Instrument Collectors Vs. Musicians, if you have a few minutes to read.

[Riffster]

If you have few minutes, this is a great newsletter published on Gruhn.com by George Gruhn and Walter Carter.

 

We often hear the players and musicians perspective but this letter gives you more of a collector perspective.

 

Check it out.

 

Collectors vs. musicians

 

Periodically, and usually in periods when prices on vintage fretted instruments are rising rapidly, we hear more and more complaints that rich collectors are pushing prices so high that the finest guitars, mandolins and banjos are being taken out of the hands of musicians. Not only is it claimed that musicians are being deprived of the opportunity - or, as some would go so far as to say, their right - to play these instruments, but the public is also being deprived of the experience of hearing the best instruments played by the best musicians.

 

This is hardly a new complaint. It's been circulating for almost 200 years, ever since the emergence of violin collectors in the early 1800s. And the argument was as groundless then as it is now.

 

The basic premise is that collectors are greedy hoarders who take instruments out of circulation and in effect deprive needy and deserving musicians of fine original vintage instruments. Let's address the last part of this premise first. Are musicians really deserving of these instruments? Well, yes and no. We would all prefer to hear the finest musicians playing on the finest instruments, of course. Would we want to hear Sam Bush, for example, play Bill Monroe's 1923 Lloyd Loar-signed Gibson F-5, which is now owned by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum? Absolutely. It's no different than when the owners of Stradivarius violins loan them out to the top violinists. Few could argue that by virtue of his talent, Bush deserves a turn on Bill's F-5.

 

But would it be okay if a legendary mandolin player took a Loar F-5 and sawed off the fingerboard extension, threw away the pickguard, installed a pickup with a jack mounted through the rim, and played it hard, night after night, until the frets, fingerboard and finish were completely worn out? Of course not. That would be an outrage. Fortunately, we don't know of anyone who's done all of that to a Loar F-5, but we do know of a mandolin player who dug out the Gibson logo, scraped off the finish and broke the headstock scroll off of his Loar F-5. It was Bill Monroe. And you don't have to go very far in the bluegrass mandolin world to find another seemingly egregious example of "customizing" by legendary musicians. This time it was a 1937 F-5 and it had the braces shaved, the finish removed and the top sanded down. The "offending" parties were Norman Blake and John Hartford, and the mandolin became the famous "Hoss" owned by Sam Bush.

 

We really shouldn't vilify musicians for that sort of treatment. After all, they're just being pragmatic. As professional musicians they have to make a living with their instruments and the instruments must be up to the task at hand. Nevertheless, that is what musicians do to instruments. They customize them in ways that destroy originality. We see proof of this every day. On the day that we started composing this newsletter, for example, we took in a wonderful-sounding National Triolian with the paint completely scraped off the top and sides, and a 1920s Stella 12-string with miserably repaired side cracks. Both had been abused - by a musician in the case of the National and by an inept repairman in the case of the Stella - to the point where repair and restoration would cost more than the instrument was worth.

 

Like the basic complaint, abused instruments go back at least far as the violins of the early 1800s. Musicians were not only playing them and inflicting normal wear and tear, they were customizing them, thinning down the tops, doing radical re-graduations and replacing the necks. The result is appalling: There are no fully original Stradivarius violins left anywhere in the world. Every one of them has had some kind of modification or repair. All but six have a non-original neck. Guitar collectors complain about a broken solder joint or a replaced tuner. Think what it would be like if all but six of the sunburst Les Pauls and pre-CBS Stratocasters had a replaced neck.

 

Who replaced those necks and made all those other modifications to the Strads? It wasn't the collectors. It was musicians and their repairmen - the same sort of people who have gouged out pickup cavities, shaved the necks, refinished with canned spray paint, and performed countless other atrocities on Les Pauls and Strats and other vintage treasures. Sooner or later, as musical tastes and musical styles change, it would happen to virtually every instrument if left in the possession of musicians.

 

Again, musicians should not necessarily be vilified for this, because few would knowingly damage a valuable instrument. More often, they merely "upgraded" a utility instrument. When Bill Monroe did what he did to his F-5 in the early 1950s, it wasn't worth $175,000 or more, which is what a pristine Loar-signed F-5 would bring today without the Monroe association. Monroe had just gotten his F-5 back from the Gibson factory, where he'd sent it for neck work. Whatever Gibson did or didn't do it, when Monroe got it back he was so angry that he removed the offending finish as well as the logo and the headstock scroll. At that point his mandolin may have been worth even less to him than the $150 he paid a Florida barbershop for it in the mid 1940s. Similarly, the violinists at the beginning of the 1800s had no idea that their Strads would skyrocket in value by the 1820s and would eventually be worth millions. When Loar F-5s, prewar D-45s, sunburst Les Pauls and pre-CBS Strats were new, no one could have known that their value might appreciate a hundred-fold or even a thousand-fold in four or five decades.

 

Ironically the same people we're accusing of damaging vintage instruments were also the first to recognize the value of these instruments. It was musicians in the early 1800s who discovered that the new factory-made violins were inferior to the older Italian instruments, and it was musicians in the mid 1960s who discovered that new Martins, Gibsons and Fenders didn't measure up to some of the older versions. Although Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe acquired their main instruments in the 1940s, they can still be ranked with Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Stephen Stills and other legends of the 1960s whose preference for older instruments caused other musicians as well as fans to gain an appreciation for these instruments and a desire to own them. In current times, there has been much talk in financial forums about building "portfolios" of instruments in the same cold, calculated way that investors play the stock market, but virtually every collector whom we know began buying instruments not as investments, but out of an emotional interest in the music, the musicians and the instruments themselves.

 

It's a short step from owning a special item to wanting to protect it, and that's where the accusation begins that collectors take instruments out of circulation. It's true, but only to a point. Owners of valuable violins routinely loan them to musicians so that they can be appreciated by the masses. The nature of rock and roll performance makes this a more dangerous proposition for a Les Paul or Stratocaster than for a Strad in a symphony setting, but owners of great instruments generally like to hear them played. The late Scott Chinery, who acquired a fabulous collection of guitars in the 1990s, once hosted a party to celebrate his Blue Collection of commissioned archtops, and he opened up his display cases to provide such notable guitarists as Tal Farlow, Arlen Roth, Jimmy Vivino and G.E. Smith with instruments for a jam session. While Chinery may have taken these instruments out of general circulation and into protective custody, he by no means retired them.

 

Continuing with Chinery as an example, his death released many of these instruments back into circulation. The other high-profile collection of the 1990s, that of Japanese businessman Akira Tsumura, unexpectedly returned into circulation when Tsumura ran into legal troubles. Fretted instruments, when properly cared for, can have a life expectancy of hundreds of years, so unless an instrument ends up in a museum (where it still may be played on occasion), its "captivity" in a collection is only temporary. And it can enjoy better treatment in a collection, especially when it comes to repair and restoration, than it would in the hands of a working musician.

 

Contrary to the basic argument, collectors ultimately cause more instruments to be put into circulation than they take out. In the case of violins, dealers and collectors scoured Europe for old Italian instruments, and they discovered them sitting unused, collecting dust in monasteries, in private homes, in the estates of the original makers, etc. The same is true of the collectors who started in the 1960s looking for fretted instruments. For every one they took out of circulation, they uncovered dozens that they put back into circulation. In my own personal case, for every one instrument that I wanted to keep, I would turn up a hundred pieces that were of no personal interest to me but were cheap enough that I could resell them, which put them back into circulation (and, of course, provided funding for me to search further for the instruments I collected). Often enough these were discovered in poor homes where they were not cared for, in closets and in attics that were unheated and uncooled. If they had not been found by people like me they might have been thrown in the trash in some cases, or modified, refinished or in some other way "repaired." Or worse. One collector I know went to visit the owner of an original five-string flathead Mastertone and found the owner's kids using the resonator as a sled in the snow. I feel safe in saying that no collector has ever treated an instrument that way.

 

Collectors also make a great contribution in the area of education. Their passion for instruments has driven much of the research and the books and articles that have been published on vintage instruments. Many of those who criticize collectors might not have ever heard of their coveted instruments in the first place had it not been for collectors' educational contributions.

 

The biggest complaint about collectors is that they drive prices up. That's true, but that's the nature of any open market where demand exceeds supply. Collectors can't do anything about it, nor can dealers. Even if the buyers were all musicians, with no collectors allowed, as long as the demand for a certain instrument is greater than the supply, musicians would drive prices higher. Then the complaint would be that rich musicians were taking instruments out of the hands of equally deserving but less affluent musicians. The upside of rising prices is that they protect the instruments. As we've already discussed, instruments with no value get no respect. Most of these collectible instruments come back into the market eventually, and when they do, they have been well cared for, and their increased values will ensure that owners will continue to take good care of them.

 

As a final note, let's imagine what would happen if disgruntled musicians got what they wished for, and all the instruments in collections were released to musicians. Then you would really have some angry musicians, because there just aren't enough instruments to go around. There were only 91 prewar Martin D-45s to start with, and many of those have been butchered. There were less than 2100 herringbone D-28s. Maybe 250 Loar-signed Gibson F-5 mandolins. Only a handful of original Gibson five-string flathead Mastertones. An estimated 1700 sunburst Les Pauls. If these instruments were handed out to musicians to use as utility tools, they would either be further damaged, to the point that soon there would be no original examples in existence, or else musicians would take better care of them and put them in protective custody, and then they would become their worst nightmare - collectors.

 

George Gruhn and Walter Carter

[The Mick]

I did not read the post in it's entirety but what I did made since. As a "player" my main guitars are one's I bought used and pre abused. I love Les Paul Deluxe's for there playability more than any other guitar. However I don't like the mini humbuckers in them for most of the music I play. I have over the years searched out several that had already been routed out for full size humbuckers so not to create any more. I play my guitars hard at gigs and it shows. All of the nice guitars I've owned have always ended up sold because I just don't want to beat them up.

[SGplayer1994]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I do agree that many musicians ruin some vintage instruments, but as far as I go, the only modifications done to my guitars are the additions of strap locks, while the original strap buttons are safely stored in my closet.

[recsec]

That is a great article, just like car and motorcycle collectors, musical instrument collectors provide similar service in keeping those rare cars, motorcycles, and musical instruments in good shape and making them available to be seen and heard. Thanks for the post.

[saturn]

Interesting perspective. And not much longer than a typical Milod post j/k

[L5Larry]

There was so much BS in this article I had to put on hip waders to get through it. I would like to write a line-by-line rebuttal, but I don't have a couple of days to do it because I'm a working musician who actually has to play guitars to make a living. This article even lowers my already low opinion of George Gruhn, and is only a self-serving attempt to try to justifiy his business practices and preceedures. I guess ole George is having trouble sleeping at night and needed this "confessional" hoping to receive absolution from the musicians whom he claims to serve.

[myspace.com/jessenoah]

interesting read

 

my take is very simple, guitar companies should make them with the SAME exact production styles they used in the glory days, letting wood dry by air, using rare or dangerous commodities, building them 20 or 30 at a time

 

it would cost more, but it wouldnt cost 6 figures like a original blackgaurd tele or burst would!

[Riffster]

There was so much BS in this article I had to put on hip waders to get through it. I would like to write a line-by-line rebuttal' date=' but I don't have a couple of days to do it because I'm a working musician who actually has to play guitars to make a living. This article even lowers my already low opinion of George Gruhn, and is only a self-serving attempt to try to justifiy his business practices and preceedures. I guess ole George is having trouble sleeping at night and needed this "confessional" hoping to receive absolution from the musicians whom he claims to serve.

 

[/quote']

 

Definitely his point of view Larry but he did not create the market neither does he control it, he just plays in it.

 

I personally am not into vintage instruments, I like to look at them as history pieces and would not pay a premium for a rare or unusual instrument.

 

I do think he makes a few good points though, they are not his conclusions but tries to explain the collector mentality.

[rocketman]

OK, so here's a question for everyone. If you owned a real '59 Les Paul, what would you do with it?

[NeoConMan]

I'll comment more broadly later, but I can tell you personally that Walter Carter knows his guitars.

 

That guy ROCKS!

[myspace.com/jessenoah]

OK' date=' so here's a question for everyone. If you owned a real '59 Les Paul, what would you do with it?[/quote']

 

 

sell it and buy 12 awesome guitars

easy question

[surfpup]

sell it and buy 12 awesome guitars

easy question

 

Close. Sell it. Buy a couple of awesome guitars and amps and invest the rest to pay for the kids' college educations.

[Silverbursted]

OK' date=' so here's a question for everyone. If you owned a real '59 Les Paul, what would you do with it?[/quote']

I would put it behind glass and save it for my Grandkids. But I doubt I would ever buy a guitar like that. I don't see that as selfish, rather pragmatic.

[charlie brown]

Thanks, Stiffhand...it had been awhile, since I'd seen this article. I read George's

"Letters" quite often. I think this one, or one like it, has been around awhile.

But, it's good to see it, again.

 

Thanks,

CB

[Witmer]

Thought-provoking read... not sure what I think, but thanks for putting it out here.

[pohatu771]

If I had a 1959 Les Paul Standard, I certainly wouldn't keep it.

 

Assuming it would sell for $150,000, which is probably lower than it actually would.

 

The first assessment would be to see how it plays and sounds. If it really is as great as most people (most of which have never even played a 1959...) say they are, I'd find something that plays and sounds the same. For a small percentage of the selling price, I'm sure I could have a replica built, if nothing Gibson (or anyone else) produces compares.

 

The rest would easily pay off my own education, and buy a handful of guitars and amps that I'd like on top of that.

 

Figure the guitar would cost $5000 to buy or have built, and I owe/will owe $70,000.

 

I'd probably buy a car.

 

Then a guitar and amp or two or three.

 

The rest would be a nice payment towards a house, so it'd go in the bank for a while.

[DanvillRob]

Seems to me that collectors and musicians are opposite sides of the same coin. I, of course, think musicians should be the collectors, and people who collect but don't play are taking the instruments out of circulation...but only for awhile. The GREAT musicians not yet born will be grateful for vintage instruments taken "out of circulation" right now, but will be returned in years to come.

 

I am NOT a collector. My Jubilee is beat pretty bad. My Dove is "played", not abused, but not pampered. My Doves In Flight is pristine, and I hope to leave it to a guitar-playing grandchild sometime in the future. If that grandkid plays it, I'll be satisfied.... if they "collect" it, I won't be as happy, (being selfish, I'm hoping I can enjoy hearing it played by whoever gets it).

 

Musicians need the collectors, and collectors need the musicians. The price they both pay is the increased cost of vintage instruments.

 

Bob

[duane v]

I don't know, but it's hard for me to side with someone (Gruhn) that has a used modded/repaired 1960 Les Paul Standard going for the low low price of $185,000[blink]

[Riffster]

A lot of people think of collectors and musicians exclusive of each other and collectors are usually criticized for what I see but there are a ton of professional musicians that have huge guitar collections.

 

Rick Nielsen has 2,000 guitars including a '59 burst and one of the rarest Gretsch guitars ever and there are 1,998 more, yes he is a musician but how many "tools" does he need to work? not 2,000 for sure he is also a collector and there are more like him although nobody probably with the same number of guitars.

 

Personally if I had a '59 I would sell it and roll in a pile of cash with a couple of high quality hookers (don't judge me), then I would think what to do with the rest of the money.

 

By the way charlie brown, it is an old newsletter I read it a couple of years ago.

[Riffster]

I don't know' date=' but it's hard for me to side with someone (Gruhn) that has a used modded/repaired 1960 Les Paul Standard going for the low low price of $185,000[blink']

 

I am not sure all of the guitars you see in his site are his, for what I understand he sells consigments too, it is better to get a commission without having to fork out the cash up front and have it sit on your inventory for months.

[Silenced Fred]

OK' date=' so here's a question for everyone. If you owned a real '59 Les Paul, what would you do with it?[/quote']

 

If there was no market for it, I would play it. Seeing there is one, I would sell it, but I see no need for something to have that I wouldn't play. It would be pointless for me. If that is all I had, I would play it.

 

Selling it would pay for:

 

My education

A 335 (Ebony, Burst and a Red one)

LP Standard

LP Trad Pro

Am Std Strat

Coupla' Orange amps

Marshall Stack

A car

and some pocket change

 

But hey, that's just me

[ChanMan]

If I had a '59 LP....

 

depends on if it was a player or not. If it was a dog I'd sell it. If it was a toneful axe, I'd keep it and play it.

 

 

 

 

Let collectors collect, and players play. It's a great big old world out there.

[Shnate McDuanus]

Very interesting read. As one who never opposed collectors on principle, all I really have to say is that there are enough guitars in the world to go around.

 

As for the '59? I'd sell it. Gotta make some money to pay for that college education.

[dem00n]

I dont want to be mean but Gruhn is a great place but they ****ing rip guys off.

[charlie brown]

A lot of people think of collectors and musicians exclusive of each other and collectors are usually criticized for what I see but there are a ton of professional musicians that have huge guitar collections.

 

Rick Nielsen has 2' date='000 guitars including a '59 burst and one of the rarest Gretsch guitars ever and there are 1,998 more, yes he is a musician but how many "tools" does he need to work? not 2,000 for sure he is also a collector and there are more like him although nobody probably with the same number of guitars.

 

Personally if I had a '59 I would sell it and roll in a pile of cash with a couple of high quality hookers (don't judge me), then I would think what to do with the rest of the money.

 

[b']By the way charlie brown, it is an old newsletter I read it a couple of years ago.[/b]

 

 

Yeah, I thought I'd read it, before! I enjoy George's letters, etc. I'll never have the income,

for "Collecting" pre se...but, it's fun to read about those, who do, and even the ones that

"wonder" about how/why they do, etc. I'm just happy to have what I do own, and to be able to

play a gig, now and then, even if it's in a local bar or small club! It's always a Hoot! ;>)

 

CB