Was playing my '89 Stratocaster which I bought new and started thinking:
It's 34 years old. Back in 1989 a 34 year old guitar was built in 1955 and would have been a vintage guitar that had folks drooling, lol.
Chuck
Was playing my '89 Stratocaster which I bought new and started thinking:
It's 34 years old. Back in 1989 a 34 year old guitar was built in 1955 and would have been a vintage guitar that had folks drooling, lol.
Chuck
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
I started thinking of my one-owner '78 Les Paul as "vintage" at the start of the new millenium, when I had it refretted after twenty-two years of hard play. No question about my amps -- most of them were built when LBJ was the president.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Likewise. I got my 79 LP Std new in 79. Hard to call it vintage, but it is 44 years old. My 71 D28 is 52 years and I’ll refer to it as vintage at times.
Back in the late 70s when I (we) were drooling over a 57 Strat or a 59 LP, they were only 20 some odd years old.
I think we consider them vintage not by age, but because that was played by the artists when we started playing.
Mark
Most "vintage" guitars are firewood. There was a 3 year period when I was traveling extensively and on the hunt for a vintage guitar or two.
The vast majority was over priced junk. My newer guitars tune better, play better, sound better, and left lots of money in the bank for soliciting those "groupies" I would never earn through my career in music! LOL!
If you're bored, you're not groovin'.
Guitars are like cars. The old cars are bad riding, bad handling and bad performing, but people want them. A new 2023 Ford Mustang could probably have won LeMans in the 60's, lol. My Volvo SUV will outrun and out-handle any stock C3 Corvette.
Being on good terms with the HOG I've been able to play a lot of vintage stuff. Most vintage Les Pauls are cool if you dig the maple necks and pancake bodies. Fenders - most are rubbish.
I always chuckle at say, SRV's Strat. For those of us that were around in the day, we knew it was a partscaster and he had several necks on it during it's tenure as his main axe. But it's vintage, and anyone who declares it's not all original is a blasphemer.
Chuck
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
I’m lucky with my 79 LP. Yes to maple neck. No to pancake body. Weight is under 9.25. Paid the bills for me for years.
Mark
I don't know but it is cool to notice the aging of our gear.
My black strat which I bought new just turned 10 years old and my red strat will be 30 in January. It was the exact model I used to drool over in the early 90s and I was lucky to find one in good condition. It's a dog but I love my teenage dream strat
Last edited by S. Cane; 10-30-2023 at 06:16 PM.
My '78 is a heavyweight at just over 13 pounds. When I turned it in for its refret I bought a '94 R9 flametop so I could keep working which, by comparison, tips the scale at just under 8......a real bantamweight.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
I bought my Ric 4001 in 1978--hard to believe it's that old. But I'll never think of it as "vintage." I can still smell the case the first time I opened it, and that seems like yesterday. Nothing before 1970 seems vintage to me. A 66 Ric? Vintage. A 78? nah.
My Martin is almost 30 years old, and it gets sweeter every year, but I'll never think of it as vintage either. Like the Ric, it's just been an important part of my music life for a long time.
Now me? I've become vintage.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Are you due for a restoration yet?Originally Posted by ch willie
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Let’s just say I wish I’d bought the extended warranty for my body.Are you due for a restoration yet?
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
From your lips to God's ear!
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Acoustics can be a bit differernt. I bought my Gibson J-40 acoustic in 1973 - that's vintage... had some fixing up over the years but not much. The other day I broiught my J-200 to the studio and a guy asked if he could play it. He was overwhelmed (It is a good one), particulary when I told him I got it for my 50th birthday - 20 YEARS AGO. Vintage - meh... but it sure looks beautiful and has grown into its sound.
"We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain
True true.From your lips to God's ear!
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
I have often heard that theory (opinion, concept, whatever one wants to call it, I'm not disagreeing) but I myself never had the chance to actually make my mind about it. I played a few old guitars once or twice but never owned one.
My 52 year-old Framus 12-string (that I bought brand new) doesn't have an ounce of mojo, sad to say. My 1957 Gibson ES-225t has a modicum of mojo, but how it got there, I have no idea. My Robin Trower Signature Stratocaster has some mojo, but probably because Trower himself signed it.
None of my guitars has mojo because of anything I've done with them. I just must not be good enough.
Striving to be ordinary
Proud to be a TFF Dumbass!
I wouldn't call my '57 Les Paul Junior "firewood" though I'd stipulate that it does look somewhat like junk (seven decades haven't been all that kind to the cosmetics). But through the appropriate amp that original P90 sounds meaner than the MGM lion.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Even if 'vintage' is like a switch - all of a sudden an instrument goes from being merely used to vintage, Mojo is a different story, I don;t see something that's minty clean as having mojo - it's the dings and dents and wear from being played for years and years. There was someone on the LPF a little ways back that posted a 2010-ish guitar that;s had tons of road and play wear, to me that has more mojo than a new-looking '58 burst.
So IMO, mojo is earned, not something that just happens after a certain amount of time.
********************************
"Do you call sleeping with a guitar in your hands practicing?"
"It is if you don't drop it."
- Trent Lane, Daria, Episode 1-2.
Yep. Also have a 2010 R9 low 8s in weight. Sweet guitar.
Mark
I have several really old instruments with age going back to the ‘30s, but, based on the definition of an instrument and mojo, I guess all of them have achieved that status. For me they have created the sound I seeked to find so they are all magical instruments or I would have dumped them a long time ago.
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