This is obviously a fake, which is being passed off as a real “vintage” telecaster. Apart from the obvious warning sign of not having a serial number, the logo on the headstock is wrong and it doesn’t have through body stringing. At best I would expect this to be a Squier or other far eastern copy that has had a logo applied to the headstock.
As ever with eBay, make sure you do your research and caveat emptor.
Guild experimented with some surprisingly unusual and original guitar shapes in the late 1970s, and here’s an example of one of the more conservative varieties which rarely comes up for sale. The S250 also has the dubious honour of being Jan Hammer’s guitar of choice (according to this excellent site).
Personally I prefer the shape of the S300 (I have one of these) but the S250 is as good to play; they both have an ebony fretboard which is a welcome comfort. The standard stoptail (as opposed to Guild’s angled one) is a bit of a disappointment on the S250 but it was a cheaper model.
A relatively rare USA made guitar that’s well worth checking out, and a realistic opening price. Nice to see that from time to time (although I still maintain that a 99p opening price gets you the biggest final sale price). At some point someone famous will probably get a taste for old Guild electrics and the prices will fly…
[Full disclosure: as mentioned above, I have a S300 but have no connection whatsoever with this seller or auction]
UPDATE 17/09/09: After having suspicions pointed out to them, the seller has revised the item – fair credit to them. Haven’t revised the price though.
This listing makes out that the bass being sold is a genuine Rickenbacker. It is clearly not. Quite apart from the claim that the tuners have been “replaced” (so why aren’t there any holes from the original tuners? and why would they be replaced with inferior tuners?!) the bridge pickup is the wrong shape.
This is probably an Aria / Ibanez / Antoria copy, which is worth plenty without needing to lie to your potential purchasers about it being an original Ricky; this is one seller not to trust.
Not just any Coronado, but a Wildwood version. Coronados were made from 1966 to 1972 and the Wildwood finish was produced by injecting dyes into beech trees as they were growing. This resulted in a distinctive finish which was unique to each guitar. Strangely this technique has never been replicated to my knowledge…
They weren’t particularly successful, due in no small part to the use of a bolt on neck which really doesn’t work with a hollow body. Whilst not many were made, their oddness still means that they’re not very popular and they always lose out to Gibsons, Gretsches and Guilds among fans of thinline guitars.
Personally I think the Coronado I versions looked better than the II but each to his own. The example above is overpriced in my opinion, probably £1000 would be a more reasonable valuation.
[Full disclosure: I do not own a Coronado of any description and have no association with the seller of this guitar.]
Nice, basic, Japanese P-Bass from 1986. Fender Japan were making great, reliable instruments around this period and they are likely to be of interest to collectors in future if in excellent condition. This one is up for £295 which is a bargain in my book – cheaper than you’d get a modern Mexican P-bass for.
[Full disclosure: I have no connection whatsoever with the seller of this instrument and I do not own a Japanese standard P-bass; I do however own an early 90s Japanese Fender Precision Lyte]
In the late 70s, Gibson, like Fender, were not in a strong position financially and were looking to cut costs and boost sales. One of the outcomes of this was The Paul. This was a budget Les Paul-type guitar, with a solid walnut body and (unusually for any budget guitar) an ebony fingerboard. They were intended as a back to basics, no frills guitar for students and gigging musicians who couldn’t afford a LP Standard (the Studio being some years off) and interestingly featured Dirty Fingers pickups on the original Standard models (but not the later Firebrand versions).
They do have some cult interest, but mainly because they are one of the cheapest ways to buy a Gibson rather than any real collectability or because they are anything special. The seller who has listed the Paul at the link above has vastly overestimated the value; a more acceptable value would be around the £400 – £500 mark, particularly as you can easily get hold of a recent LP Studio, with carved top for £500.
[Full disclosure: I do not own any Gibsons]
Is there such a thing as a collectable Squier? Well, yes; the JV series which were the first export Fender Japan models are highly sought after and hard to find. However, the vast majority of Squiers are budget guitars, and of varying quality.
However, many people like to claim that anything with any association with Fender will become “rare” or collectable, regardless of how many hundreds of thousands were produced or how poor quality they were. Out of the 3 linked above, there is only one that I would expect to consider worth bothering about and that’s the Venus; there were relatively few produced (in Japan too so of a good quality) and they are good guitars, regardless of the unfortunate Courtney Love association (she co-designed them). The 12 string version in particular is well worth looking out for and can certainly be considered a future collectable. I wouldn’t expect these to be seriously considered by collectors for at least another 5 years however and therefore prices should be fairly flat for the next few years.
The Fender HM series is an oddity, and as I’ve pointed out in previous posts, may become of interest if there is a serious change in guitar fashions, or if hair rock comes back into fashion off the back of the recent 80s musical revival. However, the Squier HMs were definitely of varying quality, some good, some very poor. The woods in particular that were being used in Korea by the Squier factories for all models included ply varietes some years. It’s unlikely that the Squier versions will become of serious interest to collectors in future.
The final link is to a bog standard, but massively overpriced, Korean Jazz bass. There were hundreds of thousands of these produced over a long period of time, and again, quite a lot of them were plywood. Do not pay anything near £200 for one of these. They won’t increase in value, and they’re not even very good guitars.
[Full disclosure: I do not own any of these guitars, or have any association with any of the sellers whose auctions are linked above]