1956 Fender P Bass @ Tom's Guitar Shop

[Beedster]

Have to say the one for sale at Tom's looks to be a pretty nice example aesthetically speaking 

[Burns-bass]

What people sometimes forget about celebs buying vintage instruments is that they add value (which we can’t). 
 

A big standard 70s jazz is £3k. One owned by Geddy Lee is £30k for example.

 

Buying them up also gives the impression they’re rare, which they’re really not. 
 

I can see the value in a completely original pieces, because they genuinely are rare. But the rest of them, not really.

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

What people sometimes forget about celebs buying vintage instruments is that they add value (which we can’t). 

 

I disagree mate, it adds price, not value 

[Burns-bass]

1 minute ago, Beedster said:

 

I disagree mate, it adds price, not value 

Semantic point as we have to define value in this context. Intrinsic and extrinsic.  If we agree that the manufacturing process adds value then ownership and age can do too.

[Burns-bass]

I've been thinking about this a bit recently. I bought a double bass that was owned by Jack Bruce (not in the putative sense most vintage instruments are sold) but with provenance from Bonhams. It's 100% one of his, but it means nothing to me really. I bought it because I needed a great sounding classical bass and this was checked over by a friend and was given the OK. We assumed it would be out of my price range, but in the end it sold for half the original Bonham's sale price. 

 

I guess my point is that the "value" of celebrity ownership is probably temporal and that the celebrities of today are unlikely to mean much (if anything) to the generations in the future. Maybe a few will, but ultimately, we're all shadows and dust. Or 3 generations from irrelevance, as my mum put it when we were enjoying a walk. 

[Wolverinebass]

I remember playing an old 50's era precision about 5 years ago. My friend had raved about how good it was. It cost at the time about 10 or 12 grand. 

 

Well, it was a piece of crap. The pickup was massively wooly and it was also clear to me that the action wasn't really going to come down in any way to a level I'd be happy with.

 

I'm happy to say that he gets a great deal of joy out of it and of course I never said anything about my misgivings. Like everything you could say "you could buy however many basses I actually like for that!!" as a rebuttal, but in truth, it doesn't matter as long as it does it for you.

 

I have basses I don't play much, but that's mainly because the projects I'm doing or have been doing don't suit them. Not because I'm trying to build up some massive collection to store in a temperature controlled, secirity guarded aircraft hanger.