Snippets & Blogs

Charity Request

We unusually added a support for the people of Haiti Eathquake link ( Page 1 ) . it just crossed our minds that while we sit here in our nice warm homes in front of our nice shiny laptops looking at nice shiny guitars that there is some real suffering going on out there for a lot of people through no fault of their own . A contribution from you wouldn't even be noticed by yourself - cost of a couple of pints - but wow what a difference i would make to them if we ALL did it.

Settling in Time

Recently sold a Yamaha SG surplus to requirements and as soon as the buyer received it he was on the e mail saying that it was bottoming out on the higher frets and which way should he crank he truss rod . We told him to leave it alone. Sure enough a couple of days later he mailed to say all was well. What is happening here is that the guitar needs time to re settle - especially as the journey probably involved a freezing freight shed - Wood is a living thing ( or it was once ) and it moves and breathes and needs time to adjust itself. Yamaha themselves insist on a 5 week aclimatisation period after there high end guitars arrive in Europe and before a final setup is done . Also - a good tip is that if you do receive a guitar in a freezing box then let the whole thing warm up gradually for some hours before you rip into the packaging.

Mentioning No Names

There are a lot of smart looking guitars on the racks at the moment pretty cheap and all Chinese made - and thats just what they are - Cheap Guitars made to look good , shipped in for pennies for maximum profit without any thought of music coming into the equation . Harsh ? Maybe , but we have seen too many unhappy young people give up trying to learn and put off on these monsters. There are good ones of course but theres a sound old saying here - If it Looks to Good to be True it usually is-

Price Optimists

Have you seen some of the prices being asked for vintage guitars by some people and even bits of vintage guitars. Completely nuts. Yes they are going up all the time and have recently taken a bit of a hike but over £1000 for a Yamaha SG1000 or £1500 for an SG 2000 - I ask you .. I suppose though there is a difference between asking price and achieved price . Today is November 2009 . I add that because one day those prices will be realistic - but not now guys.
We even saw a pair of original Yamaha SG Spinex pickups asking £128 the pair Buy it Now only ( from Japan ) and they were not even Spinex which was left unchanged despite being told. Shop carefully but don't be put off.

Restoration Rules.

Vintage repairs –Whats allowed - –Vintage guitars should never be stripped, rubbed down and re painted even with original processes to look new. Genuine wear and tear on a guitar is desireable and is actually reproduced in some well known modern series at extra cost. It proves the guitar was good enough to play and nothing is hidden by the spraygun. Professional touching in of the odd to the wood chip with nitro or poly and polishing it in to suit is fine because it binds the edges of the chip and stops any further degradation.

Similarly if the electrics don’t work or crackle they should be repaired again professionally with quality parts. Chrome , Nickel or gold tarnished should be left alone but if so far gone that the chrome plating is lifting and bubbling then get it re plated or again replaced with an original item.

The key word with all of the above is Professional . I consider myself competent but anything more than a basic string change and set up and the guitar goes to a luthier friend.

Did You Know

Ibanez was a Spanish manufacturer

Epiphone was a Greek Manufacturer

Fenders have been made in USA, Japan, China, Mexico, India.

Rickenbackers have only ever been made in USA.
Gibson were made for a period in Japan ( Orville )
Gibson Orville and Fender Japan were made for a decade in the same Factory - Fujigen

Our Setup Shop

We thought you might like a little look into our setup shop. This is Dave setting up a lovely Fujigen Telecaster- Note the care taken not to get buckle or button rash on the guitars..

Evidense for Old Guitars

Allan asked in our contributions page to come up with some evidense that vintage guitars rule. Not really evidense because they could all be wrong but here are just a few names that use old battle axes - Keith Richards - Paul McCartney -Jimmy Page -Gary Moore -Eric Clapton -Jeff Beck - Bob Marley - Joe Walsh - Slash - Ace Frehley -Joey Santiago - Neil Young - Noel Gallagher - Joe Perry - Peter Frampton - etc. etc. etc.

You would think will all of that money they could go down to Guitars R Us and get themselves a new one wouldn't you............................................

A Snippet on Strings

9's are great and bendy and relatively easy to play and 11's are less bendy and require more wrist strength . So why bother with heavy strings ??

Because the greater mass transmits a heck of a lot more to the pickup and hence a fatter, richer better sound.. Thanks George..

Buying Tip

A mail from Steve has prompted this snippet about his costly mistake from Japan. Tip 1 is to remember that non EU imports attract duty, high freight and shippers handling charges all of which adds up to a lot of extra dosh.. and if you get a bad one you are stuck with it. Some EU countries also avoid PayPal in favour of bank transfers thus passing the cost of the money transfer from them to you and at a stroke removing the protection offered by PayPal.

Having said all that negative stuff, its summer at last and half of the UK are thinking about holidays and Wayne Rooneys foot - So, is it a good time to sell ---NO --- Is it a good time to buy----YES

BableFish - E bay to English Translation

Buying on line can be a dodgy business and subject to sellers perceptions. Below are few few tongue in cheek possibilities .

Dink = Anything up to a furrow that you could plant potatoes in.

Buckle Rash = Similar to Dink.

Normal Condition for Age = Battered.

Barely Visible = My labrador can't see it either.

Medium Action = Beware Limbo Dancers.

Vintage Relic = Firewood.

Upgraded = Originality Destroyed.

Customised = Same as Upgraded.

Unknown Make = Logo removed.

Lawsuit = Applies to Just about Anything.

Matureing Nicely = Falling apart

Possibly Japanese = Probably Korean

Possibly Korean = Probably Chinese

Only Sold in Japan = Made in China

SOME E BAY HYPE.

Some e bay sellers just take the whole description thing too far and end up insulting the intelligence of most of us. Here are just a few myths put to rights.

1/ The guitars of Gibson and Fender USA have always been very fine instruments and NOT blown away by the Japanese guitars. OK some of em came a bit close for comfort and at less money but give me a choice between a Gibson Historic 59 and the Japanese copy and I know which I would choose - but would be happy with either.

2/ Gibson and Fender did NOT FORCE the Japanese arms of their organisations to use cheap parts to make the USAstuff look better. There were cheaper versions later but these were re named Squier and Epiphone and not in Japan for long.

3/ USA did NOT sue the whole Japanese guitar business for making copies so good that it was scaring Gibson. There was a threatened Lawsuit about the shape of the Ibanez headstocks on the Les Pauls and Fender copies but NO court case...

4/ Any odd name on a les Paul of Fender and it must be a re named Ibanez or Fujigen - Total tosh - Other Japanese factories at the time were also producing " cheap" guitars and this is the more probable origin of some of these offerings or even nothing to do with Japan.

5/ Here's a classic - quite common as well. Selling the estate of a departed guitar collector friends collection for his widow. Take a look at what these people are buying !!! in their feedback.. Watch out also for university fees, new babies and private surgery to pay for.

These sellers are skipping the research bit and diving straight into a world of fantasy. My personal visits to that media are limited but whenever I do look in I often feel obliged to let my feelings known. Please - don't be fooled - some of these people know exactly what they are doing and that is to separate you from you hard earned dollar.. The others, well they are probably just idiots who think that we are as well. As you may have detected - I have been stung a couple of times now..

Attention to Detail

Typical of Japanese attention to detail of the era - Yamaha guitars of the SA and SG series which were sent to USA aimed at the top end of Gibsons production were allowed to settle for 5 WEEKS before they were set up and sent out to the shops.

Yamaha SG – INFO

To go into any kind of detail here would constitute a book just about this remarkable guitar so these few paragraphs can only really cover the basics . Maybe I will write one sometime.

1974 was the first year of the identifiable SG’s which carried model numbers SG35 up to SG400. The later SG models from SG500 upwards from around 1976 was visible in these earlier models but much evolution was to take place before Yamaha arrived at what many consider to be the ultimate solid body electric guitar. Carlos Santana who played an SG175 in the early years was party to this development and actually worked with Yamaha to develop the SG2000 by adding bulk for sustain and adding body relief for comfort etc.

This brief document will concentrate on the later SG’s only .

SG 500 / SG 700 / SG 800 - Introduced July 1976 to about 1984

This is where things become a little messy. The SG 700 and SG 500 had two runs with the second run having an S after the number. The 500 was in opaque colour suggesting a cheaper timber. The SBG USA model was the same guitar as the Japanese SG800S model. These are at the budget end compared to the SG1000 & SG2000. but still serious pieces of kit.

Plus or minus a few points they all have a similar specifation:

Unbound or Less binding and simpler headstock designs. Open pickups or plastic covers . White pickups and guards. Dot Inlays. Rosewood Fingerboard. No bursts.

Pickups and electrics were the same as the higher end SG1000 and SG2000 with maybe some slight differences in the way the tone controls worked in odd cases.

SG 1000 - Introduced July 1976 to around 1988 ( And again later – still made )

Essentially the level 2 guitar after the SG2000 and there were many variations on this model.

Mahogany with maple top – Triple binding – Split Clay Trapezoid Inlays – Ebony Fingerboard – Gold Hardware – Set Neck – Coil Taps from about 1980 and circuitry that bypassed the tone controls when full volume was dialed in.

Some of the model versins include :

SBG - USA designated number –

1000X – Very limited number with slight variations

1000L - Left hand model

1000N - Solid Coloured models introduced around 1984

1000NW – SG3000 type Pickups plus special de lux top

1000/24 – Full two octave 24 fret necks

SG 1500 - Introduced July 1976 to 1979 and again later in Japan only.

Version 1 - Essentially a USA only guitar same spec as the SG2000 but with dot inlays and chrome.

Version 2 – A stripped down version of the SG2000 with Through neck but no Maple cap or elaborate binding , pickguard or any other unnecessary embellishments .

Later 80’s model was in Jade Green only

SG2000 - Introduced July 1976 – End of production 1988 ( Now re Issued )

Mahogany / Maple / Mahogany laminate through neck .

Three Piece Maple top with cross grain centre panel up to 1980.

One piece Maple top from 1980.

Ebony Fingerboard.

Gold Hardware.

Non coil tapped humbuckers up to about 1980 and coil tapped therafter.

Brass Sustain Block

Multple 5X Binding top and sides. Split Trapezoid inlays in MOP -

Colours : Tobacco – Sunburst – Black –

Models - SBG was the USA designated number . SG2000S Exports

SG2000 Japan only – essentially the same guitar.

After 1984 in USA it was re named the SBG2100.

SG 3000 – Introduced 1982 – Ended 1985 plus a 91 Re run and again re issued today.

Spectacular top of the range flagship verging on the un necessary.

Using the SG 2000 as a benchmark the SG3000 adds :

Spinex High Output Pickups

High level Custom Shop finishes with Abalone inlays

15:1 high ratio Tuners.

New adjustable bridge but no sustain block

Later Models

There was a proliferation of new models from about 1983 – mostly all in Japan and nothing really new . Didn’t last much beyond 1985

SG 2500 - Basically a top of the range SG3000 without the Glitz.

SG2100 – SG2000 with Spinex pickups

SG 1600 - Again SG3000 based but lower level of Binding etc.

SG 1300-24 – Full two octave neck and thinner body.

There were many variations with various letters after the numbers but to try to list this here would turn what is meant to be an easy reference into a complicated document.

Fortunately these are very rare but despite the rarity aspect the known models are the most desireable.

Re – Issues

First of all and to my knowledge from a good bit of research ALL Yamaha SG’s are and were made in Japan. I believe that the SG1000 has now been discontinued yet again but the situation seems to change every few years. Certainly available are new SG2000’s and SG3000’s. They are made to the same specification as the original sought after 70’s / 80’s models but probably not with the same slow grown mahogany and ebony which is now illegal due to conservation. Yamaha have even added some circuitry to emulate the characteristics of the earlier models but 30 years is 30 years and there ain’t anything you can do to fake it.

Setting The Intonation

Courtesy http://users.powernet.co.uk

If you want your guitar to play in tune all the way up the neck, you have to set the intonation correctly. this involves adjusting the "speaking" length of the strings - i'e' the distance between the nut and the bridge saddles.

For this job you'll need some screwdrivers and an electronic tuner or some other sort of pitch reference such as pitch pipes. I'll cover the subject with regard to both Gibson Tune-O-Matic and Fender Tremelo bridges. Before I proceed, however, a couple of important points.

1) Ensure that you have a set of new strings installed before you attempt to set the intonation and have the guitar tuned to pitch. 2) Setting the intonation is but one aspect of setting up a guitar and should not be viewed in isolation. Don't think that because we're dealing with the bridge here that we won't have to come back to it. When we go on to sort out the overall action, the bridge will need further adjustments.

Gibson-type Bridge

(Click to enlarge)

This bridge has six individually-adjustable saddles which are adjusted by means of the screws you can see at the bottom of the bridge facing the stop tailpiece. The screws are of the slot head variety. On some Gibsons these screws face the other way (usually on the older or replica models) and are slightly less accessible.

Using a tuning reference, play a 12th fret harmonic on the bottom E string and then compare this with a note fretted at the 12th fret. The two notes should be exactly the same. If the fretted note is sharp, then the saddle needs to be moved back towards the tailpiece. If the fretted note is flat, the saddle needs to be moved the oppostite way - forwards towards the pick-ups. When the two notes are the same, the string has the correct intonation set. I find that the easiest way to remember all this is to think about flat and forward both beginning with the same letter.

If you have to adjust the saddle, place a soft cloth below where you're going to insert the tip of the screwdriver to avoid scratches if the tip slips. Turn the screw clockwise to move the saddle back and anti-clockwise to move it forward. It's best to just make small turns, as a little turn can make a lot of difference. After every adjustment to the position of the saddle, retune the string to pitch and compare the 12th fret note with the harmonic. Repeat the operation until the string has the correct intonation. then move on to the next string.

Fender-style Bridge

(Click to enlarge)

Although the Fender bridge looks rather different, the principles of setting the intonation are exactly the same as for the Gibson bridge. You move the saddles until the note at the 12th fret and the 12th fret harmonic are identical.

If you look at both bridges, you can see that the saddles are both arranged similarly, with two offset rows of three saddles each. This is the sign of a well-set-up guitar and after a little practice, it is possible to set the saddles by eye to this arrangement and find that the guitar has almost perfect intonation! If you're buying a guitar it's a good sign to see this as it means that the instrument has been properly set up at some time or other. Don't do as one of my students did and move all the bridge saddles into a nice straight line!

When do you need to set the intonation?

Well, I always check the intonation whenever I change strings or I think that the intonation is suspect. Guitars are very susceptible to changes in temperature and humidity and this may cause some need for adjusting the intonation. If you keep your guitar in a case in an environment which has a constant temperature and use the same gauge and brand of string you may hardly ever need to adjust the intonation. It's a good idea to check it whenever you restring your guitar and this will reassure you that you'll be playing in tune, especially if you're stringing your guitar ready for a gig.

Really, setting the intonation is very straightforward and there's no risk of damaging the bridge. Just work carefully and turn the saddle screws just a little bit at a time and just keep on checking the intonation until it's correct.

Tricks of the Trade How to get rid of those annoying little varnish dinks.

Most of us live with them and some even find them desirable but if you have a particular little dink that is irritating here is a good way to at least smooth them out. Personally I would only do it on those back of neck ones that are detectable with the thumb and which are caused by not using a guitar stand.

Right :

1/ Get the dink facing upwards and level

2/ Drip one or two drops of superglue on the dink being careful not to get it

everywhere. The object is just to fill the dink just proud.

Don’t worry how it looks at this stage – It may form white crystals -

3/ Leave it alone for a day.

4/ Rub it level with 1000 grade wet and dry – Use it wet but don’t drown the guitar.

5/ Don’t give up rubbing too soon. Carry on until you can’t feel it

6/ Give it a good polish with T Cut.

If you are patient you will not even see it let alone feel it. It works.

Don't Be Fooled

Quite clever really but not quite 100% truthful when guitars are advertised with " a good bit of wear and tear for its age which justs adds to the vintage appeal. " Crap .

As with all collectibles as close as you can get to MINT is the only way to go unless of course the wear and tear was caused by Eric Clapton . Joe Satriani etc. There is nothing appealing about a guitar with chunks missing or dinks all over it . Just proves it was owned by a gorilla thats all .

DINKS AND DENTS ARE NOT NORMAL - If they were they would do it at the factory..

Right thats me done - I feel better now .

Grumpy old Men

One good thing about running a site like this is that we can have a good moan uninterupted. We think this one is justified and is aimed at e Bay sellers ( Not E Bay of course ).

A guitar listing in our opinion should be about the guitar but so many are about terms and conditions of the sale or reason for selling with sod all about the item itself. Its your choice in the end though.

Investment Value

Now - we here at HG cannot say - put all of your money into vintage guitars because we are not financial advisors , but we can tell you what has happened over the last few years - We would estimate in the last 4 years that they have on average doubled. The world seems to be running out of money so they will eventually solve that by printing some more - which means that it will be worth LESS. Which also means that you will have to part with more of it to buy a vintage guitar , because unlike money , they just can't make any more.

A couple of years back we had an excess of Yamaha SG2000s - What ? Those were the days . Anyway we sold em off at around £300 each and people were turning them down because they didn't have original cases. Funny old world isn't it ...

New vs Old

Another frequent question now that the old 80's models in some cases are higher than the new equivalents eg : Yamaha SA2000 vs SA2200 or SG2000 vs SG2000 is why buy an old one. Very very simple really - The old ones were made with timber selected for tonal qualities and age just improves a quality guitar . The wood used and just not available today for envirnmental protection reasons changes its character over 30 years or so and heaps of playing and keeps on getting better. Maybe a new model will do the same and maybe not . The originals are also going up rather than down as you can expect from a factory fresh model .

No Smoking

I keep seeing guitars on e bay as never been out of the bedroom and from a non smoking home. Wots that all about . A Rock guitar should be hammered to within an inch of its life in a smokey room and fed red meat once in a while . Whats the point of cutting down a magnificent mahogany tree which has taken decades to grow if you are going to put the end product under your bed . Get a pot plant .

Recession Issues

Now with the recession hopefully at its peak it has become harder to sell a guitar and easier to buy with more choice . Despite this prices are still at best creeping upwards and at worst holding for quality items. More guitars are finding their way onto the market from those poor individuals who have lost jobs etc. through no fault of their own and selling their prized belongings just to stay afloat. Others are holding off buying for similar fears, so less buyer competition as well. All this against a background of politicians claiming squillions of £££ on expenses to pay for tulip bulbs and porn movies in hotels and bankers still awarding themselves huge bonuses for creating havoc . Something stinks .
Anyway- political rant over - - Supply and demand dictates and the supply of these guitars stopped over two decades ago so it will more than likely continue to push prices up especially when all those that are selling now hopefully find better times and start buying again themselves. Great Britian which has a huge vintage guitar market has had the Pound battered so a good place to look if you are overseas . Always buy the best quality that you can afford though is our tip for the day.

Snippets

Leo Fender was an electronics enthusiast who experimented with a solid body guitar in his garden shed. His creation was to become the worlds first commercially available solid body guitar in the early 50's. It was named the Broadcaster but was re named Telecaster after objections from Gretsch who had a drumkit of the same name.

Around the same time a musician called Les Paul was experimenting with telephone mouthpieces attached to a block of pine . This was to evolve in time to become the Gibson SG - Solid Guitar -

Just a few miles from Leo Fenders shed Paul Bigsby was also busy making a solid body guitar for country artist Merle Travis.

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Set Neck or Bolt On

Our Opinion

Our overall conclusion is that there is very little difference as long as it has been done well. On balance in fact the bolt on makes more sense –Alla Fender.

Glued in necks have come in various guises be it long tennon , Normal box glued in or through neck and the driving force has been to increase sustain. Most sustain comes from the body and body to string connection with the neck joint contributing very little. I have used bolt ons which sustain brilliantly and set necks which have been harmonically dead all due to the body.

Also with a fixed neck if problems or breakages do occur they require serious professional and expensive attention.

Set neck seems right for Les Pauls and bolt ons seem right for Fenders . Thats cool.

Language Problems?

Forget em . Just added a new link on our links page which will translate the entire contents of a site from one language to another. Completely amazing stuff and too much for me to get my old head around.

There's Nowt Stranger than Folk

Us old codgers have been watching the e bay listings and movements for a while now . It seems some would prefer to buy a crappy guitar with Gibson or Fender stuck on the headstock than buy a real one with an unknown on the headstock and pay the same sort of money. Get wise guys , your playing won't improve just cos you are wearing Kelvin Klein underpants.

ITS ALL CHINESE TO US.

Spiffing Larrupping wonerful Gibson Les Paul 1959 musical instrument guitar -- 99 Pence--

Get real !! Have you seem em taking over e bay .. How come there are so many great guitars in China from the 60's 70's 80's when during that time the average Chinese could barely afford a bowl of rice.. You stand as much chance of getting your guitar as a three legged blind horse with a 20 stone jocky winning the Derby.

Our advise - politically correct or not - STAY CLEAR -

Customs and Excise

For anyone considering taking the plunge and importing I have recently discovered an additional potential cost in the process. See also earlier comments in this section and also a very good summary in the Parcel Force Web site.

Parcels are sometimes held by customs who write you a letter , yes those paper things , to which you are required to reply again on paper. After about two weeks you can start to incur storeage costs.

We highly recommend that you do your homework before going down this path because the listed price of your guitar can actually double by the time you get it.

Having the sender describe the item as a gift or down valueing it doesn't work either and if you seriously try to pull the wool over Mr. Taxmans eyes you risk having your prize posession impounded. Nice ..

MDF GUITARS !!!

B&Q Specials.

I live and learn and sometime it brings disillusion.

It has come to my attention as usual the hard way that some reputable makers of guitars who are normally associated with the USA but also Japan and other far afield places are using a material with a fancy name but which amounts to a slab of MDF to make their guitar bodies.

So F ****R – Speaking personally – If I want some MDF I will go to B&Q !!

I was also asking myself the question a few weeks ago how certain guitars seem to be getting cheaper to buy but only the hard coloured ones. I wonder if there is a statistical correlation . Lesson - You get owt for nowt -

-More E bay Shenanigans-

Brought to our attention by an injured party we though this little tale worthy of publishing. One growing sales line on e bay use the fact that some guitars were made for the Japanese market and only sold in Japan and the guitar you buy will be shipped direct from Japan. No mention that the guitar was MADE IN CHINA. We think very crafty and downright underhand although there isn't a single lie in this . Downright deception - Yes .

Another discovery is that some dealers operating in one country do not even have the guitars but once it is bought they then arrange direct shipment from the originator. This is why the descriprtions can be a bit vague - Good condition for age or Normal amount of dinks for age - What the hell does that mean ???

There you are Igor - We printed it..

The message - Make sure your guitar is MADE IN Japan and not MADE FOR Japan.

Told You So. January 2008

Don't you hate it when some smart arse uses those words. Two years ago we forecast Yamaha SG1000's and 2000's hitting prices like £500 and £600 respectively but we were wrong. They are hitting £700 and £850 for nice examples. They have actuall doubled and continue to rise as availability of the originals dries up.

Same goes with Orvilles which now are twicw the price in Japan to what they were two years ago . That will make Orvilles over here virtually the same price as a USA Gibson eventually. Its a similar story with most of the Fujigen , Matsumoku and Nippon Gakki 80's guitars.

What with the world economy falling apart guitars of this ilk seem to be the place to put your hard earned wedge - We can see it continuing with some of the lesser models joining in and the high enders virtually vanishing . WE TOLD YOU SO>>

LONG TENNON NECK JOINT.

We have long held the belief from trials and tests that the long tennon neck joint makes no difference whatsover over a normal tennon joint. Why should it .So what is this extra little bit of wood on the end of the neck for ?? Enter Bob ex Gibson and later Heritage who has turned on the light and sent the following information.

The long tennon or extra bit of wood was the point at which the neck was held in the jig leaving the rest of the neck free to be worked on. Later on we just cut em off when the neck was done.

Thats it ? - A bit of an anti climax and sounds about right so we printed it.

Long Tennon Again

We had a response to the above from someone else in the know who doesn't want to be named . He disputes the above comment and says that the long tennon has a greater surface area in every direction and therefore greater wood to wood contact which increases sustain. All makes sense until you bring Fender into the equation who just use woodscrews and they sustain just fine. Make up your own minds..

Yamaha SG Fogging

We heard some time ago from reliable scources that the common fogging on the SG was a result of the guitar being stored in the case for a very long time ( years ) and that the fogging in the nitro coat was caused by gasses given off by the pickguard. Can't say if that is right or not and it wouldn't happen here because we can't leave them alone. Anyway - Here is the new news - We had a few reports a while back that the fogging can diminish or vanish altogether if the guitar is left out of the case. We thought nothing of this until we saw a guitar a week ago that we knew from 8 years ago which was badly fogged and now isn't.

We are now conducting our own tests and will leave an SG in a case for 12 years and then take it out for 10 years so keep watching for the results due in about 2030.

How NOT to buy a Guitar

We have seen this time and again and best demonstrated by a real example. Mike turned down a couple of reasonable AM50 Ibanez a year or so back for £600 +/- because he wanted a mint example and was prepared to go £750 . We told him to buy the £600 offering and to upgrade if and when a mint one came along. It still hasn't and its getting less likely . In the meantime he will now have to pay £750 for what he could have had for £600. Get wise guys - These things are not sitting in shops or being produced any more and any mint high enders are firmly locked away in collections and appreciating nicely. They do come along once in a while at ever increasing prices but the message is get what you can when you can. In a decade they will all be VERY expensive items.

Price Hikes

The effect of the credit crunch plus lousy exchange rates for Brits shopping outside of the UK has inevitably led to significant price increases with a new Gibbo LP standard now listed at a whopping £400 more than it was a year ago as an example. Same goes for the higher end Japanese guitars - in fact everything. This will lead to all of the vintage stuff going the same way and has started already. The message for Buyers outside the UK is to buy from UK . There will never be a better time.

Good Investments

I have just returned from my annual holiday in Greece and happened to read the in flight business magazine to take my mind off what I had just eaten. Vintage Guitars are one thing but I think the Airlines are producing vintage food . I drift . I read with some interest in the investment pages that vintage guitars are officially fantastic investments and have consistently out performed the stock market many times over. This was a good four page spread as well and a feature article . To temper your enthusiasm a bit it did add that you had to know what you were doing. We like to think that we do and that everything in our pages has great investment potential.

Courier Services

Shipping a Guitar

A little story here - and how stupid is this ??? Last week I sent someone a guitar weighing 8.5kg in a box measuring 122mm by 46mm x 14mm for a cost of £25.99 within the UK which included £500 insurance cover.

Today the same parcel cost me £42 for the same service - Hows that for a price hike - Hang your heads in shame ParcelForce - They are trying to cover it over by renaming the services and devalueing them .

The old International Standard now has only £50 compensation and the extra compensation is now available for £22 !!!!! Yikes..

I did ask why the compensation cost had all but doubled and the answer was --- Wait for It ----- People are making too many Claims.

So its all our fault - Doesn't seem to have crossed their minds that if they didn't lose or steal or destroy parcels that the claims just might go down.

Anyway - stay with me a little longer here - The next bit is almost funny - I tried to set it all up on line and went to the PF website with my box weighing 8.5kg and measuring 122 X 46 x 14 to be told that it actually didn't weigh 8.5 kg at all but was in fact 13.5 kg . They call it volumetric weight and I can see some logic in it - but logic went out of the window at the next stage. The weight limit of the service I wanted to use was 10kg - Great I tough - 1.5 kg under - Guess what My 8.5 kg parcel is 3.5 kg over the 10kg limit -

I cannot go on - It is all too stupid -

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