What age does a Fender become collectable?

[Fat Rich]

Following on from the "Work of art or tat" thread, a few people here seem annoyed that a 50 year old Les Paul has been blinged up with expensive materials and believe it should have been left alone (I agree although in this case it sounds like it had already been ruined).

When I started playing in the mid 80s, pre CBS Fenders seemed to be considered "Classic" and collectable. 70s and (the then current) 80s Fenders weren't given the time of day by some players and were mercilessly modded, refinished or generally neglected. Even some scruffy pre CBS instruments weren't considered collectable or particularly valuable.

Now it seems that CBS 60s are worth a lot, 70s basses are fetching good money but I'm looking at my battered '78 Jazz knowing it would look much nicer with the body stripped or repainted but I'm wondering if this is this some kind crime against classic instruments? If it was an 80s Fender would that be OK, or a 90s?

I can understand limited editions from the 80s or 90s being valuable and also early Fender Japan examples being sought after now, will the rest become become valuable collectors instruments in say 20, 30 or 40 years time?

I wondered what age of Fender you'd consider fair game for some serious modding / refinishing or generally abusing, and when they should be left in all original condition and cared for as a future classic.

Edit: I narrowed it down to Fenders as they seem to be the most popular brand on Basschat, basically have only a couple of models that haven't changed much over the years.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Fat Rich

[Jazzneck]

Personally, I wouldn't mess with a Fender but I would and have built my own FenderAlike bitzas so I didn't begger up a real one, whatever it's age.
Usually works out cheaper in the long run, too.

[LukeFRC]

30 years I recon. Last few years the 70's stuff started getting expensive.... the 80's stuff and JV squiers are now shooting up
it will get interesting then as the 80's saw lots of different stuff developed- it will be interesting to see what stays popular

[Gust0o]

Is it less to do with the age, but more to do with how dirty/battered it is?

[ezbass]

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1328811985' post='1533121']
Is it less to do with the age, but more to do with how dirty/battered it is?
[/quote]How about old,dirty and battered?

[BigRedX]

Depends on the bass. If it was perfect for me in every way except for one or two things that really annoyed me then those things would get changed, not matter how old or collectable the bass was supposed to be. However if more that a couple of things wrong and I'd be looking for a different bass.

[Blademan_98]

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1328812719' post='1533137']
How about old,dirty and battered?
[/quote]

Wow, I'm old, dirty and battered and from the 60's

Look better when I have had a wash and brush up........

Perhaps Fenders are better left alone and their players should have the treatment?

[Gust0o]

[quote name='Blademan_98' timestamp='1328813778' post='1533164']
Wow, I'm old, dirty and battered and from the 60's

Look better when I have had a wash and brush up........

Perhaps Fenders are better left alone and their players should have the treatment?
[/quote]

No, no Blademan - you've just got the mojo! Don't brush up or replace any of your original parts, or you'll devalue yourself

[BILL POSTERS]

60s Fenders, just about everybody smoked back then, even our GP. So are they worth less if....


Naahh !, lets not go there again.

[Truckstop]

I'd mod a MIM without a second thought, but American and Jap Fenders I'd leave well alone!

Truckstop

[molan]

So this made me think - I reckon there's a hierarchy by age for each broad type of bass based on model changes. For a Jazz it seems to be:

60-62 - Early 60's stack knobs = holy grail, very big money if all original

61-64 - Post stacker but pre-CBS = still big money if original but more of them around & a lot of refinished bodies so prices are lower

65-66 - Transition era, prices vary a lot & many examples of partly pre CBS / partly post & some completely post CBS

66-69 - Post CBS, blocks & binding, less than the pre-CBS & transition models but a little more than early 70's (simply because they are from a different decade?)

70-74 - Generally referred to as 'early' 70's with four bolt necks, good examples can command a pretty decent price

75-79 - 'late' 70's with three bolt neck & patchier build quality. Some very heavy. Really out of fashion for a while until Marcus Miller started raving about them. Nice ones can be very nice indeed but need to be aware that there's some not so nice ones out there (obviously this is true for all eras!)

80-83 - pretty much the same as late 70's, definitely increasing in value now - considered by some to be the last of the 'classic' Fenders

83-89 - 4 bolt necks with dots and even patchier build quality, New American Standard introduced in 89 = definitely beyond 'classic' definition.

So there you have it - classics either stopped in '79 at the end of the 2nd decade, or in '83 when the bound & block models stopped production or at a push in '89 when the American Standard came out (which is already over 20 years old now!)

Of course - to a lot of people it's just "gotta be pre-CBS or maybe just 'transition' but then again "the late '60's bound & blocked in custom colours are nice", etc, etc. Repeat ad infinitum until you reach 2012. . .


Changing anything from original will damage value eventually - my '63 P bass had a replacement pickguard in the early 70's, to get a genuine article now would cost me over £500!

Edited February 9, 2012 by molan

[Graham56]

It's nothing to do with the age, but more to do with your role in the transaction.

If you are buying, it's just an old, beat-up Fender.

If you are selling, it's a vintage collectible...

Cheers

Graham

[peteb]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1328816639' post='1533229']
Changing anything from original will damage value eventually - [/quote]

Ain't that the truth!

Does anyone remember the early / mid 80s when a late 70s US Fender Precision was thought to be a basic workhorse bass that used to traded about between friends for £200 - £300?

I used to put a Badass (or sometimes Schaller) bridge & EMG pickups on every Fender that passed thru my hands - the one that I kept for years was totally unoriginal, complete with all black hardware and stripped back to the wood (after I saw the P bass being used by Paul Rogers' bassplayer on the Muddy water Blues tour)!

I ended up trading it for a 90s stingray and a bit of cash on here, but I reckon that I probably lost about £500, maybe £600 off the value if I had kept it all original.....!

Edited February 9, 2012 by peteb

[geoffbyrne]

It's your bass - do with it what pleases you.

G.

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1328828767' post='1533553']
Ain't that the truth!

Does anyone remember the early / mid 80s when a late 70s US Fender Precision was thought to be a basic workhorse bass that used to traded about between friends for £200 - £300?

I used to put a Badass (or sometimes Schaller) bridge & EMG pickups on every Fender that passed thru my hands - the one that I kept for years was totally unoriginal, complete with all black hardware and stripped back to the wood (after I saw the P bass being used by Paul Rogers' bassplayer on the Muddy water Blues tour)!

I ended up trading it for a 90s stingray and a bit of cash on here, but I reckon that I probably lost about £500, maybe £600 off the value if I had kept it all original.....!
[/quote]

Exactly, I put EMGs in my Japanese '62 reissues, ditched the pickguard and got them bashed and scratched at gigs. Fairly recently I've realised that to get the Fender sound it's best to have the cheap old pickups and Bent Bit Of Tin bridges so now they're back with their original components (luckily I never throw anything away!). It's probably hurt the resale value although I'd probably still get much more for them than I paid 20 odd years ago.

Interesting to hear some of the early 80s instruments are starting to be sought after.

[BILL POSTERS]

[quote name='Fat Rich' timestamp='1328810181' post='1533080']


will the rest become become valuable collectors instruments in say 20, 30 or 40 years time?

[/quote]

Depends whether your buying or selling.

[Stacker]

I'd go with Luke on the age classification of when a guitar is considered 'vintage'. Also agree with Molan 100% on his breakdown, though I'd slip in the rare early '80s Sienna Sunburst finish P and J basses; they seem to command a few bob due to the rarity factor.

[Mylkinut]

1977.

Definitely 1977.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Mylkinut

[peteb]

[quote name='Fat Rich' timestamp='1328831097' post='1533608']
Exactly, I put EMGs in my Japanese '62 reissues, ditched the pickguard and got them bashed and scratched at gigs. Fairly recently I've realised that to get the Fender sound it's best to have the cheap old pickups and Bent Bit Of Tin bridges so now they're back with their original components (luckily I never throw anything away!). It's probably hurt the resale value although I'd probably still get much more for them than I paid 20 odd years ago.

Interesting to hear some of the early 80s instruments are starting to be sought after.
[/quote]
My point was that we didn’t have the reverence for 70s Fenders that was reserved for the 60s models – they were thought to be relatively cheap workhorses that were often not very well made (including my keeper) and needed a bit of work for them to be any good!

You may even pay a little more for one with EMGs or a Badass bridge as it saved you the bother / expense of doing it yourself! All the changes I made to my bass significantly improved it IMO but detracted from its value in the long run

I still hate the crap pickups & BBOT bridges. Despite saying that I would never get another Fender, I recently succumbed and bought a beautiful lake placid blue American Std Jazz from someone on here. Unfortunately it didn’t play or sound anything like as well as my other basses so I gave it to Jon Shuker to work on the neck and put in an active circuit / new pickups (the bridge is next)!

It sounds and plays great now, but I hope that it won’t become a ‘future classic’ in a few years and I find that I’ve seriously devalued a potentially expensive bass by making it better!!

Edited February 10, 2012 by peteb

[Linus27]

So my 2011 MIA Fender Jazz will be 30 in 2041 and possibly just starting to be valuable or at least possibly be close to what I paid for it. However, I will 72 years old so if I am still alive, its not going to be a great sum of money. I wish I still had my 77 Precision. Maybe I should sell some bases and buy a 70's Fender as an investment.

[simwells]

It does seem to be somewhere close to 30 years but 80s ones in ten years I wouldn't expect to be worth the same as 70s now unless they're a particularly rare model. Price tends to be based more upon rarity than the age itself and Fender gradually produced more and more instruments. I wouldn't expect current production basses to be worth much for more like 50.

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='simwells' timestamp='1328874825' post='1534072']
It does seem to be somewhere close to 30 years but 80s ones in ten years I wouldn't expect to be worth the same as 70s now unless they're a particularly rare model. Price tends to be based more upon rarity than the age itself and Fender gradually produced more and more instruments. I wouldn't expect current production basses to be worth much for more like 50.
[/quote]

At the moment I think you're right, however I thought that about 70s Fenders when I started out playing 20 years ago.

I guess it's like most things in life, it's as well to have half an eye to the future and think ahead.... but not so much it holds back what you're trying to achieve now.

[BigRedX]

Resale value only matters if you're actually going to sell the bass. Unless you've bought the instrument purely for investment purposes, surely it's more important than your bass functions in the way that you want than any hypothetical value for selling it on. In which case you should probably get rid of it and use the money to buy something that is exactly what you want.

I really don't get the "vintage" Fender market. Everything is supposed to be as original and untouched as possible, but I don't think I've ever seen any concern about the basses not having the strings they shipped with still on them. Also buyers and sellers seem to be obsessed with taking them apart for authentication purposes, but IME every time you unscrew something screwed into wood you lose a little bit of the wood it's been screwed into. Surely the very act of taking the bass apart makes it less "original".

Where do you draw the line? What if you have the perfect (for you) pre-CBS bass except by now one or two of the frets have just a bit too much wear on them and the pots are now very crackly? A Fender bass is first an foremost a usable musical instrument. Does the value it looses due to lack of playability out-weight it's worth for originality?

[4 Strings]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1328878268' post='1534189']
Resale value only matters if you're actually going to sell the bass. Unless you've bought the instrument purely for investment purposes, surely it's more important than your bass functions in the way that you want than any hypothetical value for selling it on. In which case you should probably get rid of it and use the money to buy something that is exactly what you want.
[/quote]

Absolutely, Fenders are not sacred, even if mass produced in the US as opposed to anywhere else. They really are not valuable enough for you to not make them be what YOU want them to be.

I have a '76 Precision with a wonderful history, which dearly I love and would hate the tiniest mark being made on it. However, its there to serve me, its a tool for my Motown band and it has to do the job. It has straplocks, for example. If I needed to change anything else, I would. Its valuable, in great nick but its there for me. If I change something it may affect the resale value to some extent, but even that small amount of money is not sacred either.

It seems to be only the old days when people sprayed the name of their band on their gear, now no-one would dare deface their wooden boxes. Are we now too materialistic, too worried about resale?

Edited February 11, 2012 by 4 Strings

[Mylkinut]

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1328919302' post='1535013']
It seems to be only the old days when people sprayed the name of their band on their gear, now no-one would dare deface their wooden boxes. Are we now too materialistic, too worried about resale?
[/quote]

In this economic climate we probably are more worried about resale than we normally would be.

That said, the case for my '97 Precision has '8 Ball Joe' sprayed on it. The chap I bought it from said it was done by the guy who owned it before him. It's an excellent band name and it's now my Precision's name.

Looks awesome.