Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Toe-Knee on September 05, 2012, 09:02:35 PM
-
I came across this while browsing ebay for nothing inparticular.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-1957-Fender-Stratocaster-3-Way-Switch-Output-Jack-Wires-57-Strat-USA-/271021835259?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item3f1a2903fb
Absolute insanity.
I love how it says the parts may need cleaning :D
-
Madness.....
-
Thing is, I can imagine someone buying it if they had an old Strat they wanted to keep original....
I'd just buy a new switch.
-
Thing is, I can imagine someone buying it if they had an old Strat they wanted to keep original....
I'd just buy a new switch.
I think most would too.
I think if that was cleaned it would probably fall apart!
The worst thing is there are others not in quite as bad condition but still with ridiculous prices
-
total crackpipe, there's a point up to which a vintage guitars originality is practical. I'd love to keep a vintage guitar vintage, but a broken switch, pot or jack needs replacing, and that rusty old piece of cr@p is probably no better than the one it'd replace.
“This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good.”
-
Do people actually buy this stuff? Is there a cottage industry of people dismantling old guitars and putting the bits on ebay?
-
Do people actually buy this stuff? Is there a cottage industry of people dismantling old guitars and putting the bits on ebay?
yes
I'll try and find the particular seller, but there's a guy on the bay parting out some decent old guitars. and not just semi known brands either. The guy i'm thinking of has the whole thing(s) on auction in pieces.
-
Do people actually buy this stuff? Is there a cottage industry of people dismantling old guitars and putting the bits on ebay?
yes
I'll try and find the particular seller, but there's a guy on the bay parting out some decent old guitars. and not just semi known brands either. The guy i'm thinking of has the whole thing(s) on auction in pieces.
I don't object to the guys who sell new/slightly used Fender parts on eBay - God knows I've bought plenty of stuff from them, and I'm sure it makes a lot more money than selling complete guitars, so it's sound business sense.
But parting out vintage guitars just seems wrong to me. I do believe (but not in a religious kind of way) that an old guitar that's been kept intact, played and loved for many years acquires a mojo or.... "something". It's just a collection of parts, but after a while those parts belong together. Which is one of the reasons I don't buy vintage guitars.
-
Its a great way to float fraud too - After all, one rusty switch or an relicked modern pickup is harder to spot than a whole guitar.
-
“This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good.”
:good:
I agree with the Low King, and with the general air of comments above. I imagine if someone went back in a time machine to the 50s and told Leo Fender that people would avoid repairing his guitars one day in order to retain their collector's value, he would be somewhat bemused; he never set out to build a Stradivarius, or anything other than a working musician's tool.
-
I do believe (but not in a religious kind of way) that an old guitar that's been kept intact, played and loved for many years acquires a mojo or.... "something". It's just a collection of parts, but after a while those parts belong together. Which is one of the reasons I don't buy vintage guitars.
I imagine if someone went back in a time machine to the 50s and told Leo Fender that people would avoid repairing his guitars one day in order to retain their collector's value, he would be somewhat bemused; he never set out to build a Stradivarius, or anything other than a working musician's tool.
Philly, I agree with you to an extent, but, having been a pedal geek for a while and getting caught up in and out of the whole component mojo thing, I'll tell you one thing. Certain components in certain applications will make a difference, but not half as much as the the ability of the person building it to tune what he's made properly. Or the ability of the guy playing the instrument.
I could launch into a story about a very nice clone of a Jen tonebender i acquired recently but i won't. despite the difference in components, the pedal and clone are indistinguishable. That was down to the guy who built it knowing exactly what he was doing.
What i don't agree with is all the parts being necessary to a guitars mojo. A switch is a switch, plain and simple, same with a pot, I don't think this is going to affect the sound like the wood or pickups would or even, believe it or not, a paint job (especially refinishes). I don't like old guitars that have been modded past their original function (cutting holes in scratch plates and adding switches. as long as the neck, pickups and body are original, then i'm good. Everythiing else is necessary repairs. I don't even mind refrets, because after 40 -50 years, it needs to be done.
Which is exactly, as mecca pointed out, what Leo intended. he made them the way they were for a reason. Easy to mass produce but high quality. Something wears out? neck, damaged body, electronics? replace it, just like your car. What he wanted from the start. affordable working musicians instrument.
Gilmours Black strat is a case in point. Thats what, the third neck now? 4th bridge? 3rd set of pickups? does it sound less good for it? nope. because the Gilmour is playing it.
At worst I'd prefer the body, neck and PU's to be from the same-ish period.
Enough point labouring from me :lol: Crack pipe auction and no mistake. Still trying to find the dude who parts out guitars. he's there though.
-
Thing is, I can imagine someone buying it if they had an old Strat they wanted to keep original....
+1
I mean, just like you guys, i'm not a fan of the whole vintage racket, but at the same time if you sort of think about it in the way that that market works, it makes sense. $300 for an old rusty switch? to us, that's madness (and rightly so). $300 for an old rusty switch which means your guitar is now worth (warning, just making up numbers here :oops: ) $25,000 instead of $10,000? Or which maybe is the difference between someone buying it or not? Not so mad.
:)
-
I agree Dave - the guitar market seems particularly prone to this kind of madness - I have an old Zoom 508 delay and was looking at how to get the Charlie Hall Shadows patches for it. At first (being ignorant) I thought it was a chip that had to be added to the hardware and looked on ebay - normal Zoom 508's go for about £50 tops (bear in mind the 508 is a cheap piece of plastic) but the one with the Shadows patches are going for £250!! Later I found that the patches were easily available online to be programmed in by hand and that someone is charging (a presumably getting) £200 for programming a load of presets into a pedal. That is a pretty good mark up to me.
-
I def agree that collector would buy this to increase or maintain what i see as being the artificial value of their instrument, and i guess each to their own if you have the money. I just hate that it keeps these beautiful instruments out of the hands of people that play them. One of the high ups in my company has a strat in a glass case in the wall of his condo in houston.
"Oh you play? nice! thats a early 60's strat right?"
"Are you kidding, you know how much thats worth!?"
"yes actually, don't play then?"
"not so much, i have a PRS somewhere though..."
-
^ oh i agree, but at the same time if someone owns one i'm not going to blame them for trying to maintain its value either- if i had one i'd do the same. And i mean it's not just guitars that are overpriced- look at houses, for example, and no-one complains that people who own houses try to get as much for them as possible.
I agree Dave - the guitar market seems particularly prone to this kind of madness - I have an old Zoom 508 delay and was looking at how to get the Charlie Hall Shadows patches for it. At first (being ignorant) I thought it was a chip that had to be added to the hardware and looked on ebay - normal Zoom 508's go for about £50 tops (bear in mind the 508 is a cheap piece of plastic) but the one with the Shadows patches are going for £250!! Later I found that the patches were easily available online to be programmed in by hand and that someone is charging (a presumably getting) £200 for programming a load of presets into a pedal. That is a pretty good mark up to me.
haha yeah :)
-
I do believe (but not in a religious kind of way) that an old guitar that's been kept intact, played and loved for many years acquires a mojo or.... "something". It's just a collection of parts, but after a while those parts belong together. Which is one of the reasons I don't buy vintage guitars.
.....
What i don't agree with is all the parts being necessary to a guitars mojo. A switch is a switch, plain and simple, same with a pot, I don't think this is going to affect the sound like the wood or pickups would or even, believe it or not, a paint job (especially refinishes). I don't like old guitars that have been modded past their original function (cutting holes in scratch plates and adding switches. as long as the neck, pickups and body are original, then i'm good. Everythiing else is necessary repairs. I don't even mind refrets, because after 40 -50 years, it needs to be done.
Which is exactly, as mecca pointed out, what Leo intended. he made them the way they were for a reason. Easy to mass produce but high quality. Something wears out? neck, damaged body, electronics? replace it, just like your car. What he wanted from the start. affordable working musicians instrument.
Oh yeah, I agree with you there.
I wasn't talking about "mojo" in terms of the way a component affects - or doesn't affect - how the guitar actually sounds or plays. I meant it more in a superstitious kind of way - that that particular collection of parts has been glued/screwed together long enough that they "belong" together. Or in other words, I have a tendency to anthropomorphise guitars or any old possessions, the way people get attached to old teddy bears! :lol:
If I actually owned an old Strat and the switch broke, I'd unquestionably replace it - with a new switch. There'd be no point, to me, in buying another old switch, because it wouldn't be the old switch which belonged with my guitar. And yes, of course, I'd keep the old broken switch in the case! :roll: :wink:
-
"Oh you play? nice! thats a early 60's strat right?"
"Are you kidding, you know how much thats worth!?"
It's not worth anything if you don't play it.
-
"Oh you play? nice! thats a early 60's strat right?"
"Are you kidding, you know how much thats worth!?"
It's not worth anything if you don't play it.
Ah... but you're wrong sir! :lol: (actually, you're not, but that's only what it's worth to you... doesn't mean everyone else looks at it that way)
Financially, a thing is worth what someone will pay for it. Not what you paid for it, not what someone is asking for it... A thing is only worth what someone is prepared to shell out to obtain it right now...
As a possesion, a thing is worth whatever the owner sees in it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... If they think it would make a spectacular coffee table, or ashtray, that's fine by me...
Give me a 60s strat and one of two things could happen:
1) If it plays/feels/sounds good, I will play it to death and treat it like my other guitars. I will replace broken bits, upgrade the pickups if it needs it, leave it lying on the floor while I cook the dinner, etc...
2) If it doesn't play/feel/sound as good as, for example, my 60s Roadworn, I will put it on a wall and admire it as "that's the thing I aspired to, it's a dog by the way, but hey ho, rock n roll dreams and history... It's mine now 8)"
One thing that wouldn't happen (barring financial disasters, obviously) is me selling it or regarding it in anyway as an asset...
That's all if you gave me one. Would I buy one? Nope :lol:, they're just not worth what other people are prepared to pay for them...
And that switch... assuming it's genuine, certain folks will want/need it (I don't). It is worth whatever those folks are prepared to pay for it. And if that happens to be more than I paid for a whole guitar that actually works, then that's cool as far as I'm concerned :lol: