1937
F-5 and it had the braces shaved, the finish removed and the top sanded
down. The 'offending' parties were Norman Blake and John Hartford, and the
mandolin became the famous 'Hoss' owned by Sam Bush.
We really shouldn't vilify musicians for that sort of treatment. After all,
they're just being pragmatic. As professional musicians they have to make a
living with their instruments and the instruments must be up to the task at
hand. Nevertheless, that is what musicians do to instruments. They
customize them in ways that destroy originality. We see proof of this every
day. On the day that we started composing this newsletter, for example, we
took in a wonderful-sounding National Triolian with the paint completely
scraped off the top and sides, and a 1920s Stella 12-string with miserably
repaired side cracks. Both had been abused - by a musician in the case of
the National and by an inept repairman in the case of the Stella - to the
point where repair and restoration would cost more than the instrument was
worth.
Like the basic complaint, abused instruments go back at least far as the
violins of the early 1800s. Musicians were not only playing them and
inflicting normal wear and tear, they were customizing them, thinning down
the tops, doing radical re-graduations and replacing the necks. The result
is appalling: There are no fully original Stradivarius violins left
anywhere in the world. Every one of them has had some kind of modification
or repair. All but six have a non-original neck. Guitar collectors complain
about a broken solder joint or a replaced tuner. Think what it would be
like if all but six of the sunburst Les Pauls and pre-CBS Stratocasters had
a replaced neck.
Who replaced those necks and made all those other modifications to the
Strads? It wasn't the collectors. It was musicians and their repairmen -
the same sort of people who have gouged out pickup cavities, shaved the
necks, refinished with canned spray paint, and performed countless other
atrocities on Les Pauls and Strats and other vintage treasures. Sooner or
later, as musical tastes and musical styles change, it would happen to
virtually every instrument if left in the possession of musicians.
Again, musicians should not necessarily be vilified for this, because few
would knowingly damage a valuable instrument. More often, they merely
'upgraded' a utility instrument. When Bill Monroe did what he did to his
F-5 in the early 1950s, it wasn't worth $175,000 or more, which is what a
pristine Loar-signed F-5 would bring today without the Monroe association.
Monroe had just gotten his F-5 back from the Gibson factory, where he'd
sent it for neck work. Whatever Gibson did or didn't do it, when Monroe got
it back he was so angry that he removed the offending finish as well as the
logo and the headstock scroll. At that point his mandolin may have been
worth even less to him than the $150 he paid a Florida barbershop for it in
the mid 1940s. Similarly, the violinists at the beginning of the 1800s had
no idea that their Strads would skyrocket in value by the 1820s and would
eventually be worth millions. When Loar F-5s, prewar D-45s, sunburst Les
Pauls and pre-CBS Strats were new, no one could have known that their value
might appreciate a hundred-fold or even a thousand-fold in four or five
decades.
Ironically the same people we're accusing of damaging vintage instruments
were also the first to recognize the value of these instruments. It was
musicians in the early 1800s who discovered that the new factory-made
violins were inferior to the older Italian instruments, and it was
musicians in the mid 1960s who discovered that new Martins, Gibsons and
Fenders didn't measure up to some of the older versions. Although Earl
Scruggs and Bill Monroe acquired their main instruments in the 1940s, they
can still be ranked with Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Stephen
Stills and other legends of the 1960s whose preference for older
instruments caused other musicians as well as fans to gain an appreciation
for these instruments and a desire to own them.

PART 2

Collectors vs Musicians

In current times, there has
been much talk in financial forums about building 'portfolios' of
instruments in the same cold, calculated way that investors play the stock
market, but virtually every collector whom we know began buying instruments
not as investments, but out of an emotional interest in the music, the
musicians and the instruments themselves.
It's a short step from owning a special item to wanting to protect it, and
that's where the accusation begins that collectors take instruments out of
circulation. It's true, but only to a point. Owners of valuable violins
routinely loan them to musicians so that they can be appreciated by the
masses. The nature of rock and roll performance makes this a more dangerous
proposition for a Les Paul or Stratocaster than for a Strad in a symphony
setting, but owners of great instruments generally like to hear them
played. The late Scott Chinery, who acquired a fabulous collection of
guitars in the 1990s, once hosted a party to celebrate his Blue Collection
of commissioned archtops, and he opened up his display cases to provide
such notable guitarists as Tal Farlow, Arlen Roth, Jimmy Vivino and G.E.
Smith with instruments for a jam session. While Chinery may have taken
these instruments out of general circulation and into protective custody,
he by no means retired them.
Continuing with Chinery as an example, his death released many of these
instruments back into circulation. The other high-profile collection of the
1990s, that of Japanese businessman Akira Tsumura, unexpectedly returned
into circulation when Tsumura ran into legal troubles. Fretted instruments,
when properly cared for, can have a life expectancy of hundreds of years,
so unless an instrument ends up in a museum (where it still may be played
on occasion), its 'captivity' in a collection is only temporary. And it can
enjoy better treatment in a collection, especially when it comes to repair
and restoration, than it would in the hands of a working musician.
Contrary to the basic argument, collectors ultimately cause more
instruments to be put into circulation than they take out. In the case of
violins, dealers and collectors scoured Europe for old Italian instruments,
and they discovered them sitting unused, collecting dust in monasteries, in
private homes, in the estates of the original makers, etc. The same is true
of the collectors who started in the 1960s looking for fretted instruments.
For every one they took out of circulation, they uncovered dozens that they
put back into circulation. In my own personal case, for every one
instrument that I wanted to keep, I would turn up a hundred pieces that
were of no personal interest to me but were cheap enough that I could
resell them, which put them back into circulation (and, of course, provided
funding for me to search further for the instruments I collected). Often
enough these were discovered in poor homes where they were not cared for,
in closets and in attics that were unheated and uncooled. If they had not
been found by people like me they might have been thrown in the trash in
some cases, or modified, refinished or in some other way 'repaired.' Or
worse. One collector I know went to visit the owner of an original
five-string flathead Mastertone and found the owner's kids using the
resonator as a sled in the snow. I feel safe in saying that no collector
has ever treated an instrument that way.
Collectors also make a great contribution in the area of education. Their
passion for instruments has driven much of the research and the books and
articles that have been published on vintage instruments. Many of those who
criticize collectors might not have ever heard of their coveted instruments
in the first place had it not been for collectors' educational
contributions.
The biggest complaint about collectors is that they drive prices up. That's
true, but that's the nature of any open market where demand exceeds supply.
Collectors can't do anything about it, nor can dealers. Even if the buyers
were all musicians, with no collectors allowed, as long as the demand for a
certain instrument is greater than the supply, musicians would drive prices
higher. Then the complaint would be that rich musicians were taking
instruments out of the hands of equally deserving but less affluent
musicians. The upside of rising prices is that they protect the
instruments. As we've already discussed, instruments with no value get no
respect. Most of these collectible instruments come back into the market
eventually, and when they do, they have been well cared for, and their
increased values will ensure that owners will continue to take good care of
them.
As a final note, let's imagine what would happen if disgruntled musicians
got what they wished for, and all the instruments in collections were
released to musicians. Then you would really have some angry musicians,
because there just aren't enough instruments to go around. There were only
91 prewar Martin D-45s to start with, and many of those have been
butchered. There were less than 2100 herringbone D-28s. Maybe 250
Loar-signed Gibson F-5 mandolins. Only a handful of original Gibson
five-string flathead Mastertones. An estimated 1700 sunburst Les Pauls. If
these instruments were handed out to musicians to use as utility tools,
they would either be further damaged, to the point that soon there would be
no original examples in existence, or else musicians would take better care
of them and put them in protective custody, and then they would become
their worst nightmare - collectors.

George Gruhn and Walter Carter

Great stuff Mike. It is a complicated process at best to describe the guitar market.

Perhaps Rickenbacker is in an attractive position for it draws players and collectors. A big plus in my mind is it's colorful history combined with JH refusing to "sell out" to high volume offshore manufacturing.

Oh, and they sound, feel, and look great.

I can see many of the points he raises and the way he puts it there probably are a lot more pros than cons to collectors, but... they still raise the prices beyond what the average person can pay for these things. The more the price rises on a certain guitar the more likely collectors will start to buy them and then the price continues to rise, on and on. For ex. with old J basses the prices have already gone beyond what the average person will pay for a working bass. Who is going to pay 10 grand for a bass and take it into a crummy club? That is also happening to old P basses which are or were one of the all time workhorses for bass players. Even some of the Rics are getting so high you wouldn't want to play them out.

Good point, Bob! There are some early Ric basses from the 50's that have sold in the $20K area and some, like early to mid-60s 4001s basses in the mid-teen prices. You can't take those to clubs! It appears that at a certain price point where it cuts the average guy out, the instrument becomes a collectibe, I guess. What else could you really do with it, except use it for recordings?

I didn't even think of the early 4000's and 4001's, those certainly rival old J basses in price.

Yeah, a smaller market but, as we know, very powerful.

for me my 1968 4001 became too valuable to modify to meet my needs and it became too valuable to gig with ...

I remember when you sold it, Jeff. Good point!

I am part collector because I never would have sold a bass like that unless I was in bankruptcy and then I would have put it in my mother's name.

that was a very interesting read...I only have one problem with one thing he said. When he was talking about some guys kids using a resonator for a sled and then he says that a collector would never treat an instrument like that...I find that condescending...us musicians aren't all a bunch of animals that butcher instruments...is it my fault that people are too stupid to realize what they are doing or just don't know any better? I know I would never put humbuckers in a 1968 4001 or something idiotic like that.

Yep, good point Matthew.

I personally understand the value of my instruments, and if I need to mod something, it will always be reversible - which is quite easy with Rickenbackers, thankfully. If something doesn't suit my needs, I sell it (Though there are some occurances where I simply can't sell things because they have sentimental value - my first guitar, my first bass, my Epiphone 335).

For instance, all their pickups drop right in, most of the time without requiring any modification. I can't imagine how many PAFs were put in 50's and 60's Strats, or how many P90 Les Pauls were routed for PAFs.

As for the argument in general, I do look at myself as a collector, but I don't buy guitars to place in glass cases. If it's too valuable to be gigged or brought into the studio, I don't want it (At this phase of my life, anyway. I see myself morphing into a more "real" collector over time).

I'm in the process of having a 1955 Les Paul Custom restored that fortunately had only one owner who never modified anything on it. Strangely enough, when I was searching for someone to do the restoration, a few of them suggested milling off the top, putting a maple cap on it and routing it for humbuckers!

The 54 and 55 Customs were not held that highly in regard until recently when people began to realize just how rare they are.

Mine should be done in a few weeks and I intend to gig the **** out of it! Better yet, if I don't like the way it plays, I'll just tuck it in the vault and let it appreciate in value for the next 17 years and when I retire, if I need the money, I'll have a nice little piece to sell and bolster the 'ol retirement account.

Bob, is that one with an Alnico V in the neck position? Bigsby?

Hi,

I consider myself to be a musician. There are two points I'd like to mention.

1. In the first place my seventies Precision Basses had been a tool for me since I got them in '88 and '94. I wasn't aware that people would pay 3 times the price I bought them for until a few years ago. I didn't make any modifications, because I'm more like a "If it doesn't work with this song try another instrument"-guy, but one of them has a DiMarzio replacement Pickup, which worked fine for me.

I mistreated my Precision a little performing live. Well it was for the show and since making music is a form of entertainment I do not feel very sorry about that. I had to say, that these instruments were in a ,,used'' condition, when I bought them. BTW, I won't do that to the 75'er 4000 I recently bought. Hey, those were just old, cr**** Fenders...

2. To the musicians. You don't need a vintage instrument for making good music. Any musician claiming old instruments should be in the hands of musicians is wrong. Get yourself a nice modern instrument and play until your fingers bleed. If you do it well, someday you can afford an old instrument and have your dream come true.

If you really think you're in need of an old instrument go for the Fender Customshop or get a Rickenbacker Reissue, they'll do fine for your purpose.

Well, I hope this was not offending. Please consider that my first language is not english.

Gruesse, Pablo