Ain't Bad for a Pink (41 page)

Yet language isn’t always a barrier. A Polish couple came in. I think it was father and daughter. They looked keenly around and the man spoke to me in Polish. He kept repeating “Ludwig”. I concentrated very intently at him, with lots of eye contact. There was no sense that they had bad motives. I understood him although he spoke no English and advised them to go to Hanley for Ludwig drums. They were speaking posh drums.

As in the art market, guitars have been divorced from their function: purchased as mere investment objects kept in vaults. Instruments which have a rarity value or whose provenance links them with musical history or the famous and notorious are much sought after. Some guitars owned by the famous dead like Lennon or Hendrix end up in Hard Rock Café and are never played again. The Japanese have bank vaults with guitars in worth as much as £150,000. There’s something sad about nice guitars not being played and enjoyed.

I’ve noticed that a beautiful flame top, mint condition, in its case Gibson 1958 Les Paul Standard worth £245,000 is available for hire. Because of insurance considerations this instrument will only be available to film companies and rich recording artists, and at the end of the day how much better can it sound than any other comparable Les Paul? It’s another example of the madness. And here’s another example. Zoe and I have been sorting out our pop music. Sixties and Seventies stuff is selling, according to our research on eBay. It’s surprising what you find: there’s a Madonna album going for £25 but if you have the version where she’s wearing sunglasses it’s worth £700. They only made this cover for two months.

The way things are going all attention is on the monetary value of guitars rather than the musical value. This is throwing up some anomalies. You could buy my shop and everything in it for one Les Paul 1959. There was a mint condition 1959 Les Paul recently for sale on the internet but you had to send in a CV before you could bid for it. In order to qualify as a bidder, details of your bank account had to be produced!

It’s common knowledge that there are 3,500 1959 Les Paul guitars: flame top, tobacco sunburnt, in the hands of collectors. Interestingly, Gibson only made 1,400 such guitars. Why this discrepancy? One possible explanation is that in the 1970s Russian cellos were being purchased for their backs which were put onto guitars to make them resemble Les Paul instruments.

Because most really high quality instruments are owned by companies or wealthy families that loan them out or just hide them away, those that love or need quality instruments can’t have them because money, not talent, is the issue. So if you’re a violinist you can’t aspire to a Stradivarius.

I bought my Martin for the equivalent of £400 and it is now worth several thousand pounds. I couldn’t afford to buy it now, nor pay the insurance. I paid £120 for a Dobro; another went via Christie’s for £7,000 because it was similar to one played by Hendrix and Dobros are relatively rare. My Dobro doesn’t owe me anything; none of my instruments do. I treat them as working tools and just take them to the pub and play them. They just bear the wear of my use.

There is another strand of collector: the middle-aged beginner. Older people are starting to invest in guitars and also in learning to play as well. I have been interviewed by Radio Stoke about this phenomenon (July 2006) and it seems that they are cashing in their ISAs and investing in vintage guitars, partly for the sheer enjoyment of having them and even playing them but also hoping that they’ll prove the better investment. In my opinion playing these instruments is better than watching a bank statement but it’s a pity to have left it so long. Interestingly, it appears many of these later-life collectors had serious youthful passions for motorcycles, engineering schemes and the like, which, I would maintain, predisposed them to an appreciation of quality constructed instruments.

My recommendations for good investments in affordable instruments would be a reasonably priced Gibson Les Paul, a Fender Stratocaster or a Gibson jazz guitar. The price depends on the year but the best advice is to look for something you like and then make sure it’s a reasonable price by checking on the net, in magazines or with a knowledgeable and reputable dealer. Some prices are amazing: pre-CBS Fenders fetch about £5,000 minimum. These are pre-1964. But it’s still possible to own a nice electric guitar plus a fairly nice acoustic guitar for £3,000. At that level you can expect some increase as it ages. A Seventies Stratocaster fetched £750 two years ago; now it’s worth £1,500 so things can move fast. The age of an instrument doesn’t necessarily determine its price, though. Old banjos don’t fetch as much as you’d think if you’re considering the age. That’s because banjos are not that popular.

One of the most influential impacts on my business has been the Chinese industrial machine.

Then there’s the China factor. Their goods are very good quality and they’re flooding the market. It’s a lemming-like lunacy of downward spiralling prices and lower prices don’t necessarily produce extra demand. The Chinese economy is overstretching itself; they’re building one new coal-fired station a week and they’re having to close down factories one week in a month to save power. Then there just aren’t enough ships to bring the goods out. Overproduction. The world market is not big enough.

David Rushworth.
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Like the Japanese and Koreans before them, the Chinese are taking centre stage as a great manufacturing nation and are making musical instruments along with everything else. These are attractive and really cheap; no-one can match them, economically speaking. These days many things we associate with UK or US manufacturing have been taken over by foreign companies. Global economics dictates place of manufacture, rather than tradition or nostalgia. Gibson has used Japanese bridges and tail pieces as long as quality could be guaranteed. For some stalwarts, this depressed the value of the instrument but I’m more pragmatic. As far as I’m concerned, we should replace Gibson hardware with German hardware, specifically Schaller, because this is superior to that used by Gibson. I would retain the original stuff for resale purposes. At one time Gibson would ship out hardware to Japan and China but these days it is actually made in these countries.

There’s a new guitar: a Chinese guitar, retailing at £165. Yet you can pay £140 for a tremolo alone. It costs £25 for a set of machine heads. Just do the sums. Slim has started to make guitars and he’s buying these cheap oriental guitars just for the parts. There’s a new consignment of bass strings from China retailing at £9.50. They normally cost £16 to £24 a set. The cost of everything to do with music has been radically reduced, especially recording costs. You can buy a used digital recording studio for £200 – new it’s only £379 – and burn your own CD for the cost of one hour’s studio time.

I have a Chinese amplifier in a retro design, straw-coloured with black knobs and handle, bulls’ horns as a logo and the name Shine. What distinguishes it even more is that it is the first amp to be honestly Chinese – other Chinese amps go under well-known names. It will retail at £200. An amp like this made in the US or UK five years ago would cost £600. They were a damn sight better too but the price differential is always a factor for the customer. In order to make the same amount of money I was making five years ago I will have to sell three of these Chinese amps.

China’s answer to the aristocrats of the acoustic world is a copy of a National, shiny and entirely desirable, retailing at £395 – one tenth of the going price for the real thing. Chinese resonators are done by CAD CAM (that is computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture) whereas the real Nationals and Dobros have hand spun resonators. That is, a human being – not a computer – has sat at a lathe and spun them. Hand spun resonators are obviously more expensive; you can get the Chinese ones for peanuts.

There is no denying the superiority of tone of my National guitar when compared to the Chinese version. There are other differences. The Chinese guitar has fourteen frets to the body; my National has twelve frets to the body. That means that my guitar plays perfectly on the leg, with no stretching. The Chinese one is twice the weight and has a longer neck, making it necessary to stretch. I find this uncomfortable; I have to keep nudging it up. But I can’t help but wish that these cheaper resonator guitars had been available when I was younger. They would have given the opportunity to play something like a Dobro or a National to those who couldn’t afford the real thing.

The Chinese are charging half the price for solid rosewood that Gibson is charging. Youngsters don’t care where their guitars come from as long as the price is OK. Both Gibson and Fender have had stuff made in the East for years. They’ve blown their mystique but this doesn’t matter to some people; it’s the economics that matters most.

It’s the economics that matters when you’re being ripped off, too. I have recently (2010) bought a Les Paul as a curiosity and a sign of the times. Virtually new, it has a registration number, an owner’s manual and says it is made in the USA. So how do I know that it was made in China?

• the colour of the knobs is too dark
  
• the binding is too light and not wide enough.
  
• the frets were fitted after the binding, not before.
  
• all the plastic fittings are dubious – aesthetically uncomfortable.
  
• there is no name on the machine heads.
  
• the pick-up surround is too steeply angled.
  
• all the plastic is slightly the wrong colour.
  

But I knew straight away and intuitively that this guitar was a fake. I knew before my mind started the logical process of authentification. The reasons that backed up my instant knowledge came from the rational part of my brain. It is highly likely that these guitars will go on the market for the full price: £1,700. Entirely fraudulent but what can you do? Kids are being cheated because unless they have enough knowledge they can’t detect fakes.

I bought mine for £200.

Over the years musicians have gathered to discuss the important issues of the day such as the recent tendency for girls to wear underwear as top wear.

Similar-looking guitars can have a price differential of as much as £300. The one I’m looking at now is £450 but this is because it has £200 worth of pick-ups. Price is also determined by place of manufacture; China is the cheapest, then Korea, then Japan, then Europe and finally the USA.

An instrument’s popularity can be related not just to quality or place of manufacture but also skilful advertising and sponsorship. Ovation developed an acoustic guitar with a plastic back. They presented them to high profile performers who thus advertised their product so they became the most sought-after and popular instrument for a time. I’m unenthusiastic; they sounded cold to me. The idea of mixing a nice piece of wood with plastic is not appealing because the relevant movements aren’t correct: plastic won’t move the same as wood.

Everyone has their preference when it comes to choice of materials. Most fingerboards are made of rosewood or ebony because they are hardwoods and therefore hard-wearing. Fender, however, introduced maple as a material for fingerboards. This is also a hard wood but it had the disadvantage of easy staining. The solution was to apply layers of varnish. I don’t like the tactile effect of the varnish, favouring ebony every time. I prefer it aesthetically and nothing wears like it.

As in the antique furniture trade, musicians and retailers talk about patina with regard to musical instruments, particularly those made of wood. It’s inevitable that you can buy deliberately distressed instruments, known as Custom Shop Specials or Relics. Like designer-torn jeans, these items cost more than the intact ones. Just as I don’t believe in complete refurbishment of old instruments because some of the character, some of the history goes, I think it’s equally daft and dishonest to artificially age something. A new instrument will acquire its own patina if it’s used.

John Lennon’s Gallotone was sold by Sotheby’s for £160,000 after refurbishment. It was de-Lennoned, and that detracts from its intrinsic value as far as I’m concerned.

When someone comes into the shop to buy a guitar my first question is: acoustic or electric? You might think that an electro-acoustic guitar is a bit of a contradiction but like everything else, where there’s a need it gets fulfilled. Ovation were the first to develop electro-acoustic guitars, partly in response to the need for a louder sound to combat audience noise. With the electro-acoustic guitar sound is compressed before it reaches the amp so that the equipment can cope with it. It’s useful but I think the sound is dreadful. It sounds better scrubbed than finger picked but you lose something by going electric. When you play nice old instruments in finger style all nuances are possible: there’s a lot of variations in light and shade, tone and volume that just wouldn’t come across with electro-acoustic guitars. The acoustic guitar is more subtle, more ‘human’; you can hear the human being.

It’s terrible to think that the overcoming of audience noise would be an issue. The ideal, really, would be a very expensive microphone and a quiet audience. At the end of the day you wouldn’t expect an actor to have electronic devices attached to his vocal chords but there’s a different ethos with the theatre audience. I’ve played to a full house at Crewe Theatre with no amplification whatsoever; I’ve seen Andres Torres Segovia play to a full theatre when he was eighty plus with no amplification; I could do the Limelight with 100 watts and you’d hear every word. They’ve got 10,000 watts there and people in the audience have said they can’t hear the vocals properly. Music has been amplified to the point where it is a noise – either that or a backdrop of musak against which everybody talks and moves.