The Steel Guitar Forum

I agree, Keith. There are a lot of good, reasonably priced instruments out there. Like you, I will not pay a lot of money for vintage gear. That’s a rich man’s hobby! I do have some 1960’s and 70’s guitars and amps that I have owned for many years. A few I stumbled across in my music work over the years, teaching, gigging, etc, all at very reasonable prices, some were even given to me. The '57 Valco lap steel that used to record my mp3s below... I bought for only $60! The Emmons p/p that appears in my avatar I paid $800 for, it's my main pedal steel... my only pedal steel... and I play it on all of my gigs. We all love a bargain!

I'm 30 years old and completely obsessed with vintage steels. I'll be the young punk buying up all the old stuff. In my extremely biased opinion, I'd say most new lap steels are not worth playing, compared to the old ones. Same with amps. Same with styles of music. Alot of new lap steels seem to have thin crappy tone without some kind of "help". OLD = GOLD NEW = PEW!

I agree regarding the amps. There is nothing like an old tube amp for lap steel IMHO... a match made in heaven! I play my Valco through a '67 Vibrolux Reverb on gigs. I wouldn't dream of playing lap steel through a solid state amp. Pedal steel however... that's a different story. PSG is a completely different animal, with different requirements, in my opinion.

The simple truth is this:

You can buy any one of these vintage steels and always sell it for at least what you paid for it or more when you get tired of it.

Any new steel will loose it's value for quite a while. Superslides have sold on this forum or in some cases not sold on this forum.

I do own one new GeorgeBoards and I just love it. I can put it away for months (when my mind wanders to other insturments) and it stays within 5 cents of being in tune


but I am sorry, it does not come close to the tone of a vintage Stringmaster, Rickenbacker or Dual Professional. Maybe in 50 years the GB will be the coveted one.

They make great instruments today. I have nothing against new instruments. My Tele and Strat are six or eight years old and I love 'em both! And they make not so great instruments today. And so it was long ago. I've played and owned several vintage stringed instruments both acoustic and electric. Not all of them sounded great believe me. I had a '57, '58 and 61 D28s. The '57 was worth a ton, the 61 sounded the best. A good friend had a early 50's Tele back in the mid 70's. I played it a lot at jam sessions. But it wasn't that great a guitar. I played 70's Tele's (supposedly crap) that sounded and played a lot better. And so it goes.

I have been wanting to comment on this, now that I am member, I am 33 and way, way, way, to far into vintage gear! I have just recently acquired my holy grail, a 1928 style 1 tricone. I agree with the line of thought that the vintage stuff holds value. If you spend $300 on something vintage it should be worth the same or more later on.

Jim

I'm another youngster - 25 - who puts every spare buck (also some not so spare bucks and some borrowed bucks) into vintage guitars. I will buy a brand new PSG someday, but all my favorite gear is old, old old.

Some selected symptoms of my vintage specific G.A.S.: My 17 year old brother and I play 30's resos together on stage. Mine is a '35 Gretch branded Regal Angelus with a raised nut and his is a '37 Regal Model 26 roundneck (played fingerstyle). Both my young-grown-up friends and his high school/college age friends just go nuts over them. I also have a Double-8 Gibson Electraharp EH-820, a '65 Hofner hollowbody, a 50's Kay mandolin, a Hammond B3 organ and a 60's fender bassman cab (2x12") that I use for steel. If you stay away from the les pauls, strats and country clubs, there are a lot of serious bargains out there(in terms of sound AND style) in older instruments. And cleaning them up always seems to bring me closer to the the guitar and improves my understanding of how they make the sounds that they do.

A brand new Taylor or Martin may have a straight neck, sound great, stay in tune and be reliably playable but..um...uh...ok fine, I wish I could afford one. And of course, I would sell a couple of organs for a non-goldtone beard reso.

Keith Cordell wrote:A lot of guys like me, who don't have the dough to buy a good vintage guitar, have taken up finding good instruments that have not become sought after. I play a number of instruments that a guitar snob would laugh at, but they sound great and play like I want them to. Take, for example, my SD Curlee guitar. An Ebay average would be about $150. I got mine for $50; Don Dunlavey set it up and repaired a couple of issues and now it is one of the most playable, strong and toneful instruments I have ever owned. Danelectro reissues can be great with a little lovin', and sound unbelievable. I have two, one a vintage U1. My lap steel is a neck from a quad stringmaster that noone but me seems to want, but it sounds BIG even though it's ugly!

I'd be afraid to take a $20,000 guitar to a jam or show, but the Curlee, besides the loss of a great sounding instrument, wouldn't ruin my week if it were stolen or knocked over and broken. I love that stuff but it's off the menu for me.

Keith, I'd take a neck from a Stringmaster any day of the week. I've actually been looking for something like that on eBay for some time. I don't care if it's not collectible or has poor resale....I'll bet it sounds fantastic.