When I say "vintage market" I am talking of the USA. We don't have one here in NZ or even Aussie. Importing guitars is relatively cheap and easy.
1. The dollar is buying around 77 US cents as of now.
2. The prices on many vintage pieces has taken a pounding due to baby boomers running out of liquid credit due to the property market crash.
3. Like the luxury watch market the high end stuff (1957-1960 Les Pauls are really this market) has dropped only marginally. Those buyers operate in a different financial quantum.
4. Less collectable models that grew fast in value in the mid 2000's have now had some heavy value reductions. Items with changed tuners or some non original parts have also taken a pounding.
5. Following eBay and Gbase it would seem that sale prices have also been affected by non instrument specialist vendors clearing either estate or assets from other non music specialist customers ("hey, I found this SG in my cupboard - can you sell please for me and take a fee"). In my view the sale prices of these units represents a true value less 20%. That 20% accounts for risk in buying something from photo's only on the internetz. Buyers will pay more for an expert opinion, but not as much as they used to. I.e. they deem the risk acceptable in this market.
6. My summary is, if you have been saving for years to buy a vintage guitar, in my view now would look to be a good time to look. Trouble is of course NZ has been hit by the same issues so we are also cash poor, dimishing asset rich. Me, I have ceased virtually all cash based trading which of course means all of these bargains I am seeing are only good to torture me with. Someone else go mad please and share your rewards with us all.
