The market value of a modded vintage guitar...

[Tim Armstrong]

THIS THREAD about a fairly beat and modded 1966 Telecaster that someone is trying to sell for big money really shocked me, as the guitar in question is extremely similar to MY Beloved 1966 Telecaster, and the price being asked is about four times what I thought my Tele was worth on the market.

I've always thought of this guitar as a lifetime keeper for me, but that was easy to do when I thought it was, well, affordable. Heck, I paid $700 for it back in 1995, and last time I checked (a few years back), it was worth maybe $2k. Now I'm seeing the price on this very similar guitar being so much higher, I gotta ask, just how much guitar am I holding here?

Note: this is NOT a cleverly disguised ad. I don't really want to sell my Tele, and if I decide to, I'll almost certainly post a Tasteful eBay notice (or else put it in the TDPRI Classifieds).

At this point, I'm just curious, how much is it worth?

Assume, for the sake of discussion, that it looks almost exactly like the one in the post above, right down to the aged Fiesta Red refin. Changed pickups (currently has a great old early 90s Van Zandt flatpole bridge pickup), changed pickguard, changed tuners, changed switch (original broken switch included). Definitely a player, not a pristine collectors piece...

Feb 66 neck stamp, and correct serial number.

Thanks for your help!

Tim

[Dave Hopping]

Tim,I think the operative word is "trying"to sell....I just looked on Gbase,and the closest equivalent '66 there was $7K,bearing in mind,of course,that the $7K guitar is being advertised by a retailer.It had the original blonde finish,plus a whole lot fewer mods than the red $8K Tele.Since the price was quoted in British pounds,I'm assuming that the guitar is in England,perhaps Europe,and the market could be higher there.I just don't know enough to say.
My thought is that if that guitar were in the USA the asking price on a private sale ought to be at most about half of the $8K he says he wants,with substantial downward wiggle room.

[openbar]

Yes, "asking" price is kinda ridiculous. I've been following late 60's-early 70's teles on ebay, most with just stupid "asking" prices. And they're all just sitting there, for months.

[mke52]

If the guitar is all original including the original case it's worth anywhere between $10.000to $15.000 the price depends on the general condition and the colour. Custom colurs are more expensive than standard ones although this is true only for fender vintage and not for gibson. Don't ask me why , I don't know...

If it's refinished take 50% off that value
If the wiring has been changed or pups are modified take 30% of the value

All modifications detract value and they sum; that's why IMHO i value the guitar of the thread you mentioned no more that $1500.

Refretting however is not considered a "major offence" on a vintage guitar since frets are considered consumables. a pro refret will lower the value of about $1000 but then again a perfect guitar with used frets has a lower value than a good fretboard.

[shoretyus]

Pretty hard question NOT to ask. I am in the same boat. The Tele's I have built have turned out as good or better than my 66'. So tempting to try and sell it. It has minibucker in it and some major body mods but nothing a refin wouldn't fix. But at $1500 to $2k I will keep it. IFI could get $5 I might consider it but that won't happen in this economic climate.

[allen st. john]

Tim:
Sent you a PM.

[sean79]

Originally Posted by shoretyus

IFI could get $5 I might consider it but that won't happen in this economic climate.

Heck, I'll give you five bucks for it.

[keithcc]

The interesting thing is why guitars like this never show up in the vintage lists.

We all know the real reason why: they get revirginized. "Refin" really means "refinished so as you can tell". Because the real operators out there can do a finish that can not be told from Fender original. And the surprising thing is that custom colors are easier to do than a sunburst or a butterscotch even.

Think about a Fender guitar played out regularly for forty years, All the hardware is simply worn out. Both pickups went open and at least one pot failed completely, There's no finish left on the back.

To me a guitar with honest use by a skilled user, including repairs and mods, by a skilled player tells a story. The 50 year old virgin tells a story, too, alright-it got stuck under the bed in '62 and the owner finally died so the kids unloaded it to pay for a trip to Disneyland and new carpets for the house.

[Groovey Records]

Tim Didn't you say that Robbie Robertson once drove by your cousins house really fast while he was talking to you on the phone your tele was in the room next door?

Thats gotta be worth a few bucks

At least a grand!

[Strat God]

So many variables. What if it was owned by a famous player with documentation? Does the refin and rewound pickups matter as much anymore?

[ADK Teleman]

As stated above moding doe detract form the value of the guitar. Gruhns are really great at explaining the hows and whys of the whole value thing. The owned by a famous person...really doesn't add much value to the guitar from what I understand. I tend to leave my guitars stock...not because I will ever sell them, but because IMO Fender has been doing this alot longer than I have been playing so..I am not going to mess with a great formula..:)

[tboy]

Seems to me that modded guitars, or any guitars that have any issues at all, are becoming less desirable as valuable vintage collectibles. I just sold a few pieces and was shocked at the real current market value, just because of a few iffy things.
Collectors/investors seem to still be willing to drop top dollars on 100% pure documented examples of "under the bed" type guitars with tags, receipts and solid provenance. But any monkey business at all is really becoming an issue for the folks who actually drop the bucks regularly.

I think this is a great development. Maybe we'll get back to a point where players can get great guitars for reasonable bucks, while the few truly pristine models that still exist maintain their righteous values.

[Lost_N_Austin]

Wow the pickup "Route" in that was a real hack job. I thought mine was a little rough.
I think you could do better with a pair of nail clippers. Here is a picture of my '66.


My Tele is getting more valuable every day - it was touched by Bill Kirchen


Here is what it looked like when I got it.


Here it is today


I think my guitar is worth $5-K But a guitar is only worth what someone will pay for it, not what you are asking for it.

Lost_N_Austin

[neocaster]

Like any commodity, unless you're looking to realize a gain/loss, it's worth exactly one modded 66 Tele. No more, no less. That said, here's a search of all completed auctions with the word Telecaster in the title. Sorted by price in descending order, most high-asking price auctions ended unsuccessfully. A heavily modded 67 went for 3,049. A re(un)finished 68 that was otherwise all original went for $2,700. On the high end were an original 61 for $15,000 (sold and relisted. Buyer backed out?) and 71 Rosewood for $10,766.99.

It looks very much like a buyer's market for modified vintage instruments. Not down to 10 years ago, but way off two years ago.

[keithcc]

Originally Posted by ADK Teleman

As stated above moding doe detract form the value of the guitar. Gruhns are really great at explaining the hows and whys of the whole value thing. The owned by a famous person...really doesn't add much value to the guitar from what I understand. I tend to leave my guitars stock...not because I will ever sell them, but because IMO Fender has been doing this alot longer than I have been playing so..I am not going to mess with a great formula..:)

I guarantee that if Elvis Presley (yeah, not much of a player), John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, or another dead A lister owned a guitar, particularly if it was something they were known to use, with sufficient documentation, that alone is 90% of a guitar's value. Less perhaps if it's a Burst or a prewar Martin D-45.

George Gruhn is an honest man, but he's as opinionated as the rest. He told me that Tony Zemaitis was basically a builder of unmusical and sloppy tinker toys and that (along with other people) dissuaded me from buying one as a teenager. The guitar I would have bought would be worth fifty grand today.

My attitude is there are, in the car world, restorers and there are rodders, and there's just no talking to either one from the other. The other side really doesn't get it, and they never will. Some people like building and tinkering with guitars, too, and some people prefer to believe the factory is the Vatican, inerrant in its papal bulls. Whatever turns your propeller, I figure.

As far as value goes, that is in the eye of the beholder. Even market forces change and change radically, and they DO NOT always come down on the side of originality. A fifties goldtop LP reworked into a Burst by a name guy that has a nice top may be worth more than it was as a Goldtop, even more than the Goldtop plus the several grand the name guys who do this charge. It still won't bring what a real Burst will but it will bring a ridiculous (in MY opinion) amount of money. All the archtop Martins are vanishing because people are retopping them into flattops. It's a new top, the job costs more than building a new guitar, and you destroy a real and rare vintage guitar and get a common mutt-but a common mutt that brings a lot of money.

A lot of early Jazzmasters lost their necks when someone with a vintage Strat had a neck failure. You could just get a Jazzmaster neck and change the decal. Now they just build a dead nuts replica neck and no one's much the wiser.

Look at the banjo guys. You can't find a tenor, plectrum or guitar banjo Mastertone any more because they're all converted to five strings. That would be no loss if they simply made a new neck, but a lot of times they butchered the old one for the peghead and made a mutt.

Leo Fender hasn't made the decisions at Fender in about 45 years, and after that it's all been looking back. They really have not had a revolutionary product since: the big progress has been regress, with the vintage reissues. Why Fender makes anything BUT a vintage reissue is beyond me, their modernization never seems to be a big improvement. Or if it is, they abandon it and go back to the old way.

In my opinion there is a lot of improvement that can be done on Fender guitars from a playing, ruggedness and versatility standpoint and in every case it's been the aftermarket and individual businesses and hobbyists that have done the job. Fender either ignores it or plays catch-up when it's too huge to ignore any more.

The real disappointment to me is that the modular inherent nature of Fender guitars and basses has never been effectively exploited so as to give the buyer exactly what he wants and needs. And the so called "Custom Shop" has become a farce: even getting them to do a simple parts swap entails an upcharge so high you're better off buying two guitars and swapping out the parts and putting the remains on e-Bay. And this is on an already so called Masterbuilt!

So no, I have no loyalty to the Fender company as it is so operated today. Fender doesn't know better than the aftermarket and hasn't since the seventies. Just going back to exact pre CBS standards would be a big step forward for them.

[keithcc]

Originally Posted by Lost_N_Austin

Wow the pickup "Route" in that was a real hack job. I thought mine was a little rough.
I think you could do better with a pair of nail clippers. Here is a picture of my '66.
\
I think my guitar is worth $5-K But a guitar is only worth what someone will pay for it, not what you are asking for it.

Lost_N_Austin

My guess is that guitar today with an original neck and all the right parts would simply get a new body by one of the on-the-down-low guys that do that sort of thing and be sold as a 100% correct vintage guitar. Burning the old body and making a new one from scratch would be faster if you had the pin routing jigs set up-and they do.