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Well after buying ,selling and trading guitars since a guitar that easily brings a quarter of a million bucks could be had for less than a thousand dollars I am convinced that more and more people  are buying  a guitar for the wrong reasons.  Have you ever wondered why the three bolt neck design only lasted a short time other than it was a terrible design and why are they bringing  thousands of dollars when Fender is making better guitars   now as they ever have .

 As I  have listened to hear the ultimate tone I have had the pleasure of hearing a lot of greats and a lot of people who you never heard of generate the most awesome sounds from the guitar. One of the best guitar players I have ever heard out of a long list of  guitar greats came from an old unknown guy playing an old Harmony though a Magnavox stereo and I have yet to hear anyone play slide guitar like the street person  that used to walk around downtown Orlando rain or shine smiling and just killing it who outplayed any famous person that I have ever or will ever  hear play on a Applause guitar that cost seventy five dollars brand new that I sold him as a young sales clerk.Which brings me back to the question why do you want to play anyway? I don't have anything against the guys that are forcing the real guitar players out of the joy of owning an old Strat or Les Paul or ES-335 but I wonder if they have the spirit of tone  and sensation or will be off to the next thing they can afford to drive the price up on simply because they can.Much like the American muscle car I can't afford to own today  that I  owned  when they were  just over a thousand dollars back in the day.Take it from someone that owned them all a 60's Gto or Chevelle ain't worth a hundred grand.Don't buy into the scam unless it brings back memories that money can't buy and you have money to burn on a car that swills gas and lumbers down the highway.There are better cars and guitars being made today than that fifties bolt on neck guitar or a bogus  pieced together sixties model  muscle car that saw it's best days a few  decades and several hundred thousand miles ago.

This guide is intended to make you think about why you are buying a guitar.There are only a few things that really matter.Does it tuneup and stay in tune and play well enough that you  don't want to put it down? In other words don't be scared by the market value of vintage guitars.Soon everyone that caused them to become so collectible will be dead or wearing Depends and have arthritis so bad they won't be able to enjoy them anyway.Enjoy the sound that comes from the  your inner vibration and traverses through metal,wood,magnet and if your smart through a tube amp and  paper cone.I remember the moment that got me hooked and it was a sunny Florida day and I had just listened Big Joe Turner and  the  real Rolling Stones and I stopped in a little music store and  the hardest choice I had to make that day was a cherry red dot neck or side pull SG Les Paul or a 1960 Gibson Ebo bass for 100.00 my choice. No I couldn't buy one that day even for the hundred dollar asking price but it made me dream  and work toward the day I could.

I purchased my first guitar three years later and it was a dead mint 1958 Gibson Les Paul Special single cut  and the price was a whoping 75.00.Are they worth  the twenty five grand people are asking now or can you buy a reissue for less than a thousand and accomplish the same thing? Are you a investor or a guitar player? Back in the eighties when I owned a music store the nickname for an Ibanez was Ubeenhad.I guess the joke is on me now since most of the guys that I think play the heck out of a guitar use them now. So all you Ibanez guys do what you can to keep the price of those instruments in reach of the aspiring guitarist and thanks for doing your part to keep the love of the guitar alive. Thanks for reading and in closing it makes me just  as happy to hear from someone that I sold a guitar to thirty years ago tell me they are still playing  as much as hearing the guy that I sold a 58 burst to that tells me how much the thing is worth now and they don't ever pick it up or take it out because of it's value.