The Vintage Musicial Instruments Thread

[Timko]

Raulduke's post of his beautiful 60's gibson archtop got me thinking about starting a vintage musical instruments thread, so here we are.  What could prove interesting here is that some things that someone considers vintage I may not because they were around when I got into music.  Likewise, some of the guitars I know I'm posting may be someone's first guitar as a teenager.  There's something fun about collecting old instruments; they always have a story with them, in terms of their owners or their sound.  I love to see what people share when it comes to older stuff like this, so I hope you'll share some of your stories as well.

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One of my first confessions is that I am not first and foremost an electric guitar player; my first love will always be acoustic.  There's something about the dry overtones that an acoustic produces with a pick or your fingers, and the way the instrument resonates your entire body that will always be appealing to me.  I currently own 2 acoustics, both what I consider vintage.

The first is a 1978 Guild D35 that I bought from the original owner.  He swapped out the open back tuners for some closed back Ovations (commonly done in the 80s).  This guitar is really heavy but has nice sound balance.  It's got a massive neck.  I love the way this guitar plays, and always feel that it's just not projecting.  That is, until I hear it recorded or here someone else play it.  It's yuge.


The 2nd is my baby; a 1969 Yamaha FG180.  These are laminate guitars that have quite a following these days, and this is one of the early Japanese red label ones.  The overtones on this instrument are to die for, and the neck is a great V shape (if you're into that type of thing).  The body size is a slightly thinner dreadnaught, and being a smaller stature guy this hits right into my arm pocket. This was my major project for 2016:  local luthier Greg Maxwell at Dogwood Guitars sanded, refretted, and reset the neck, and rebuilt parts of the bridge plate.  Now the action is almost electric low.  He actually owns one of these himself, and says mine is one of the nicest he's gotten a chance to play.


I wouldn't being opposed to buying some vintage electrics, but I have yet to find one that I really want without some killer sticker shock.  However, I do happen to own 2 vintage amplifiers!

My first tube amp was a Vox AC15.  I'm an avid (obsessed) craigslister, and have taken to buying quite a few instruments from there.  One was a reissue Epiphone Wilshire (the one with full sized humbuckers).  While the guitar only hung around the house for 6 months until I sold it to someone else, he did show me another item he was looking to sell:  A 1965 Ampeg Rocket 2.  And the super awesome part was the price he was asking for it was the same as I had paid for my AC15, so I quickly sold that to a friend and went to pick this beauty up.  The blue checked tolex is in great shape for a 50+ year old amp.  The speaker had been replaced with a new Jensen, which I disliked and replaced with a Weber that weighs nearly twice as much!  It's got some weird scratchy thing going on with the cab when you turn it up past 2:00, but at that point, it's getting pretty loud.  It's also amazingly clean for quite a bit of the volume travel; the power tubes are the oddball 7591, which have a distinct sound to them.


The other amp I own is older than my parents, and I would venture to say would qualify in anyone's definition of "vintage."  It's not much of a looker, but it is a howler.  I had been wanting a small tube amp to crank and wail on for a while.  The cost of most Fender Champ style amps is a bit of a deal breaker for me right now.  Other amp companies like Supro have gotten a lot of visibility lately so you can't pick them up cheaply.  So I began looking at some other companies, and found this beauty down in Arkansas: a late 1940's Magnatone Varsity.  Judging by the way the cab has holes drilled in it, I would imagine it came out of an auctioneers truck (quite common these days).  Just dime the volume, plug, and play .


One of these days I'm going to buy a vintage Gretsch Country Gentleman.  Until then, I'll have to make due with my 10 year old one .  So what do you have to share?

[raulduke]

Nice collection/stash there dude!

I've got bits and bobs of 'vintage' gear knocking about (the Gibson I posted is the nicest of the bunch though).

I'll get photos of it all and post.

[bcalla]

Great collection!  I particularly like the Ampeg, I have been jonesing for a 60s Reverbrocket or Gemini.  There is a '65 Ampeg Reverbrocket 2 on my local CL, but I can't reasonably justify pulling the trigger.  When I load my vintage gear to this thread the reason will become clear.

[gordo]

I've serviced a few old Ampeg Rockets and am obsessed with them.  I just can't afford one, wish I'd jumped on them when you couldn't give them away.  Any amp with an accordion input is cool in my books.

[gordo]

I'll work up some pics if somebody wants to see a couple of old Lado's.  I have an early Falcon and a Falcon Strat that I butchered.  I felt so guilty about hacking up one of Joe's beauties that I figured out how to build halfway decent guitars.

[bcalla]

I spent some time tracking down photos today so here are all of my vintage instruments.

While it's not the oldest instrument I own, I have owned this the longest.  It's a 1971 Martin D-28 that I bought used in 1972.  I realized that since I was in college I wasn't likely to have time to be to be in bands anymore.  So I sold my '68 Strat (white with maple fretboard, sigh...) & bought this.



Between 12 & 16 years ago I picked up the next two.  I figured out that 70s-80s Ibanez guitars were affordable and pretty nice.  They are a lot less affordable now (but not outrageous) – I actually bought and sold several other models and never lost money on any of them.

The first is a 1979 Ibanez Musician MC-300.  The previous owner replaced the original pickups with EMG Selects.  He gave me the originals but since these sound pretty good I never bothered to swap them back.  The knobs are not original, but I have those too.  The mini 3-position toggles are stock, you can set each pickup to in phase, out of phase and coil tap.  The yin/yang inlays are actually stickers I bought on ebay, there are standard dot fret markers underneath.



Next is a 1983 Ibanez AM-255, a small-body semi-acoustic.  This has the nicest action of any guitar I've ever owned.  It plays like butter and really growls for blues tunes.  If I had it to do over I would have bought an AM-205, it's identical except it's a stop-tail instead of vibrato.  This was Ibanez's take on a locking vibrato bridge and it's really hokey.



The next two I bought last year, both unplanned.  They are why new toys would be hard to rationalize.

This is a 1968 Guild Starfire V.  This one belonged to the other guitarist in my band back in high school.  He was the original owner and never really played much after the band broke up in 1970.



And then I found this 1971 Kustom K-100.  My friend that I bought the Guild Starfire from & I co-owned one of these back in our band.  We bought ours used around '68 or '69 so mine is at least a couple years newer.  Otherwise it's identical, color and all.  It's also in much nicer shape than our original K-100.

[matmosphere]

Great idea for a thread! You've got some nice gear.

I'm with you on the acoustic thing. I started playing electric but I'm pretty happy with an acoustic in an open tuning.

Next time I'm at the practice space I'll snap some pics of my old stuff.

[alanp]

I've got a Vintage LP, does this count?

[Timko]

Between 12 & 16 years ago I picked up the next two.  I figured out that 70s-80s Ibanez guitars were affordable and pretty nice.  They are a lot less affordable now (but not outrageous) – I actually bought and sold several other models and never lost money on any of them.

The first is a 1979 Ibanez Musician MC-300.  The previous owner replaced the original pickups with EMG Selects.  He gave me the originals but since these sound pretty good I never bothered to swap them back.  The knobs are not original, but I have those too.  The mini 3-position toggles are stock, you can set each pickup to in phase, out of phase and coil tap.  The yin/yang inlays are actually stickers I bought on ebay, there are standard dot fret markers underneath.



Next is a 1983 Ibanez AM-255, a small-body semi-acoustic.  This has the nicest action of any guitar I've ever owned.  It plays like butter and really growls for blues tunes.  If I had it to do over I would have bought an AM-205, it's identical except it's a stop-tail instead of vibrato.  This was Ibanez's take on a locking vibrato bridge and it's really hokey.

Awesome Ibaenz collection!  I've been looking at those, Ovations, and Washburns from the late 70's/early 80's as an alternative to the more famous humbucker/set neck guitar.

[galaxiex]

Some very nice goods here, above... ^^^^  ..... and below.... 

My "vintage" guitars and amps are a rag-tag motley collection of
cheap junky Japanese Teisco and Silvertone budget or student guitars from the late 60's - early 70's
and equally cheap solid state low power amps that were typically sold along-side the guitars in department stores and mail-order catalogs.

I'll post pics if anyone is interested.... 

[rumbletone]

[dbl post - why does Tapatalk dislike me so?!]

[rumbletone]

My 1962 6120:




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[rumbletone]

[dbl post]

[gordo]

I've got a Vintage LP, does this count?

Yes it does, and it's a beauty!

[gordo]

Its a bit funny how much people place validity in age but having spent a bit of time in a repair shop I've had some choice pieces pass thru the doors.  I'm not doing repairs outside of stuff for buddies but the thing that strikes me the most about really cool old bits is the smell.  I know that sounds stupid but the best sounding vintage guitars I've ever touched had this musty/woody perfume that was totally intoxicating.  It triggers some weird primal thing in me.  Like the first time I ever smelled pot was at a Harvey Mandel concert and to this day if I play anything off "Baby Batter" I flash to standing there and hearing his LP goldtop thru an Acoustic amp and being totally floored at seeing two hand tapping years before Van Halen.  It's the sickest wobbly Vibe & DynaComp sound that to this day makes me 15 years old again.

The sad part is that I start to realize that it really doesn't make a damn bit of difference WHAT you use for gear as opposed to what you use the gear TO DO.  My absolute to die for score is a Framus Jan Akkerman.  I see the new Framus production of AK74's and they're damn close enough to the oldies, and the oldies are unobtainium.  Still...it's really not going to make me sound like Hamburger Concerto.

The coolest part of old gear is what it means to you.  THAT's what I'm interested in finding out in this thread.  WHY do you own it?  Good score for cheap?  Good score because?  I have a ton of stuff that has a story.  I just need to take pictures :-)