Vintage guitars more popular right now?

Elliot

Gandalf the Vintage Yellow
Joined
Oct 13, 2016
Messages
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I haven't been around long enough to see big trends in instrument use but it seems like there are a lot of artists using vintage gear or vintage-looking gear in the past 5-10 years

When I was growing up ('90's and '00's) I don't really remember so many people wanting vintage instruments. It seemed to me that about 90% of rock bands preferred modern instruments or strats.

I know PRS is popular (one of the big three guitar makers) but it doesn't seem extremely popular with performing artists lately. Is it taking a bit of a hit on that front because of this resurgence of vintage instruments?

Is that a fair assessment?
 
Locally, vintage/vintage-like guitars seem in right now.

Fenders seem to be in style, as is anything weird or clunky. Bonus points if you have something quirky like a Jag or a Jazzmaster, or an ES-335.

Les Pauls are still popular with straight forward rock bands.

PRS seems popular with the shredders. I think the SE and S2 series might be taking a chunk out of Ibanez market.
 
Vintage is in, and not just guitars. Furniture, clothes, you name it.
 
no, that's because there's nothing new that's built worth a $hit.

A lot of people are still buying vintage-looking new stuff - strats, teles, LP, ES series, rickenbacker, getcsch, more of the like. I guess that doesn't mean they're built well, but a lot of people seem cool with it.

I know PRS has a lot of vintage inspired stuff but I think a lot of people would agree that most PRSi are pretty distinctly not vintage; even with burst finishes and older style switching and tuners... I could be wrong.

Personally, the only vintage stuff I like is the Gibson stuff. In terms of value, I'd spend 2k on PRSi before Gibson any day.
 
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