I also watched that video earlier. I guess the hobby guitarists among us forget that professionals need to think about making money from their purchases whereas the rest of us see our purchases as just another 'new toy'. I suppose collectors will always pay more than working musicians though there are exceptions - Kirk Hammett's alleged $2m for the Greenie Les Paul though I saw him state in a video he paid less than that.
Plus there's also this -
There are many reasons why people buy a musical instrument and not all of them are about the playability and sound of them. The 'highest' priced instruments tend to be to collectors - whether they are collecting it as an instrument or as memorabilia that once belonged to a certain person, played on a certain record etc.
The reason Greeny often doesn't come up in 'most expensive' guitars is because there is no confirmed price that Kirk Hammet paid. It was on sale at one point before he bought it for $2m which is where its 'alleged' value and/or price came from but Kirk and the seller came to their own arrangement. He though does use it regularly on tour.
As the Rick Beato video states, the guitars that are put on a pedestal because of the music they were used to create, were not 'vintage' and certainly weren't built with any extra care and/or attention to the instruments we have today. They certainly weren't consistent at all and Jimi's famous Strats came from the dreaded CBS era. Part of the issue though was that the 70's was not a great decade for the electric guitar as both Fender and Gibson cut costs which may of been due to the flood of instruments from Asia too. Musicians would have been forced to seek out older, better instruments which then adds to the belief that 50's/60's guitars were 'special'.
PRS could well have some very collectable guitars that easily fetch very high figures on the future - Guitars built by Paul for Santana, Al di Meola, Peter Frampton etc - but even those made after 1985, Santana's 'Supernatural' PRS for example. John Mayers PRS guitars could be worth a LOT but again, that comes down to these being more 'collectable', more Memorabilia than an instrument to be played.
Part of the vintage cost is for rarity and still fetch ridiculous money despite not being a great instrument. A bad 59 burst LP - even in a bad condition can still fetch ridiculous amounts of money despite the fact that a cheap import guitar sounds and plays better. There will be people that would buy the 59 burst just because its a 59 burst BUT if you are a musician, someone that wants an instrument to be played rather than a collectable or asset, I doubt they would touch the 59 Burst.
Unless some really famous person has a mid 80's PRS that comes up for sale as a collectable piece of memorabilia, then I very much doubt we will see silly money spent on one. If it came out that Mark Knopfler, Prince, SRV for example had played a certain Custom 24 on one of their biggest tracks that year inc a video of them playing that instrument in the studio, that would probably add extra number(s) to the amount that guitar would sell for. As a 'nobody' guitar, it maybe worth $2-3k - but could be a 5, 6 or even 7 figure valuation if the right person owned it.
Very few, if any, of the big prices paid for vintage guitars is about the guitar as an actual instrument but more about its value as a collectable which also depends on who owned it. With PRS constantly looking at improving their guitars, then as a musician, it wouldn't make sense to buy an 'old' PRS because a new one should be 'better' - at least it will be in areas that are not subjective. You would look for the instrument that is fundamentally better - especially if it also is 'cheaper' because it hasn't got inflated pricing for collectability. That being said, you never know what the future may hold and PRS may have to change their guitars for some reason - scarcity/legality of woods that may force them to change to different materials. All things being equal though, it would depend on the reason for buying - as an instrument or as a collectable.
