[Brian Krashpad]

Now, I realize there's a distinction between "collectible" and "vintage." Something brand new can be collectible, and something old may not be collectible.

But it struck me seeing the threads in this area that different people appear to have highly different ideas about what constitutes "vintage."

Obviously, we can all agree that something new is not "vintage." But how old does something have to be to be vintage? Does the minimum age change depending on the type of article (for example, is the cut-off for a vintage auto different than the cut-off for a vintage guitar or amp)?

To me, of the existing threads here, only one (about the '60's Vox AC-30) actually is about what I would consider "vintage" gear. The others had to do with stuff made in the 90's! To me, while that's used gear, and maybe collectible, it's not "vintage." I'd consider anything from the 60's and back as safely "vintage." The 70's is on the cusp, 80's... not so much. 90's not at all.

What are your thoughts on defining the term "vintage" in this context? Should this subforum instead be called "Vintage & Collectible?"

Discuss!

[floydmoline]

to me pre 70's is classic, 80's is vintage, 90's is mostly junk, and modern isn't much different than 90's lol

i think it is based on your age, things that are old and god like to me because i have never actually seen or played one, take on a mythical status, while a guy that is no more than 10 years older who was around at the tail end of production of a specific item, or in it's hey day and saw it everywhere when it was new, i'd be nothing special

example: i seriously doubt that hendrix thought a fuzz face was special when it was new.

although effects and guitars are different animals
effects a modern repo can sound the same as the vintage gear, things have gotten better, but most re-issues don't sound the same because companies change things, for the most part effect designers are not guitar players, they are electrical engineers, and just because a design is better electrically, and more efficient don't mean it sounds good dunlop pedals are perfect examples.

guitars i can say are NOT made like they used to be, in the 60's, and most of the 70's even CHEAP student guitars were built better than mid to high range guitars are today....... you have to buy a custom shop guitar, or pay a premium for a master build guitar to get the same quality that "student" guitars were back in the day....... this new thing of building everything from plywood really pisses me off

my 2 cents worth, people really get fooled by slick sales people, and think they hear voodoo and mojo in electronics that aren't really there..... there is a difference between a 60's Ge fuzz and a 70's+ Si fuzz, but those red fuzz faces from the 70's are Si and sound the same as something that could be built today.... ergo not worthy of a huge tag or the worship they get...... but guitars are made different, and age different, 20-30 year old wood is sifferent than new wood, and plywood guitars are never going to get better, investing in a guitar made of plywood is ok for a beater but the instrument will never improve nor will it gain any value.

[Brian Krashpad]

A lot of plywood references there.

Actually, it's pretty rare to find a plywood guitar nowadays. They're still made to be sure, but it's much more common to find even cheap electric guitars made of multipiece bodies of some actual solid wood, typically something inexpensive like agathis or basswood. You have to be really scraping the bottom of the barrel (like especially low-rung Chinese imports, like counterfeits of Gibsons or other brands; or Fender Starcasters sold in Wal-Marts) to find plywood being used.

In contrast, consider this: in the early 80's Gibson used the infamous "pancake" bodies, which it could be argued were themselves a form of plywood, as well as using 3-piece maple caps [something they could never get away with nowadays (in facts, even Epi couldn't get away with that nowadays)]. So there is not necessarily a correlation between age and quality of construction. That being said, in general the older guitars of the 60's and prior did not use such arguably questionable methods, at least not the big major US-made brands.

[floydmoline]

2005 epiphone les paul standard advertised as a mahogany body (pieces are acceptable here) and all maple top (actually laminated NOT acceptable, but when i read all maple top i read SOLID maple.... which would not be the case) ^^ actual instrument = 4 piece mahogany body, laminated (plywood) maple top..... i mean PLYWOOD sanding by hand and went through the venier (sp?) i'll attach a picture :-( one shows the plys on the "solid" maple top, and one that hopefully shows it is in fact an epiphone standard.

[Brian Krashpad]

Ah, so THAT's what you're talking about. Most inexpensive guitars are going to have laminate maple caps. No biggie-- $2000 ES-335's are made of maple laminate also.

Your prior post didn't give any indication you were talking about maple caps. Quite the contrary, it indicated you were talking about "plywood guitars" and "building everything from plywood"-- which is going to mean plywood bodies to a reasonable reader.

Minus 10% for poor word choice.

:winkx:

[characterzero]

True when I heard plywood I immediately thought of this really crappy old thin plywood first act guitar or something, that my friend carved an F-hole in, showing the true crappiness inside. Laminate doesn't seem like it's that big a deal.

[floydmoline]

laminate / plywood SAME THING!!!!! :-P

[Brian Krashpad]

Originally Posted by floydmoline

laminate / plywood SAME THING!!!!! :-P

Haha, true dat. But you confused us by not being specific about your concern being about laminate tops.
Laminate top laminate body.

[floydmoline]

does to me, if it's not solid wood, it's not worthy of more than a 200 dollar price tag..... this is obviously my own opinion of course, further i can't understand why epiphone an gibson feel the need to make les pauls with laminate tops, only thing i can figure is to make the "'highly figured" maple slabs last longer 3/4 figured maple top is a waste of atleast 1/2" but when you skinny the laminates down to 1/16" you are pushing it.... that is called venier and when all the layers of said top are less than 1/16" it's is in my opinion plywood, maple plywood, pine plywood makes no difference at this stage because it's still mostly glue....... biggest reason this concerns me is because agile can make a quality les paul with a solid maple cap for 200 bucks!!!!!

[Brian Krashpad]

Originally Posted by floydmoline

does to me, if it's not solid wood, it's not worthy of more than a 200 dollar price tag..... this is obviously my own opinion of course, further i can't understand why epiphone an gibson feel the need to make les pauls with laminate tops, only thing i can figure is to make the "'highly figured" maple slabs last longer 3/4 figured maple top is a waste of atleast 1/2" but when you skinny the laminates down to 1/16" you are pushing it.... that is called venier and when all the layers of said top are less than 1/16" it's is in my opinion plywood, maple plywood, pine plywood makes no difference at this stage because it's still mostly glue....... biggest reason this concerns me is because agile can make a quality les paul with a solid maple cap for 200 bucks!!!!!

I'm guessing you're comparing the Epi LP Standard to the Rondo AL-2000 (which is at the $200 price point).

At the outset, it's obvious that Rondo can offer a bit more bang-for-buck, because Epi has an advertising budget while Rondo essentially doesn't. However, once you get past the "paying-for-the-name" thing, things get very subjective and very dicey very fast.

For example, I doubt I could hear a difference between what a solid 1/16" grade B maple cap does to an Agile AL-2000 vs. what a laminate maple cap does to an Epi. Maybe you can, but I doubt my ears are that good.

But, in addition to getting the Les Paul/Epi name, there are other factors that may make an Epi more attractive to some buyers (especially now that it appears that Epi is using only mahogany for bodies and not substituting alder sometimes, as used to be the case). For instance, Epi's LP Standard comes with alnico pickups and a mahogany neck, closer to original LP specs. The Rondo AL-2000 comes with a maple neck and ceramic humbuckers.

For me, all these differences are relatively minimal, though the pickup difference (which Epi wins) probably has the most effect on sound. You're free to assign whatever value to them as you chooose, but the "$200 Agile" has some other features that would be more detrimental to some people than the laminate cap on the Epi is.

Just sayin'.