Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Discussion of vintage Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Bass VIs, Electric XIIs and any other offset-waist instruments.
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graceless
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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by graceless » Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:20 pm

alvinstraight wrote:
Wed Mar 03, 2021 1:51 am
1958/1965 Factory Partsmaster. Only 15k.

https://reverend-guitar-man.myshopify.c ... ium=Social
"1965 Jazzmaster with 58 pickups and a refin"

This whole posting reads like "the lady doth protest too much" in an effort to convince the reader that it really is a whole hog '58!

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by graceless » Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:50 am

Woof

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BoringPostcards
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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by BoringPostcards » Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:25 pm

graceless wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:50 am
Woof

Image
You could get a really nice and minty 58/59 for 10K back in 2009. It sickens me to see a bog standard sunburst 63 in mediocre condition go for 10K.
I should have bought up Jazzmasters back when I got into them in the early 2000s. They were fairly cheap. I was born in 81, so I am too young to have bought any when they were going for like 200 bucks.
Det er mig der holder traeerne sammen.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by nonemoreblack » Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:32 pm

BoringPostcards wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:25 pm
graceless wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:50 am
Woof

Image
You could get a really nice and minty 58/59 for 10K back in 2009. It sickens me to see a bog standard sunburst 63 in mediocre condition go for 10K.
I should have bought up Jazzmasters back when I got into them in the early 2000s. They were fairly cheap. I was born in 81, so I am too young to have bought any when they were going for like 200 bucks.
One of my biggest gear regrets was passing on a 1961 Olympic white jazzmaster for $900 CAN back in the mid-90’s. I was a teenager buying my first good guitar so I ending up going with the brand-new MIJ Jaguar next to it because it was only $800. I had spent all summer pushing wheelbarrows to save up for an offset and the last thing I wanted to do was get an old dinged-up guitar. Oh well, probably should have bought stock in Apple back then too.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by graceless » Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:36 pm

Norm's just sold a 1960 Jazzmaster in much better condition - I played it with my own two hands - for $8500 (or thereabouts) so I'm hoping nobody bites at that full whack 10.5k price.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Unicorn Warrior » Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:08 pm

Cheapest way? Delete threads like this, don’t talk about offsets on the internet, and quit buying offsets in general.

It’s all our fault lol

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by BoringPostcards » Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:29 pm

Unicorn Warrior wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:08 pm
Cheapest way? Delete threads like this, don’t talk about offsets on the internet, and quit buying offsets in general.

It’s all our fault lol
We definitely aren't helping with our zealous promotion of their greatness.
Det er mig der holder traeerne sammen.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Highnumbers » Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:01 pm

BoringPostcards wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:25 pm
You could get a really nice and minty 58/59 for 10K back in 2009. It sickens me to see a bog standard sunburst 63 in mediocre condition go for 10K.
I should have bought up Jazzmasters back when I got into them in the early 2000s. They were fairly cheap. I was born in 81, so I am too young to have bought any when they were going for like 200 bucks.
You're a few years older than I am, so I hear you on missing out on the super cheap days. But that hasn't stopped be from buying in when I could.

People lamenting about what prices were 10 years ago compared to today will find themselves in the same situation 10 years from now. The past is the past, and we're not going back to those prices again. Just find a good one, jump in and be glad you did in the future.

Fender probably sold 5x as many sunburst Strats in the 60s than Jazzmasters, and $10K will barely buy you a refinished pre-65 Strat today. It's not unreasonable to speculate that sunburst Jazzmaster prices will equal or exceed what the market is realizing for average 60s sunburst Strats right now -- in 10 years or less.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:32 pm

Back when OSG was started it was 2006, near the height of the pre-recession guitar boom. Offset guitars were still not considered very desirable or collectable by most people.

Now we’re back at another high point in guitar prices but things have qualitatively changed for offsets. What is driving higher offset prices this time is not a general frenzy for vintage guitars lifting prices because Strats/Teles/Les Pauls are going up up up but because the desire for offset guitars is much greater and we have a supply vs demand situation.

Adding to the supply vs demand equation is the fact that Jazzmasters in particular were parted out for Strats during the first pre-recession era, making them much harder to come by nowadays relative to the increasing number of people looking for them. So many of them were parted out or destroyed and/or refinished that Jazzmaster prices are (IMO) going to go up a lot in the coming years. There just aren’t going to be enough of them to go around.

Anyway, no one can predict the future of course. Just my 2 cents.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by Embenny » Fri Mar 12, 2021 4:34 pm

nonemoreblack wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:32 pm
One of my biggest gear regrets was passing on a 1961 Olympic white jazzmaster for $900 CAN back in the mid-90’s. I was a teenager buying my first good guitar so I ending up going with the brand-new MIJ Jaguar next to it because it was only $800. I had spent all summer pushing wheelbarrows to save up for an offset and the last thing I wanted to do was get an old dinged-up guitar. Oh well, probably should have bought stock in Apple back then too.
This is exactly the right attitude (the part I bolded), which is to accept that none of us has a crystal ball. You could have skipped the guitar and bought $1000 of Amazon stock in 1997 and you'd have $1.8M today instead of either guitar, so there are much greater "missed opportunities" than passing over a guitar that went up in value tenfold in a quarter century if you want to indulge those thought processes.

Buy whichever guitar you enjoy right now that you can afford with however much money you have right now. We all win some and lose some. I've made some money selling guitars that happened to go up in value, but in 10 years I will probably look back and think, "if only I know we were heading toward $10k Mustangs!"

But I'm not hoarding guitars as investments. I bought them because I liked them, situations changed, and it made sense to sell them when I did.

Sure, it sucks that vintage guitars are becoming inaccessible, but to be honest, who really cares? We live in an absolute golden era where more amazing guitars are available at more price points than ever before. I had an original Classic Vibe strat I picked up used for $200, and frankly, with a set of noiseless pickups, I could have used that guitar as my only electric I owned for the rest of my life, and I'd never have been held back by anything.

There was a dark time where vintage Fenders and Gibsons were the highest quality guitars of that style at any price point when they were hundreds as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars. We can appreciate what made those instruments special and dream about owning them, but we have access to so many instruments that do the same things for so much less money now. If I hadn't been able to buy a couple of vintage offsets when I did, my life wouldn't be turning out any differently right now.
The artist formerly known as mbene085.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by mcatano » Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:40 am

bterry wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:32 pm
Back when OSG was started it was 2006, near the height of the pre-recession guitar boom. Offset guitars were still not considered very desirable or collectable by most people.

Now we’re back at another high point in guitar prices but things have qualitatively changed for offsets. What is driving higher offset prices this time is not a general frenzy for vintage guitars lifting prices because Strats/Teles/Les Pauls are going up up up but because the desire for offset guitars is much greater and we have a supply vs demand situation.

Adding to the supply vs demand equation is the fact that Jazzmasters in particular were parted out for Strats during the first pre-recession era, making them much harder to come by nowadays relative to the increasing number of people looking for them. So many of them were parted out or destroyed and/or refinished that Jazzmaster prices are (IMO) going to go up a lot in the coming years. There just aren’t going to be enough of them to go around.

Anyway, no one can predict the future of course. Just my 2 cents.
This is all true, but I would have to imagine that a large part of the spike in offset prices is due to people my age, who were teenagers in the 90s, being now being adults with money to spend on dumb shit like the guitar the guy in the band I love(d) played. Tech money has blown income disparity through the roof, so a lot of those with the means to indulge their interests aren't remotely price conscious. I know plenty of people who will drop $10K on a whim on a cool truck or a vacation or whatever, and many of them have great taste in music and cool rock gear.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:42 am

Absolutely, and so it goes. As the Strat was to baby boomers, the offfset is to Gen X and Millenials. People raised on 70s/80s/90s music are now or will become able to buy vintage guitars, and they are interested in offsets.

I’m on the Gen X/Millennial cusp and I’ve loved/played Jazzmasters since the mid 90s, but, I couldn’t afford anything but refins or MIJ models until about 10 years ago...

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by smjenkins » Sat Mar 13, 2021 7:43 am

bterry wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:32 pm
Adding to the supply vs demand equation is the fact that Jazzmasters in particular were parted out for Strats during the first pre-recession era, making them much harder to come by nowadays relative to the increasing number of people looking for them. So many of them were parted out or destroyed and/or refinished that Jazzmaster prices are (IMO) going to go up a lot in the coming years. There just aren’t going to be enough of them to go around.
This is something I didn't know and am very curious about. What parts were harvested for Strats? It seems like only the neck, neck plate, tuners, pots and strap buttons could be used on a Strat. Did people refinish the headstocks and put Strat waterslides on?

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Sat Mar 13, 2021 8:50 am

Yep, necks were pilfered and in some cases reshaped/logo’d to pass off as real or in many cases just used on Strats.

Knobs, wiring, pots, neck plates, tuners. If you had a Strat with unoriginal tuners and a Jazzmaster was $500 it was a no-brainer to buy the JM, part it out and make as much money as possible while putting your Strat back into original condition.

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Re: Cheapest way into a vintage offset?

Post by mcatano » Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:03 pm

I will readily admit to buying a refin '64 slab body mustang at a pawnshop in 1999 for $150, selling the L-series neck plate for something like $100 to some sketchy dude who worked at a local guitar shop and then flipping the guitar to a bandmate for $250.

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