..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Discussion of vintage Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Bass VIs, Electric XIIs and any other offset-waist instruments.
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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Mechanical Birds » Fri Mar 05, 2021 3:11 am

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:10 pm
honestly if a lot of those guitars were "in storage" then they weren't being played often. i feel bad for the dude but at the same time, it's the collector types that push up the prices of these to the point where regular musicians can't afford to play them in the way they were intended.
Yeah, I know assuming is dumb but if this is what was in storage I can’t imagine what he kept in his house during that 3/4 month stretch where these were sitting in a storage thing and I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if the owner is legit wealthy. Not middle class doctor comfortable living ‘rich’ but actually rich. In which case all of that stuff could probably be replaced for, what, $150,000 on the high end? I know it sucks, no doubt about it, but it sucking for someone who makes less than 6 figures with a family to feed sucks a million times worse than it does for someone with millions of dollars in their checking account.

Either way I hope they get back to him and the thieves go to jail for a scary amount of time.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Debaser » Fri Mar 05, 2021 8:43 am

FYI, the collection reported contains 166 guitars. There's at least 23 amps, but that's not clear.

40 Jaguars, 13 being pre-CBS
19 Jazzmasters, 9 pre-CBS, including a '59 in blonde with gold hardware

117 guitars are pre-1970

The pre-CBS Jags and JMs are into a value of at least $200,000 alone, IMHO.
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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Debaser » Fri Mar 05, 2021 8:50 am

Highnumbers wrote:
Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:13 am
I wouldn't make the assumption that these "weren't secured in a way it should have been." I recently heard of another storage unit theft where the thieves got an adjacent unit and went through the interior walls to get whatever was available inside. Likely a targeted job.

Perhaps insurance fraud, who knows. But if not, the reality is that a collection like this should not be kept in a storage unit, period. Too familiar a tale, unfortunately.
No assumptions made, just my personal opinion. For example, if I was the owner of half this size collection, I would not place it all in one 'basket', and my own personal Ring type of camera would be situated for my own reassurance.

No doubt, it's not impossible if one really wants to break into a storage unit. What counts as a 'storage facility' isn't clear though. It could be a number of things.
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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by MechaBulletBill » Fri Mar 05, 2021 9:07 am

fuck thieves and fuck collectors, especially ones that can't look after their shit.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Scout » Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:27 am

Vintage guitars are a commodity. People can do whatever they want with their money, I don’t think I would buy $250,000 worth of equipment but I wouldn’t fault someone else for doing it. When I started playing in the ‘70’s you could buy ‘60’s Fenders for $250, of course I was in my teens and had no money but I remember guys in their 20’s going into little music stores to buy guitars as an investment and to resell. I also find it hard to believe that there are no security cameras and entry logs into the facility, smells a little funny.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:24 pm

Debaser wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 8:43 am
FYI, the collection reported contains 166 guitars. There's at least 23 amps, but that's not clear.

40 Jaguars, 13 being pre-CBS
19 Jazzmasters, 9 pre-CBS, including a '59 in blonde with gold hardware

117 guitars are pre-1970

The pre-CBS Jags and JMs are into a value of at least $200,000 alone, IMHO.

If those 2 1961 Burgundy Mist Jazzmasters are early enough, original and in excellent condition they would easily fetch half that amount to begin with. That collection is worth a lot if the guitars are original. A gold guard blond with gold hardware is at least a $50k guitar if it’s original and in great shape.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Highnumbers » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:48 pm

Sauerkraut wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:17 am
Highnumbers wrote:
Thu Mar 04, 2021 4:12 pm
Sauerkraut wrote:
Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:07 am
(...)if that is really one person’s collection, am I evil for hoping this means those guitars might actually be used to make some music with? I mean, those thieves are bastards, and it’s not like everyone should only own one guitar, but... 200+?! (...)
Yeah, have to say that's a pretty evil thought.

(...)But they've sat on this collection for decades, totally off the internet and out of the spotlight. This is one such collection.
Why do that though? Why store away loads of rare guitars for decades? The idea that he (it seems safe to assume) kept them out of the spotlight makes it even weirder; why not at least photograph them for people to enjoy? I guess I just don’t understand the point of collecting. Is it meant as a life insurance policy? Was he going to donate all of them to a museum at some point? He does realise he’ll die one day like the rest of us? Was he trying to keep them out of hairy metalheads‘ malicious hands? So many questions...

I’d love to see a Louis Theroux documentary about someone like him.
At one point in the 70s and early 80s, these guitars were practically being thrown away. You could barely give away a Fender Jaguar in that era.

A lot of the people who took up collecting back then did it because it was easy and inexpensive to acquire guitars and in many cases I've heard collectors that speak of this era like they were bringing in refugees. Plucking instruments out of a skip/dumpster or from classified ads where literally nobody else wanted them.

And you're also talking about the same generation of people that don't feel the compulsive need to share every aspect of their lives online. I'm not surprised at all that some old guy doesn't "share his collection" online because the thought of photographing and publicly displaying this stuff online seems like an incredibly foreign concept to them (or even a security risk).

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by SignoftheDragon » Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:12 pm

Yeah, I don't see a point in putting any blame on the collector/victim at this point. (maybe a little, but purely from jealousy speaking.) We can make all sorts of assumptions about whether this collection is 'deserved' etc, but it's not vibing with me. This stuff should be returned to the rightful owner.

Whoever hit his collection is a straight-up criminal and a dick of the highest order. I hope he/they are caught and serve time in the most hellish cage we can throw them in.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:41 pm

Highnumbers wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:48 pm
Sauerkraut wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:17 am
Highnumbers wrote:
Thu Mar 04, 2021 4:12 pm


Yeah, have to say that's a pretty evil thought.

(...)But they've sat on this collection for decades, totally off the internet and out of the spotlight. This is one such collection.
Why do that though? Why store away loads of rare guitars for decades? The idea that he (it seems safe to assume) kept them out of the spotlight makes it even weirder; why not at least photograph them for people to enjoy? I guess I just don’t understand the point of collecting. Is it meant as a life insurance policy? Was he going to donate all of them to a museum at some point? He does realise he’ll die one day like the rest of us? Was he trying to keep them out of hairy metalheads‘ malicious hands? So many questions...

I’d love to see a Louis Theroux documentary about someone like him.
At one point in the 70s and early 80s, these guitars were practically being thrown away. You could barely give away a Fender Jaguar in that era.

A lot of the people who took up collecting back then did it because it was easy and inexpensive to acquire guitars and in many cases I've heard collectors that speak of this era like they were bringing in refugees. Plucking instruments out of a skip/dumpster or from classified ads where literally nobody else wanted them.

And you're also talking about the same generation of people that don't feel the compulsive need to share every aspect of their lives online. I'm not surprised at all that some old guy doesn't "share his collection" online because the thought of photographing and publicly displaying this stuff online seems like an incredibly foreign concept to them (or even a security risk).
I feel like a lot of people just don’t understand the concept of collecting because they see it only as a recent phenomenon dominated by cynical entrepreneurs who don’t care about guitars beyond their investment potential.

In reality, collecting started before the mid 90s, which is when this cynical idea seemed to have really come about in earnest with people like Chinery, etc. and was made infamous by the ~2006 crash.

Most collectors are actually super-enthusiasts, way beyond anyone on most guitar forums. They care about history, preservation, music in general, and they tend to actually play guitar and support live music as well. In other words, they give a shit.

My guess is that the guy in question here is the kind of collector who has been collecting guitars for a long time, is the kind of collector who actually found original and rare guitars from their original owners (this takes actual work and time, unlike looking at Reverb or guitar forums) and who had to be passionate about it because it was probably not easy to track all these guitars down and the guitars weren’t really worth anything at the time. Offsets were still $500 back when comparable Strats were $10k.

Whatever you think about what happened, it seems pretty obvious to me that this guy had/has a passion for offset guitars and it probably took him a very long time to put his collection together. Seems like people here are just jealous of what this guy was able to do. I’d bet many of these guitars wouldn’t have survived to see today if they had been sold to just whomever.

If you want to know why someone wouldn’t post pics of their entire rare guitar collection online, see the original post, lol.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by SignoftheDragon » Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:53 pm

My REAL problem with the guy is:

All those vintage offsets, and NOT A SINGLE ELECTRIC XII.

Nice 'collection' there, dood.


Pft.
Last edited by SignoftheDragon on Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Sauerkraut » Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:54 pm

SignoftheDragon wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:12 pm
Whoever hit his collection is a straight-up criminal and a dick of the highest order. I hope he/they are caught and serve time in the most hellish cage we can throw them in.
I completely agree with you on that. I think few would argue with you on that.

At the same time, I feel very fortunate that I haven't caught the hoarding bug myself and I'm really, genuinely not jealous of anyone who has to worry about keeping an enormous collection like that safe, let alone go through the nightmare of losing it all. You can be as passionate as is humanely possible, but unless you have eight arms, when you have that many guitars most of them won't leave their case more than once a year. I do think that's a shame; those guitars could be used in better ways. Why not collect gold instead? Or something else that has no function but is worth money. Whichever way you spin it, guitar collectors with silly big collections are depriving others for their own... I don't know... ego? I don't know what it is, because I don't really understand it, and I wouldn't mind it if it didn't stop other people from enjoying these guitars.

Also, it seems to me that at this point, in 2021, the argument that they're keeping the instruments safe is moot. More than 30 years have passed since the 80s and people appreciate these guitars now, they're worth stupid amounts of money and there's plenty of other people with a passion for offset guitars (this forum is proof).
Last edited by Sauerkraut on Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by andy_tchp » Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:54 pm

Some really fucking shithouse attitudes here; the gist being someone just had a huge amount of irreplaceable stuff stolen, but somehow deserved it because they have nice things.

Also: whining about 'why should he collect so many guitars' on a forum where each member seems to own on average 25+ guitars and an amp for every occasion... Gee, I have no idea why you can't afford a $3k vintage guitar either, it's a mystery.

:fp:
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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by Sauerkraut » Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:19 pm

andy_tchp wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:54 pm
Some really fucking shithouse attitudes here; the gist being someone just had a huge amount of irreplaceable stuff stolen, but somehow deserved it because they have nice things.

Also: whining about 'why should he collect so many guitars' on a forum where each member seems to own on average 25+ guitars and an amp for every occasion... Gee, I have no idea why you can't afford a $3k vintage guitar either, it's a mystery.

:fp:
I don't think you get the gist at all. Nobody deserves to have their gear stolen. I didn't write that either. I hope he gets every last guitar back, and that shitty Roland amp too, because theft is awful and it's obviously his life's work.

I'm just curious what the motivation behind and the use of building a collection like that is in the first place. I don't understand the need to collect and hide away rare, old functional objects like that, which many other people are also passionate about. It seems selfish to me, not to mention utterly absurd. Doesn't mean he deserves to be punished.

It's funny to think that Sonic Youth had a similar amount of old offsets at some point, many of which they arguably butchered. But I'm glad they did, because they made so much fantastic music with it, that'll be with us for centuries (knock on wood). They had the good sense to sell a lot of them after they quit though.

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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by andy_tchp » Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:34 pm

Sauerkraut wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:19 pm
I don't think you get the gist at all. Nobody deserves to have their gear stolen. I didn't write that either.
Nah. Obviously I was talking of the multiple other responses in this thread where that attitude is so clearly oozing out, even if incredibly thinly veiled.
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Re: ..pssst...wanna buy a vintage offset?

Post by bterry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:49 pm

Sauerkraut wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:19 pm
andy_tchp wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:54 pm
Some really fucking shithouse attitudes here; the gist being someone just had a huge amount of irreplaceable stuff stolen, but somehow deserved it because they have nice things.

Also: whining about 'why should he collect so many guitars' on a forum where each member seems to own on average 25+ guitars and an amp for every occasion... Gee, I have no idea why you can't afford a $3k vintage guitar either, it's a mystery.

:fp:
I don't think you get the gist at all. Nobody deserves to have their gear stolen. I didn't write that either. I hope he gets every last guitar back, and that shitty Roland amp too, because theft is awful and it's obviously his life's work.

I'm just curious what the motivation behind and the use of building a collection like that is in the first place. I don't understand the need to collect and hide away rare, old functional objects like that, which many other people are also passionate about. It seems selfish to me, not to mention utterly absurd. Doesn't mean he deserves to be punished.

It's funny to think that Sonic Youth had a similar amount of old offsets at some point, many of which they arguably butchered. But I'm glad they did, because they made so much fantastic music with it, that'll be with us for centuries (knock on wood). They had the good sense to sell a lot of them after they quit though.
Exactly which part is selfish? There’s an amazing amount of assumption in your thinking about how and how much these guitars were used, seen, etc.

A cursory internet search would lead you to old articles in magazines where some of these guitars were featured/written about and who are you to say how they were used? How would you even know?

Comparing an average musician/guitar player to Sonic Youth is a bit of a fucking stretch, don’t you think? Who exactly is being selfish, here? Are you saying if the guy isn’t playing a certain guitar he should sell it to you so you can hack it up like Thurston and wank around in your garage band?

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