Pricing of Gypsy Jazz guitars

Scoredog

How bout a boat of basses?

art has always depended on who was paying for it. Not sure why I added this but was bored and posted.

Russell Letson

On the other hand, there are plenty of working professionals who pursue guitar tone and who go to considerable trouble to acquire the instruments that produce it. Sometimes that means a vintage (and thus rare and expensive) instrument--a pre-war Martin, a 1930s L5, a Selmer--and sometimes a small-shop instrument like a Sobell. (Classical players, of course, are pretty demanding, but that's a different world.)

I've dealt with enough pros to know that there are trade-offs between practicality and perfect sound. Leo Kottke settled on Taylor 12-strings partly because he knew that in case of disaster he could get a replacement quickly--not the case with a Božo. (Similarly, he settled on a magnetic pickup system because it made sound checks easy.) Garnet Rogers, on the other hand, travels with a whole rack of guitars including several vintage items. James Taylor has been playing Olsons for years. Mary Flower gigs with her Fraulini and a 1940s Gibson square-neck. And so on.

And sometimes the answer isn't an expensive custom instrument--David Rawlings found the sound he was looking for in a 1935 Epiphone Olympic, a modest mid-line model. And ironically that has driven the price of Olympics up and availability down, not unlike what happened to the Guild M-20 when it was believed that Nick Drake recorded on one. (He didn't.)

MichaelHorowitz

From what I’ve seen there isn’t a whole lot of the guitar trophy collecting behavior in the Gypsy jazz world. Sure, people with higher incomes are more likely to buy some of the pricier models, but in twenty years I don’t think I’ve personally had a true collector buy anything from me. Just about everything sells to people who are invested in the genre and are really playing the instruments they buy. As mentioned earlier, sound is paramount for just about every buyer I’ve worked with. Name brand prestige, customization, and visual aesthetics are always secondary.

There’s this idea that all the rare vintage pieces (Selmers, Busatos, Favinos, etc) get bought buy guys in outsized mansions with big glass display rooms. Again, I’ve never really seen that and many of the most active buyers of some of the best Selmers are regular middleclass guys. Sure, $35K is a lot of money but most people with a middleclass income can scrape that together if it’s a priority (which usually means making some sacrifices like not buying another car, less travel, etc.)

Similarly, I’ve had very serious players who are literally living hand to mouth buy some of the premium stuff (Dupont VRB, Holo, etc.) These players are making big sacrifices to obtain a guitar that will meet their artistic needs. In fact, back in the day I did just that, I bought a Favino when I had no stable income but it was a priority for me.

As I pointed out earlier, Gypsy guitars are really pretty inexpensive compared to just about any other genre. If you expand that comparison to other instruments, especially the bowed instrument world, then Gypsy guitars look downright cheap! I don’t want to even tell you what I payed for my kids student violins (what pro violinists pay for just a bow is more than what most of the top Gypsy guitars go for.)