Will electric guitars ever appreciate again?

As has been shown many times already, guitars that draw the large dollar generally have a guitarist involved. Apparently many of the '50's LP's were bunk but the odd special one snook through with a young man hanging on to it for dear life, the rest is history. A Washburn owned by Bob Marley is estimated at $1m+. It would take something super human for a PRS guitar, no offence of course, to be worth a million ± inflation/cost of living etc. in forty or fifty years, but who knows?
 
LSchefman said:
There's a very nice kalimba part on "Tchokola" by Jean-Luc Ponty. Beautiful record in every way.
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I'll have to look that up.
I bought the kalimba out of curiosity a good 45 years ago and learned a lot about how sound travels in a box playing with it. I found it quite amazing the range you could get out of such a simple instrument. It would probably be a very good vehicle to demonstrate 'subtraction' with.
 
Dusty Chalk said:
I concur with all the posts with this line of thinking. There are always models that "speak to me" more than others -- perhaps those?
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If in 20-30 years the next Kurt Cobain or Jack White shows up playing an old SE Zack Meyers, that will be the guitar to have... For a few years anyway.

Maybe the next Van Halen will arrive with an old Custom 24 Floyd....

Or the next Jimmy Page will be rocking a Tremonti.


Or, maybe in 20-30 years there'll be a bunch of old men who want to relive their youth by jamming old Limp Bizkit and Good Charlotte tracks that'll drive up the price of specific models.

Who knows...?
 
Going back in time, look at the F guys. In 1957 you could have a Stratocaster as long as it was two tone or three tone burst. Arctic White, Lake Placid Blue, Fiesta Red and Antigua Gold were were super rare and represented about 10% of their production, at a surcharge of $50 maybe? Yes, the 57's are selling for crazy numbers but the color models are through the roof.

With PRS Private Stock and exotic woods, they are made in super small numbers but the appreciation is already baked into the price of the guitar by charging two to three times the price of a typical production guitar, not a couple hundred dollar up-charge. Probably not going to appreciate significantly.

Does PRS have an advantage over the F and G guys? I think yes because the custom shop guitars from F and G were sold at crazy prices for a stamp on the back of the headstock and a named builder and the used market shows it, they are a steal on the used market if you want a nice Strat. At least with PRS, you are getting something much better / more exotic than a production guitar.
 
Screamingdaisy said:
If in 20-30 years the next Kurt Cobain or Jack White shows up playing an old SE Zack Meyers, that will be the guitar to have... For a few years anyway.
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I don't know -- as has previously been pointed out, the population -- and with it the population's tastes -- have become too large and too diverse, so the guitar god density has become more dispersed, so there is less of a likelihood that one guitarist picking up one guitar will influence that many people, at least for now, when they can get a signature guitar built to their specifications by their choice of builder...er, luthier instead. So it's unlikely that someone will come along in 20 years and say, "oh, I play Custom 24s from 2015 to 2019 with the 85/15 pickups exclusively" and resultantly raise their value significantly like that. I just don't see that happening ever again.

That said, something funny did happen to me: I bought the Doctor Who guitar (same model, not the actual guitar) that Peter Capaldi played in the "Magician's Apprentice" episode (actually, I got a SGV-300, he played a SGV-800 or something, might've been something from the SV- series), and I looked recently, and used prices of the entire series has gone up since I got mine.

I didn't get it to flip, though, I was just curious if it was any good. It's actually surprisingly not bad. I prefer the trem to a Floyd Rose.
 
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As a collector, I can tell you this: I got more money than brains, and I really don't have that much money.

A long time ago, I figured I could buy some guitars and amps that might go up in value. So I bought that stuff, and it has done alright over the past 10 to 15 years. It's not the top or middle shelf stuff, but it has appreciated more than some of my other investments - and that is factoring in the crash of 07/08.

If I was serious about investing, I'd buy income-generating property. Buy guitars because you like guitars for one reason or another. If you want to make money on guitars, get into retail. Just my .02
 
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PRSh is unique. He made History and he keeps improving his guitars and every detail day after day.
The moment that PRS Guitars loses PRSh guitars will be, at least, more collectibles than now because the company won't be the same.
 
Not sure if this will effect "appreciation" in the financial sense, but I'll tell you this... I love playing and lusting after "classic F & G" all day long (especially the "F" brand), but there's nothing that plays, sounds and is built like PRS guitars IMHO. And I only play (ok, I'm only capable of playing) blues, r'n'b and the like and PRS guitars totally cut the mustard in these genres!! I'd like to think that in the future guitars will be valued on the very premises that these fine PRS guitars are currently being made and offered.... Just my two cents (actually all my opinion is worth right now I'll admit)
 
While I am sure that he is a driving force in the business, especially from a sales and dealer perspective, PRS will go on without him, just as F and G did without Leo, Les and Ted. They are now a big company with private investor support, revenue and sales targets, etc. I have Paul's business card. It does not say President, it says Founder - big difference but not something that will completely drive the collectability of the guitars unless he personally made them.

Furtive said it right. There are certain models of all guitars that will appreciate if you get them at the right price. It is almost like you re day trading guitar futures. Look on John Mann's site. An original Santana is offered at $100k. Kirk Hammett paid $2 million for the Gary Moore, Peter Green Les Paul. And, yes, he spent stupid money for a rare guitar.

Welcome to the collector market.
 
I believe that since Paul is still alive and well, and active in his company, this may be compared to when Leo Fender was alive and well at Fender. Once he is gone, unless his family takes over and continues to maintain the highest standards that Paul is doing, it's anybody's guess how PRS guitars will fair.

One thing is pretty certain, and that is that any guitars signed by Paul should inevitably be going up in value as time passes. We won't see it, but years from now, I believe that players will be seeking out PRS signed guitars.
 
G-Man said:
I have Paul's business card. It does not say President, it says Founder - big difference but not something that will completely drive the collectability of the guitars unless he personally made them.
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The important thing is that Paul's role allows him to continue to be very involved in the direction the product takes. Being President requires that a lot of time and energy go towards other aspects of running the company. The level of involvement he has in the product does, in my opinion, make the result more appealing to me - not so much because he did it, but because he really does have the quest for the perfect guitar sound in the core of his being and he has the skills to execute.

So there is a chance that guitars produced during his tenure will retain value better than those produced long after he is gone.
 
veinbuster said:
The important thing is that Paul's role allows him to continue to be very involved in the direction the product takes. Being President requires that a lot of time and energy go towards other aspects of running the company. The level of involvement he has in the product does, in my opinion, make the result more appealing to me - not so much because he did it, but because he really does have the quest for the perfect guitar sound in the core of his being and he has the skills to execute.

So there is a chance that guitars produced during his tenure will retain value better than those produced long after he is gone.
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Nicely stated! :)
 
Paul signs a lot of guitars. Except for PS and special runs, the rest are regular core guitars, even SEs and S2s. They are all great guitars, but his signature doesn't translate as designating the rest as somehow better than their siblings.

Those guitars are signed as a favor to the owners - a wonderful thing to be sure, but not an indicator of superior playability or tone.

I'm not dissing Paul's signature, I have signed non-PS guitars. I just think it would be a mistake for a future collector to translate that signature to a guitar being first amount equals from the same time period.
 
rugerpc said:
Paul signs a lot of guitars. Except for PS and special runs, the rest are regular core guitars, even SEs and S2s. They are all great guitars, but his signature doesn't translate as designating the rest as somehow better than their siblings.

Those guitars are signed as a favor to the owners - a wonderful thing to be sure, but not an indicator of superior playability or tone.

I'm not dissing Paul's signature, I have signed non-PS guitars. I just think it would be a mistake for a future collector to translate that signature to a guitar being first amount equals from the same time period.
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When I mentioned signatures in my post above I didn't state it explicitly but I was referring solely to Private Stock builds. The reason of course being is that they are *expected* to be there, and as of now, always have been there. There will be a day when that is no longer the case.

I agree that his signature otherwise is not really all that notable except to the owner and the person that hopefully got to shake his hand and chat for a minute or two!
 
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