What's the next collectable on the second hand marketthen?

[ead]

Don't forget inflation folks.  £300 in 1966 (about the price of a Fender bass I think) is worth about £5,800 today.

[Sean]

USA Spectors.

They will be worthless in the future. It's probably time to offload them for a few hundred quid now before they bottom out.

If you need some help shifting yours, I know a chap that can help.

[Stub Mandrel]

On 19/03/2025 at 08:34, ped said:

Maybe not so much these days!

 

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

[neepheid]

Obviously it's 3 pickup Greco LP shaped basses, innit?

 

[NancyJohnson]

Haven't most of us owned something that we sold cheap only see the prices go nutso?

 

My old Travis Bean (sigh), that frankly terrible '79 Precision, all those Gibson Thunderbirds.  Mass produced bass amps have little or no appreciating resale value unless they're old valve things like Matamps.  I doubt any of the current production line Fenders/Gibson/MusicMan/Ibanez etc basses will be loss-making or worth anything long term.

 

My belief is the money is in investing in short runs and decently built kit.  I own a couple of Hamer basses, I bought one very cheap and am being hassled by two Americans who are in this odd bidding war, currently at $4k.  My Mike Lull basses (one likely going up for sale shortly) were both built by Mike before he died, are certainly carrying ticket prices equivalent or higher than what I paid.  Again, I'm getting enquiries on a Lull build from the US offering c.£6k.

 

I suppose you have to realise one swallow does not a summer make; just because there's someone out there that'll pay over the odds for something doesn't necessarily make it a collector's market.

 

 

[bass_dinger]

On 15/03/2025 at 16:59, Burns-bass said:

I’m unfashionable and cheap.

 

 

And there's only one of you, so you're rare too!

 

If you can fit into a Hiscox case, I can store you in my airing cupboard for the next 30 years.

[Doctor J]

On 21/03/2025 at 09:38, NancyJohnson said:

Haven't most of us owned something that we sold cheap only see the prices go nutso?

 

My old Travis Bean (sigh), that frankly terrible '79 Precision, all those Gibson Thunderbirds.  Mass produced bass amps have little or no appreciating resale value unless they're old valve things like Matamps.  I doubt any of the current production line Fenders/Gibson/MusicMan/Ibanez etc basses will be loss-making or worth anything long term.

 

My belief is the money is in investing in short runs and decently built kit.  I own a couple of Hamer basses, I bought one very cheap and am being hassled by two Americans who are in this odd bidding war, currently at $4k.  My Mike Lull basses (one likely going up for sale shortly) were both built by Mike before he died, are certainly carrying ticket prices equivalent or higher than what I paid.  Again, I'm getting enquiries on a Lull build from the US offering c.£6k.

 

I suppose you have to realise one swallow does not a summer make; just because there's someone out there that'll pay over the odds for something doesn't necessarily make it a collector's market.

 

 

 

I've seen several former instruments of mine relisted at over double what I sold them for - at prices they struggled to sell at - and then struggle to sell again at the new higher price. I've had a Stingray, a Peavey Sarzo, an Ibanez Roadster, an L-1000 and, most recently, a Warwick Streamer LX, all show up at over double their previous sale price, usually a year or two after they left my hands. Are these collectibles? I don't think so, I just think Reverb has given a global platform to set ridiculous asking prices which then seems to affect the general prices of these things. Generally, though, desirability seems to really go on brand name, rather than instrument quality. There doesn't seem to be a correlation between how well built an instrument is and the size of the market interested in it. With more obscure brands, you might find an obsessive or two who are prepared to pay up but, if you want things to move, I think you're safer with the big-name unit shifters.

[chris667]

Why bother with secondhand? The truth is cheap instruments are really good now. It's not as if young people can afford vintage stuff anyway.

[Doctor J]

Certain brands are expensive, yes, but vintage stuff is not, by default, expensive. Anyone with the nous to avoid the obvious can bathe in vintage gear all they like for not too much outlay.

[chris667]

6 hours ago, Doctor J said:

Certain brands are expensive, yes, but vintage stuff is not, by default, expensive. Anyone with the nous to avoid the obvious can bathe in vintage gear all they like for not too much outlay.

Yes, but it's always a gamble! 

[Doctor J]

Buying a new Fender is a gamble 😂

 

We're at the point in time where superb instruments made by the likes of Hamer, Ibanez, Warwick, Jackson/Charvel and many more have reached vintage status. Like I said, a bit of nous can get you into the vintage world for not much money and get you a superb instrument too.

[KingBollock]

The only things that I own that might be worth more than what I paid for them are a Digitech Bass Synth Wah (£32, new) and the Behringer Centaur (£59, new). They’re such good pedals that the little I might make on them isn’t worth the effort of selling them and finding replacements.

 

Although, thinking about it, my BC Rich Warlock might be worth a little more than I paid for it, purely because I got it for such a good price. But it’s my dream bass, it ain’t going nowhere.

 

I’m not a collector, but I do have a lot of Behringer stuff. Which I think makes me a hoarder…

[kwmlondon]

On 20/03/2025 at 21:31, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Revivals used to be a thing of the past... but now they're back.

 

Thanks to watching a couple of old car/interesting car channels on youtube THE ALGORITHM keeps showing me stuff about classic car prices and I think we can learn a lot from how this has panned out. Some cars have always been expensive, desirable and will always hold a high value. Think your Mercedes Gullwing, DB5, Daytona. Anyone can recognise that they are desirable objects due to quality, scarcity etc. Cars like this are always being built - the Porsche Carrera GT. BUT mass-market cars that go up in price due to nostalgia... they have a peak then a dip. All those 70s and 80s cars like an XR3i, they are attractive because people like me lusted after them when they were kids and now my generation is old enough to pay tens of thousands for them. The next generation will have zero interest because they won't have the nostalgia for them. They won't be interested in hot hatchbacks from the 80s AND they will be impossible to get parts for pretty soon. Some mass-market cars transcend this, like the VW Beetle, The Mini, MGB, 2CV. They get cult status and people carry on making parts and they grow a community. They're mechanically simple enough to maintain and by sheer popularity they have support.

 

I think you can map a lot of this across to guitars, but the big difference is the association with artists - Page, Hendrix etc. means that the boomer geneation has a fixation on specific intstruments from a specific era. If you want to see how this is going just look at how few listens these artists get on Spotify. 

 

Anyway. My tip for classics of the future? St Vincent Musicman. I am happy to admit I'm probably wrong.

[HeadlessBassist]

I like watching the big boys - Fender have been in a production streamlining/cost cutting phase over the past couple of years. American Fenders from the early 2000's to around 2018 are going to gradually go up in price. That was a great period for some really great instruments.

 

Status-Graphite prices are going to rocket due to limited numbers and scarcity, especially on the popular graphite neck models like S2-Classic and KingBass.

 

The Mexican Fender range are seeing a quality resurgence since around 2022-3. Values are going to be bouyant and steady.

 

The next big thing..? Cort and Schecter are going to have their day. Cort are like Magna Steyr who build G-Wagons for Mercedes. When you spend a lot of time building things for other companies, you build them very well, and your own product quality surges.

 

As for values, I'm going to predict that the craziness of Rickenbacker prices is going to calm down a little & MusicMan prices are going to go up significantly.

 

 

 

 

[Geek99]

On 20/03/2025 at 21:33, neepheid said:

Obviously it's 3 pickup Greco LP shaped basses, innit?

 

Only in some parallel universe where “uniquely personal taste” is celebrated beyond all reason

[neepheid]

Just now, Geek99 said:

Only in some parallel universe where “uniquely personal taste” is celebrated beyond all reason

 

It was a joke... does not stand up to scrutiny - what absurdity based jokes do?

[snorkie635]

27 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

I like watching the big boys - Fender have been in a production streamlining/cost cutting phase over the past couple of years. American Fenders from the early 2000's to around 2018 are going to gradually go up in price. That was a great period for some really great instruments.

 

Status-Graphite prices are going to rocket due to limited numbers and scarcity, especially on the popular graphite neck models like S2-Classic and KingBass.

 

The Mexican Fender range are seeing a quality resurgence since around 2022-3. Values are going to be bouyant and steady.

 

The next big thing..? Cort and Schecter are going to have their day. Cort are like Magna Steyr who build G-Wagons for Mercedes. When you spend a lot of time building things for other companies, you build them very well, and your own product quality surges.

 

As for values, I'm going to predict that the craziness of Rickenbacker prices is going to calm down a little & MusicMan prices are going to go up significantly.

 

 

 

 

This very morning, some tosh dropped onto the i-Pad from GG, promoting the latest 'Pino' signature Ray. Price? £6000! Really? World gone nuts.

[chris667]

3 hours ago, Doctor J said:

Buying a new Fender is a gamble 😂

 

We're at the point in time where superb instruments made by the likes of Hamer, Ibanez, Warwick, Jackson/Charvel and many more have reached vintage status. Like I said, a bit of nous can get you into the vintage world for not much money and get you a superb instrument too.

That's sort of my point.

 

Honestly, not so long ago a lot of new inexpensive instruments were often junk. Now, brands like Harley Benton make some superb instruments! Far better QC. And if you do get a bad one you send it back and you can have another one the next day.

 

I reckon about a fifth of my ebay purchases work out. It's an expensive gamble.

[Doctor J]

There's no doubt budget instruments are better than they were, but they're not on a par with high-quality builders have put out, like some of the brands I mentioned earlier, for example.

[Geek99]

2 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

It was a joke... does not stand up to scrutiny - what absurdity based jokes do?

I know it was a joke, I was just suggesting someone would need your unique taste to feel the same way about a triple pup Greco 

[neepheid]

4 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

I know it was a joke, I was just suggesting someone would need your unique taste to feel the same way about a triple pup Greco 

 

That, I cannot argue with.

[kwmlondon]

3 hours ago, snorkie635 said:

This very morning, some tosh dropped onto the i-Pad from GG, promoting the latest 'Pino' signature Ray. Price? £6000! Really? World gone nuts.

I saw that email but it’s £3,799. Still a lot but not crazy insane https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/250521441519025--music-man-pino-palladino-signature-stingray

[chris667]

3 hours ago, Doctor J said:

There's no doubt budget instruments are better than they were, but they're not on a par with high-quality builders have put out, like some of the brands I mentioned earlier, for example.

Yes, but I honestly think that many musicians won't care.

 

I'm not experienced with basses yet, but I've played lots of other instruments. I've played high end instruments that were just shite. Some high end stuff will always have value, but there is just too much good stuff out there.

[LeftyJ]

5 hours ago, HeadlessBassist said:

Status-Graphite prices are going to rocket due to limited numbers and scarcity, especially on the popular graphite neck models like S2-Classic and KingBass.

 

MusicMan prices are going to go up significantly.

 

I'm definitely holding on to both my S2 Classics. My 5-string headless has been my go-to for the last couple of years. 

 

Music Man prices are already going up. I remember all too well when you paid used Fender money for one but they've gone up ridiculously. I paid €900 for my 2003 Stingray 5 in 2009, and then traded it for my 5-string S2 Classic + 100 GBP in 2017. I got lucky with my Music Man Silhouette Special for €1300 in 2023, I'm seeing them for around €1800 now 

[Cliff Edge]

6 hours ago, snorkie635 said:

This very morning, some tosh dropped onto the i-Pad from GG, promoting the latest 'Pino' signature Ray. Price? £6000! Really? World gone nuts.

Only very silly people buy that kind of stuff.