The Steel Guitar Forum

Good point Howard.
I have a few vintage steels that I love dearly and I make sure they are in good repair with good strings on them.
And I have used them in the studio extensively, to be sure.
But they are old and often need to be babied, tweaked, retuned etc.
They need to be dealt with, and at a gig there is already enough to deal with - babbling drunks, loose women, thunderstorms etc etc.

When I do live performances I take my Remington Steelmaster.
It looks great, sounds great and it stays in tune.
It is also noise free - very important when using the VP to extend sustain.

So yeah - if you're looking to acquire a guitar for playing live and recording,
I would highly recommend patronizing one of the excellent builders in our world today.

Rick Alexander wrote:They need to be dealt with, and at a gig there is already enough to deal with - babbling drunks, loose women, thunderstorms etc etc.

You keep the guitars in good shape.....I'll handle the loose women.....

There is little doubt that today's modern instruments will usually out perform most vintage pieces as working artists tools to be used on a regular daily basis. Tuners, hum noise, structural integrity all have been improved upon making reliability and repeatability beter than ever. I have a Georgeboard 8 string that is far more practical than trying to keep my Ricky pointed in the right direction to minimize the hum while gigging. But there is something about the old iron that inspires. How many 40 or 50 year old Fender amps are still used on stages every night? There is a lot more maintenence and responsibility in using old equipment but there is still the rush.
Kind of like old cars. There is not a car available off the showroom floor that could not wipe the snot off the old 55 Porsche I once had. They are all fast. But there was something so cool about the feel, the sound, the smell that nothing new can recreate. That old bathtub by today's standards is slow, raw and out of date, but it was inspiring. Anybody who ever drove it left with a memory to take with them. It's the same with old equipment. Maybe you would not gig with an old Silver Hawaiian (maybe you would) but they are cool to experience. Inspiring. That is what art is about.

Here's a guitar collection to make most collections pale in comparison: http://krcollection.blogspot.com/

Here's a guitar collection to make most collections pale in comparison: http://krcollection.blogspot.com

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He could probably feed a small country for several years with what they are worth....

But no steels? For shame!

Well, he does have a couple of Roy Smecks, though one's been converted.

HowardR wrote:...Why not buy a modern steel or a modern reproduction?.....

That's a good question. Let's take the National New Yorker, for instance. It's quite a collector's item now. If someone were to sell a new copy of that, identical in every way, would enough people buy it to cover its tooling costs ?
If you look at the Artisan, which is about as cheap a modern steel as you can find, almost every feature, from the Roman Numeral fingerboard to the general shape, has been copied from lap steels from the 50s and 60s. I don't know how well it has sold. There are plenty of them around on the market, which might indicate popularity, overproduction, or just dumping something that doesn't sell. (By the way, they're a good deal for the price. Clamp a few together. You won't end up with a Stringmaster, but functionally they'll work as well as any other 6-string steel. If you're unhappy with the pick-up, change it.)

If someone were to sell a new copy of that, identical in every way, would enough people buy it to cover its tooling costs ?

Good point Alan. Look at what some of the new well- made lap steels cost. To buy a new instrument by a good builder (many of whom grace these pages)is certainly more spendy than buying an Artisan. But... compare that to the cost of an American built electric guitar. Relatively good deal, right? Yet these builders are competing with many true vintage steel guitars in good condition that can frequently be had for less than the cost of the new instrument. Just saw a '40's Ricky panda type go for about $600 on ebay, for example. Very difficult for a quality builder to put together a new one to compete with that!

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Just saw a '40's Ricky panda type go for about $600 on ebay, for example. Very difficult for a quality builder to put together a new one to compete with that!

Then it seems there's a choice......one can buy or have made a modern steel,.......or find a fair sale of a vintage instrument as mentioned above.....

Nobody is denied the opportunity to play a steel guitar whose qualities fall within what is desired.....

Seems to me more then 1 of anything is a collection.

I was thinking 3 or more - 2 could just mean you have a spare,
but 3 means you're accumulating - ie collecting.

That's how my "collection" started - I had 2 steel guitars for many years,
then I got that 3rd one and after that I just went plumb berserk.

and 4 or more means your wife will sell what she can, when she has a chance.

Derrick Mau wrote:and 4 or more means your wife will sell what she can, when she has a chance.

...over my dead body !
...oops, come to think of it, that's probably when it will happen.