The definition of vintage

[GhostPlayer]

I think predicting the future when it comes to "vintage" is a sucker's game. It assumes that the guitar remains popular in whatever forms of music come next, no guarantee. Should the guitar fall off the radar, we can look to the violin for a guess as to what could happen with the guitar. Granted, the violin has never been marketed the way the guitar was in terms of branding and name recognition certainly, but also violins look the same to the naked, untrained eye and electric guitars by design don't.

Well, I agree with the bolded bit if we are talking about a definition that ties vintage to popular/desirable and possibly valuable. But if it is purely tied to the quality of the instrument then I don't think it really matters.

Think of it this way. We've all heard the theories that the bottom is going to fall out of the vintage market when the aging boomers or their families flood the market with their vintage collections and the younger generations have no interest in them. If that happens (not looking to debate if it will here - who knows), supply and demand kicks in and we get to a point where pre-CBS Fenders become readily available at a reasonable price - do they cease to be Vintage at that point? If the answer is no, that means we don't tie the definition of vintage to popularity and value then it opens the door to guitars being made today being considered vintage. Probably not the mass produced guitars of today, but the higher quality luthier made guitars? We look at student guitars and amps of the past as vintage today, so who knows.

Fair point, except for one simple and indisputable economic principle. Supply and demand. The world population in 1960 was 3,7 billion, this year 2015 we entered at 7,2 billion. And the future does not look all that good either. I suspect good old nerd-GAS will vastly surpass in depth knowledge.

How many pre-CBS Fenders exist in total, anyone knows?

[thedude99]

Fair point, except for one simple and indisputable economic principle. Supply and demand. The world population in 1960 was 3,7 billion, this year 2015 we entered at 7,2 billion. And the future does not look all that good either. I suspect good old nerd-GAS will vastly surpass in depth knowledge.

How many pre-CBS Fenders exist in total, anyone knows?

Supply and Demand is exactly what I was getting at though. The theory is supply goes up as the boomers guitar collections start getting dumped, and demand goes down due to some combination of a decreased popularity of guitar playing in general and/or decreased desire of the guitars (which in a lot of ways is tied to the hero's of yesterday - Clapton, Hendrix, SRV, etc). Supply & demand under such cases is exactly what will drive the prices down.

As for how many were produced, others might have estimates, but pre-CBS Fenders certainly aren't rare across the board. They were mass produced guitars.

None of us know what will happen though. Guitar music may decrease in popularity or die a slow death and take guitar prices with them in the coming decades. Or it might experience a resurgence and drive them up. We may see a shift in what popular instruments are as those that idolized the vintage instruments and their players disappear and new hero's with different guitars appear. Or new developments in technology change what a guitar is and change the demand for it.

Who knows, will be interesting to see.

[Larry Mal]

Well, that is a good point. Let's say the guitar remains popular and useful with pop music, or that it ends up like the violin and more or less associated with period music of the day, it'll still be the earlier examples that are probably what's considered valuable.

I used to know any number of people who played in orchestras, and all the players of the violin family would use very old instruments.

[Ursa Minor]

I feel like pre CBS Fenders will always be sought after across generations. I also feel like they will continue to command high prices from dealers. I'm sure there will be fluctuations, hills and valleys, but I feel like that era will always be an important one to many for lots of different reasons. I also think there will always be someone with the money for pre-CBS guitars, whether it's current aging boomer, their kids, grandkids and so on.

As to what is considered "vintage"... I think it's been pretty well summed up already. For me it has to be fairly limited, special, and in terms of age I would say at least not from the 80s and especially not from the 90s. The term is so misused.