Customer Reviews

The Official Vintage Guitar Magazine Price Guide, 2007 Edition

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As I begin to watch for vintage guitars popping up in the odd places in the hope of finding a bargain, this book is very helpful. Already it kept me from overpaying by several hunderd dollars for one guitar. Of course, most of the popular Gibson [35 pages] and Fender [26 pages] guitars get lots of coverage and, while not authorative on every manufacturer, model and year (how could one source have it all?) Greenwood's reference book has proven very valuable. All the photos are B/W, there is not a photo of every model of every manufacturer; but in fairness, I would not have spent what that book would have cost. All-in-all, excellent. Buy it while it's still current.

Having been a guitar maker and repairman for 38 years I have come to rely on the "Price Guide" since it's inception.
When used with "Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars" I can pinpoint the date the guitar was made, identify make and model fairly accurately and get a good idea of value.
This has been a great help in evaluating the over 200 guitars I've collected in the past several years.
Each year the "Price Guide" is expanded to include additional makes and models of guitars and this newest volume is no exception.

This is an interesting guide to browse but I would not rely on this guide for pricing. My experience is that the suggested prices are often as much as 50% off the actual fair market prices.

This music collector's reference represents the only volume covering all the collectible guitars of the industry, and sets industry standards when it comes to determining market values of collectible guitars. Both musicians and collectors will want to keep this guide at hand: it blends quick-find page headings and an index and dealer directory for the entire country with an examination of what makes a guitar collectible. Add black and white photos and paragraphs of maker and model history and you have a price guide which can't be beat: a must for music collectors and guitar players alike.

Absolutely a must if you are interested in investing, collecting, or knowing about vintage guitars. The best and most used "Blue Book". Very easy to use and very complete in its valuation of various models. Maybe more pictures would help but it is already quite a substantial book. I refer to it with every purchase and sales of a vintage (and not so vintage) guitar. I get one every year and have tracked the increase in value of many of my favorite models. Also helpful in establishing values for insurance purposes.

One can rarely perform any complex and important task, be it manual or cerebral, with a single tool. Research on any subject is a prime example; a single reference source is never adequate. This guide, while not as complete or exhaustive as some might like, is simply one of many reference tools, and an extremely useful one. Were the guitar market static, it might make sense to put together a voluminous compilation aspiring to be all-inclusive and unerringly accurate. But the guitar market is anything but static and this guide simply provides the best "snapshot" that it can at this particular time.

I must disagree with those other reviewers who say the prices in this guide are so vastly off the mark, and that ebay represents the new paradigm in pricing information. My own experience during the last few years has been repeated instances of wishful sellers justifying their asking prices by pointing to the "Buy It Now" prices of the burgeoning numbers of "Power Sellers" and "ebay Store" entities. Those prices obviously have no significance in defining the current market, because the vast majority of the listings expire without generating a single bid. Even more interesting are the numerous cases in which sellers have said that their guitars sold, at or above the asking prices, and then a month or two later the same sellers have the same guitars listed again. Were it to happen often enough, such fraudulent generation of apparent sales could help drive the market upward, just as those sellers are obviously hoping.

While ebay sales represent valuable pricing data, the authors of this guide have certainly tried to exclude sales to apparently collusive buyers, and probably weighted their analysis in favor of those sales that generated numerous bids.

In my opinion, this is an indispensable guide for pricing guitars etc...
Its is up to date on market values and easy for anyone to use.

Great tool for determining not only the value of your guitars but guaging their increase/decrease in value. Keep in mind these are closer to retail prices and used by some stores to price the intruments they have for sale. "GC" for example does this in some of the stores I have been to. It's a great way to study the market by buying each new issue annually for comparison from the years before.

Simply put, page after page have inaccuracies and incomplete information. If a novice like myself can find the errors it makes you wonder who in the heck the "experts" are. Do they proof read this before it goes to print? I am talking EASY things that most guitar players know.

It is just disappointing that a book that has an impact on market pricing is so inaccurate.

This price guide is a good reference book for anyone interested in buying, selling, collecting or edjucating themselves on used and vintage guitars, basses, and amplifiers.