Funny how crap isn't crappy anymore

[george nada]

back in the early 80's i must have owned a dozen of those pointy hondo guitars.
you could buy one brand new for $90 and they werent any worse than the squire strat with the hss cfg. anytime i lost/damaged loaned out my current crappy hondo, i just went and bought another one. i still remember one that was shaped like a lightning bolt. one pick up, one knob, with the same whammy that squire uses. the sales guy said "this guitar should be an olympic event - you could throw it, and no matter how it lands, it will stick in the ground"

[AmplifiedParts]

I own a '65 Harmony amp, and a late 60's noname Japanese guitar. I love them both. The neck on the guitar is tiny and very easy for me to play. The Harmony amp is made in USA. One of the reasons these old relics are coming back are their ability to produce authentic vintage tone at an affordable price. There is also the perception out there that Japanese manufacturing was better than thought at the time(it certainly is now.) People used to refer to Japanese made goods as "jap crap." You don't so much hear that term anymore, (especially in the automotive area.) As always, tone is a completely subjective thing.

[Aaron Smith]

Watch one of those reality TV shows about auctions to get the full picture of all the weird old crap that people collect. Add to that the guitarist's proclivity towards "originality", and the general view that old=vintage=good, and you get crazy prices on some strange old stuff. I don't think the quality of the instrument is first priority with these buyers. I've seen it suggested in this thread that a properly fixed Silvertone will be "better than any Gibson." That one was good for a laugh...

[toneposeur]

Would anyone reading this thread take a Norlin 70's era Gibson archtop with all of its quality and engineering issues over a 40's/50's era Silvertone/Kay?Harmony archtop that has been properly restored, fixed up and sounds and plays fantastic? I will concede you may never get your $ back on the repairs for these guitars and that goes for the name brands also.

[Rockinrob86]

I have played several killer harmony rockets and the little les paul looking ones. Also the small bodied ones that look like they are made out of one piece of wood like damon is playing below.

All of them had had the frets pulled, necks planed and a great fret job/set up done. They played great and sounded even better. Killer little guitars.


With the amps, they arent really that crappy when it comes down to it. When you adjust for inflation, they were pretty expensive in todays money. I think the supro thunderbolt was around $900, and the big star (2x12 with reverb) was $1500, both of those numbers are adjusted. Fender Tweed deluxes sold for around $950, and Blackface deluxe reverbs were $2000 or so. A bassman head and 2x12 cab added up to $3400 I believe.

The budget amps had smaller transformers, and cheaper built cabinets. They were handwired point to point, which is harder to work on than fender's style build. The circuits sound greasier and more lo-fi, but they are useful tools with a unique sound.

And even at the prices they are selling for today, are good deals. Most of the Silverface fenders are selling for around a third of new prices! Most of the blackface amps sell for about the same as what they were new, some for way less though.


Back in the day, they hadnt figured out how to make things really really cheap like they can now. Most of those guitars were just in dire need of a good setup and possibly better fret jobs and a few other small mods. Those guitars can be fixed and made into useable tools.

Some of them arent worth their weight in firewood though!

[bsuite]

Originally Posted by Cyg_1963

I rebuilt a '60s Kay Vanguard for a friend that was definitely "crap".
But it's easily a $300 guitar now IMO.
Just something about it, it's just "cool" and not a bad player at all when done right.

So, your saying it's still crap but it's "better" crap.

[rspencer]

Originally Posted by sahhas

in regards to this:
"then guys like Kurt Cobain played fairly cheap old worn out guitars..."

i always liked his comment when asked why does he prefer "the cheaper guitars", he said (paraphrase), i don't prefer them, i can afford them....

And he was BSing. He's to blame for so many kids buying absolute garbage. Not that some of those supposed "crap" guitars can't be diamonds in the rough, but all the time in the early 90s you'd see kids buying any cheap guitar they could find because he supposedly used them.

Cobain was playing vintage Mustangs, Jaguars, & Jazzmasters. Through Marshall plexis usually. The only "crap" guitars were the pawnshop specials they bought & strung up just for the last song, after which he'd trash it.

[wholetone]

Originally Posted by magicaxeman

Rose tinted glasses - most of it starts with older players like myself wanting to go back and get a few bits that we had when we started, just for nostalgia's sake, then there's a run on them because there are millions of players around our age who are thinking the same, then the kids think if we are buying them we must know something they don't and lets face it they have been completely brainwashed with the whole "Old is good"/ "vintage is good and old = vintage so it must be good" crap.

The simple fact is that a MIM strat is likely to be better put together than an old mid to late 70's strat that someone wants over $1000 for, Japan didn't really get it going on guitars until the early 80's quality wise and only a few guitars out of the Ibanez factory in the 70's where actual law suit guitars, not every lester copy produced in that era as some would like you to believe whilst slapping a few hundred bucks on the price of an old Avon, shaftsbury, hondo or satellite!
Hondo's where all crap, fender mustangs and bullets where cheapo bargain basement guitars.

The fact is a lot of companies now, even at the cheap end of the market are producing instruments that are far better than their contemporaries back then and the same goes for amps too, the only real exceptions to the rule being some of the classic tube amps and 1 or two solid state models.

My two MIM Standard Teles are far better than the 76 Strat my Dad paid serious cash for when it was new as my first electric. Quality is SO much better... there's not any meaningful comparison, and when you adjust for inflation the MIM Tele is a frickin' bargain.

Amps are better now. Pedals are better now. Cords are better now. Guitars are better now, and all of it, for the most part, is cheaper when you adjust for inflation.

I personally think that paying more than $1K - new - for an electric guitar is silly. There's plenty of great gear available for a little over $500.

[wholetone]

Originally Posted by doctorx

For the real Emperor Has No Clothes, see any "Vintage" CBS seventies Fender guitar.

I was there. I had one. They were crap.

My 76 Strat was never quite right... neck always moved around a lot (don't ask me if was 3 or 4 because I don't remember - sold it a long time ago), low E could never be setup in tune, the jack plug cover kept wanting to come out of the guitar, the tremolo setup sucked, the pots blew out TWICE....

[wholetone]

Originally Posted by sahhas

this: "The simple fact is that a MIM strat is likely to be better put together than an old mid to late 70's strat"

i remember hearing forever that 70s strats were "crap", but then yngvie plays a 70s strat, and billy corgan plays a 70s strat, they seem to do fine.

then for the longest time, i heard that japanese strats were crap compared to USA strats, but now the japanese strats have an appeal b/c they really weren't crap but good guitars....

it's odd....

i will say that i had a teisco del rey guitar i bought in '85 for $15, reworked it probably 3 times. it was CRAP. i know i've seen james iha play his teisco w/ smashing pumpkins (mine looked like his, but his looked better!), but mine was still crap. not really sure of the appeal of those guitars.....

Its amazing what a really good setup guy/tech can do with a crappy guitar (seeing your comments above on Malmsteen/Corgan). Yngwie modifies his guitars heavily with the scalloping so they play much better and more easily than an off the rack guitar. My point is the new MIM Fender guitar usually doesn't require much setup work and they come from the factory usually set up well enough that its just minor adjustments (or none at all) and they're far more playable than a 70s CBS product.

[Sweetfinger]

Originally Posted by Scott Miller

All old Harmony archtops are solid wood; no plywood.

No, some are plywood. My H-62 is ply and all the Meteors and Rockets I've seen are ply tops. It's one reason those old Harmonys generally hold up well. Ply isn't a bad thing. Most old Gibson archtop electrics are laminate tops. Harmony did paint the sides of the F holes with an opaque paint so if there isn't a flake of finish missing or you can't see the different shrink rates between the plys it can be tough to tell without physically scraping the side or looking at a rout.
Kay also had many archtops with solid tops and others with laminate tops. Overall I would say that Kay's upper end archtops were better than Harmony but Harmony had the better electrics. Kay's top of the line archtops were even superior to much of Gibson's budget and midline stuff.
The Dearmond pickups on Harmonys are some of the best built pickups that have EVER been made.

[phoenix 7]

Hipsters have made crappy gear 'cool.'

[Jay C]

Whether it was/is crap is obviously subjective and sweeping statements in general are stupid.

Well put, there always seems to be alot of sweeping statements in these
threads.

I like some of the old quirky stuff, I have a National lap steel I paid
short money for that has a super soulful tone.

My old 1978 strat I had since I was kid and could not stand because
of the chunky neck actually sounds good to me now, but it is an anchor.

Each instrument has to be judged on its own merits and the use you
have in mind.

[cradlerock]

I like what Rory Gallagher did back in the day - he bought a lot of the aforementioned "crap" guitars in pawnshops, and would use 'em in the studio. On the road he'd play his old strat and a tele, sometimes a Gretsch Corvette.

I still have my first electric - a mahogony Dan Armstrong "London model" with one humbucker on a sliding rail. Its kinda half crap - I've already put more dough into repairing it than I spent buying it - but it'll still need more investment to become a player. I keep it in the basement, while I play on my classic vibe tele - not a crap guitar.

My accoustic is a nice new Martin D-28, not crap, while I learned on my Dad's Eko copy of a Gibson Hummingbird - a good value guitar - awesome sound & playability, decidedly not crap at all

[JRC4558Dude]

Originally Posted by CharAznable

Since people can't afford the non-crap from the 50's and 60's, they chase the crap, driving up prices.

Yup. Remember this the next time you see someone trying to sell a '78 Strat for $3000.