Loan for vintage guitar...?

[Costellojunior]

Hi guys and girls,
Does have anyone of you experience with a loan for a vintage guitar?
Backstory, I'm a prof musician with a nice collection (and one vintage guitar) but the last ten years
I'm really gassing on a 54 Goldtop. Is it smart to get a loan? Anyone experience ?

 

[Stig Ø]

Hi guys and girls,
Does have anyone of you experience with a loan for a vintage guitar?
Backstory, I'm a prof musician with a nice collection (and one vintage guitar) but the last ten years
I'm really gassing on a 54 Goldtop. Is it smart to get a loan? Anyone experience ?

I think “smart” doesn’t apply. The question is, do you have the ability to handle the installments? Have you done the math and figured out if the guitar is worth it to you with compounded interest? Can you get some kind of tax write off for it by saying it’s a necessary tool of your trade, or similar? I’m not a professional musician, so I’m not in the same situation as you are, but personally I would never, ever borrow money to buy anything else than a house or a car.

As for smart in a business sense, i.e the guitar as an investment, I would rather put my money in a mutual fund.

 

[244300]

I think “smart” doesn’t apply. The question is, do you have the ability to handle the installments? Have you done the math and figured out if the guitar is worth it to you with compounded interest? Can you get some kind of tax write off for it by saying it’s a necessary tool of your trade, or similar? I’m not a professional musician, so I’m not in the same situation as you are, but personally I would never, ever borrow money to buy anything else than a house or a car.

As for smart in a business sense, i.e the guitar as an investment, I would rather put my money in a mutual fund.

/thread

 

[Coach T.]

Your money, your life. If you want it and can swing it, why not? Get some, playa...

 

[Sampler]

Do you own a home? If not I would say no and try to focus on investing the money in other places. If you do own a home and have some equity the only way I would even consider it is a HELOC..you can write off some of the interest and pay as much/little as you want each month with no fixed payments. That said, I think there are better places to put your money…vintage guitars have gone up significantly in value over the last 2 years so they are a little inflated right now in my opinion.

 

[clbryant1981]

Personally I don’t like financing guitars, then again I’m not making my living as a musician. I’d figure what the payments would be, set that aside each month for 6 months to see if my personal budget can handle it, and be sure in 6 months I still wanted it. If at the end of those 6 months I could swing it and still wanted it use the money I put aside as a down payment and if still needed extra financing it wouldn’t be the entire amount. At least save some interest.

 

[dougb415]

If the loan is interest-free, sure.

 

[BigPapiFan]

I think it is a bad idea to borrow money and pay interest to purchase an object of your gas-driven desire. My advice is that you already have the instruments you need professionally. If you cannot afford a partiular target of your gear lust you should save until you can, or satisfy yourself with a reissue.
First, as Sampler said above, vintage instrument prices are inflated now and there is no guarantee the will hold their current value. Second, guitars aren’t baseball cards. There is considerable variation among individual guitars of the same model. Not every vintage guitar was heavenly. There are many divine-sounding current models so you can likely catch the sound you are looking for in a more financially responsible way. That’s my story and I am sticking to it. YMMV

 

[Black Squirrel]

When I was Young 1974- my friend had gotten a New bank Loan on very amazing Ski Boat - he took it to the Lake - Launched - when ONE LAP around the lake at near full speed - but then shut it down _"too quickly"_ - and down it went - he made the payments for the next 72 months... Boats can Sink - Guitars can Grow legs at Gigs - Some of these Gigs today I'd be scared to take a Epiphone to it - its no fun making payments just to save your credit -

Before insurance was invented?

 

[gunslinger]

Sometimes a vintage guitar is just a worn out guitar with a warped neck.

 

[Spider-Man]

Sometimes a vintage guitar is just a worn out guitar with a warped neck.

Then don't buy that one?

Sometimes a vintage guitar can be the best instrument you ever played.

But I agree with others. Don't take out a loan to finance consumer goods, new or vintage.

 

[jojobean39]

It seems like a really bad idea. However, can you afford it? That’s really what matters. I wouldn’t recommend taking a loan on anything but a house or, if necessary, a car. What’s the financial reasoning for it? How long would you have to pay on it? Can you easily make the payments?

 

[Benz2112]

Put it on a high interest credit card. Yolo.

 

[Jayyj]

I think it’s very much depends on circumstances. Finance/loan for this sort of purchase is an individual choice - U wouldn’t do it personally unless it was interest free and I could afford it anyway, so it’s just a way of leaving cash in the bank for a bit longer but that’s my personal preference, if you’re comfortable with your financial stability in handling a loan of this size it’s your call.

As a note of caution though, the last three years have seen vintage prices increase to as much as double what they were in 2019. That’s very much driven by the unusual circumstances of that time period and we’re now in a bit of a stalemate where the vintage guitars currently on the market are higher even than they were six months ago but nothing is selling because everyone’s waiting for a crash - the dealers don’t want to drop their prices (at least in part because even at these super high prices a lot of dealers have had to cut their margins just to have stock so there isn’t a great deal of wiggle room) so at the moment it’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen next.

I don’t personally see a massive crash coming, but I think there will need to be a bit of a readjustment to get the market moving again - as a random stab in the dark I think we’ll end up about halfway between today prices and 2019 equivalents but it could be way more or way less. Once the market is moving again I think prices will return to steadily creeping up.

What that would mean to someone thinking of buying a high ticket vintage guitar today is that in the long term your probably still fairly safe in terms of value, but in the short term if you bought today you may well see a painful drop in value over the next year as the pricing issues work themselves out.

In practical terms I would still probably buy a high end vintage piece today if I’d discovered one that absolutely blew me away and I couldn’t bring myself to miss the opportunity to own it, but if it were something I’d always fancied and I was wondering about whether this was the time to make a move I think I’d sit the next few months out and watch what happens - if they do drop significantly you could have saved yourself a serious amount of money.

 

[deeval]

Only way I buy vintage gear is I usually sell some gear I can get good money for and then I will reinvest that towards a good vintage instrument.
You stated you are a pro musician so if you have a study gig that pays you good every week, then I would save or sell some other gear, but I know a lot of great pro musicians that dont always have the money to buy vintage.
I know the felling when you get your heart set on a particular guitar its lusting!

 

[lcfparty35]

I think we all know it’s a bad idea, man. Piggy bank it. Scrimp and save if you want it bad enough. Otherwise, enjoy what you have.

 

[Wms76]

Makes little sense imo, my $150 ‘62 Strat (price paid in 1974) is worth way more now, but on an annualized ROI I could do better with safer “investments “.

 

[Steadfastly]

The short answer is NO.

The long answer is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

 

[Julio Iguana]

I’m glad that is a choice I don’t have to consider.

 

[Krausewitz]

Hi guys and girls,
Does have anyone of you experience with a loan for a vintage guitar?
Backstory, I'm a prof musician with a nice collection (and one vintage guitar) but the last ten years
I'm really gassing on a 54 Goldtop. Is it smart to get a loan? Anyone experience ?

Define “professional musician”.