What goes into a guitar appraisal and why you might need one.
Here I'm appraising an all-original 19th Century C. F. Martin 0-28 with dark orange top and ivory friction pegs, about the only two options Martin listed on their price list at the time.The inspection mirror revealed a penciled date on the underside of the soundboard, a lucky find!
With the phenomenal rise in guitar values in recent years, many guitarists and collectors have been seeking appraisals of their instruments. Some guitarists, hearing about the high prices brought by vintage guitars at auction, want to find out about their own instrument’s worth, while others may simply want to add a guitar to their homeowner’s insurance policy, for which they need a written appraisal. While members of the first group are often disappointed, “Oh, is that all my guitar is worth?” some from the second group have the opposite reaction, more akin to “You’ve gotta be kidding!” when they find that a guitar they’ve taken for granted is now quite valuable. Regardless of their reaction, guitar players rarely understand all the factors an appraiser has to consider and how the resulting values are derived. Here are the steps I go through when inspecting and appraising guitars and other musical instruments such as mandolins, ukuleles, and banjos.
What Is It?
Most appraisals start by determining the instrument’s age and model designation. With guitars made in the past 75 years or so, that is often fairly easy, because they have serial numbers and model codes stamped inside or written on their labels. But many Gibson guitars made in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s were shipped without a serial number or model code, and 19th-century Martins had no markings, just the company name. Identification of Washburns and other early guitars can be even sketchier, so it can be helpful to have a library of reference books available. Many early guitars, mandolins, and banjos don’t even have a visible brand name, which means that appraisers will need to spend lots of time doing Internet research and searching through reference books and old trade catalogs looking for similar instruments. And guitars don’t have to be old to be valuable, as there is now more widespread recognition that some flattops and electrics made in Japan during the late ’60s and ’70s, for instance, have a particular sound and overall “vibe” that is uniquely connected to the music that was popular when they were marketed.
What Shape Is It In?
The next step is an assessment of the condition of the instrument. The three most important things I need to determine when appraising a guitar are its structural condition and playability, the originality of its components and finish, and what repairs have been performed in the past (and how well, by current standards, those repairs were done).
The structural condition of an instrument is critical because it determines what repairs, if any, are needed to put it in optimal playing condition. That includes the condition of the frets, straightness of the neck, neck angle, and string action. It’s also important to use an inspection mirror to check for loose braces and, on steel-string flattops, excessive wear to the bridge plate. On a guitar that’s had lots of use and many string changes, those innocuous little brass balls at the end of each string can wreak havoc with the thin piece of wood glued to the underside of the top just beneath the bridge.
This is also a good time to check for signs of earlier repairs. It can come as a surprise to many guitarists, especially if they’ve owned the instrument for many years, that a crack-free guitar that plays OK and sounds fine may still need expensive repairs to be considered in top condition. But string tension can take a heavy toll, especially on flattops, even when the guitar has been hibernating under a bed or in a closet for many years. Buyers are often far more critical of an instrument’s playing condition than someone who has owned the guitar for years and has learned, often unconsciously, to work around its shortcomings.
Is It All Original?
With every passing year, the originality of a guitar’s finish and parts becomes more critical to its value. On vintage guitars, the finish and parts may appear quite old but can be more recent than the instrument’s construction date. Determining what parts manufacturers used during different periods, and what their original finishes looked like, requires experience, as does detecting repairs. Until the past few decades, many owners sent their instruments back to the factory for routine repairs, even for something as mundane as lowering the string action. Manufacturers saw their repair departments as an important source of revenue, so customers were often encouraged to have their guitars made to look new again for a small additional charge. This usually meant overspraying the original finish with fresh lacquer, and although a factory overspray does not diminish an instrument’s value to the same extent as a full refinish (in which the original finish is stripped or sanded down to bare wood before a whole new finish is applied), it makes the instrument less desirable to most collectors.
Assigning a Value
Once all the above factors are taken into consideration, it’s time to assign a value to the instrument. While inventory listings from used- and vintage-guitar dealers may be helpful, they’re not always accurate. As anyone attending vintage-guitar shows may have noticed, the asking price and the actual selling price of an instrument are often quite different. Price guides, on the other hand, often lump guitar models from different years together, although such a grouping usually has numerous price ranges within it. The price guide published each year by Vintage Guitar magazine can be helpful, as can the Blue Book series of price guides (separate volumes for acoustic and electric guitars) and other similar publications. However, given the vast number of models, and the minor variations within similar models that can have a major impact on value, no price guide is infallible, and they are best used to corroborate values based on recent sales of similar instruments.
For the most part, assessing the value of recently made guitars is much easier, because you can look up the manufacturer’s current list price, find the typical “street price,” and then factor in the usual percentage difference between a new guitar with a factory warranty and an equivalent used model.
When assigning a value I try to rely on what similar instruments have actually sold for, and a database of sales figures can be of tremendous help. If our shop hasn’t sold a similar instrument recently, I rely on a network of vintage instrument dealers, many of whom have similar databases or very good memories. Another source of actual sales data is results from recent auctions. When using Internet auction sites, such as eBay, it’s important to rely only on searches for completed auctions, rather than current listings. Listings with high starting prices, or “Buy Now” figures, often run without attracting a single bid. On the other hand, last-second bidding in timed auctions means that the actual selling price of an instrument can double just as the auction closes, making any earlier bidding level meaningless.
Investment Considerations
For many people new to guitar collecting, the recent recession—I’m optimistically referring to it in the past tense—has debunked the oft-repeated myth that vintage guitars always go up in value. Instrument values have always been in flux; it’s just that the recent run of inflation lasted far longer than usual. Two big reasons for the recent price fluctuations are stricter standards among collectors regarding originality and a greater divide between the value of highly collectible guitars and those of interest primarily to players with an appetite for older instruments. When values are rising and demand is high, the prices of lesser examples of desirable models often go up simply because they are all that collectors can find. But when selling prices begin to fall, and it’s a buyers’ market, second-tier examples can suffer greater deflation because collectors still in the market are holding out for the best, and there are lower ceilings on the prices ordinary guitar pickers are willing to pay.
As prices escalate, buyers become more critical and similar instruments have a wider range of values, depending on the comparative rarity and desirability of certain years or versions of the same model. For acoustic flattops, the best example of this fragmentation is the original Martin herringbone dreadnought. Forty years ago, when demand for vintage D-28’s began to grow, there wasn’t much difference between the value of a 1935 D-28 and one made a decade later. Today, however, the earlier version can be worth two or three times as much as the later example, even though the differences appear minor to the average fan of old Martins. When differences in condition and originality are considered, the values of two similar instruments can be even further apart, or their positions can be reversed. For instance, a later herringbone D-28 in excellent condition might be worth much more than an earlier example that’s far more rare, but has been highly modified and heavily worn. This variation in one guitar model’s value often has little or nothing to do with an instrument’s playability, sound, or even appearance when compared to another. You don’t necessarily get a better-sounding prewar D-28 when you pay an extra $20,000, you just get one that people with more financial resources happen to want.
Instruments that are nearly identical to models identified with famous and influential musicians often have much higher values than similar examples of the same brand that are slightly different. Good examples of this phenomenon are 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolins identical to the one played by Bill Monroe and early ’60s Gretsch 6122 “Country Gentleman” electrics that match the one used by George Harrison. Contemporary artists, such as Eric Clapton, can also add a significant bonus to the value of instruments identical to the model they routinely use in performance.
Appraisal Numbers and What They Mean
If you are having an instrument evaluated, be sure you understand what the appraised value means. An appraisal of “replacement value,” for instance, is an estimate of the amount you would probably have to spend to find the same model, of about the same age, and in similar condition. Many people make the mistake of getting an appraisal for replacement value, and then expect to sell the instrument for that amount. But consignment fees, auction commissions, and other costs will probably put a considerable dent in what the owner nets from a sale, regardless of the appraised replacement value. As a general rule, most owners will not net more than 80 percent of the amount their instrument has been appraised for should they choose to sell it.
For most people, an appraisal is a way to get adequate insurance so they don’t have to worry about the possibility of taking a huge financial hit if their guitar is lost, stolen, or damaged beyond repair. For others, an appraisal is like checking the financial pages for the current value of their stock portfolio. Either way, it’s important to remember that any appraisal is a snapshot of your guitar’s current approximate worth in an ever-changing market.