#PROFESSIONAL MUSIC COLLECTOR PROFESSIONAL#

More often, they are merely “upgrading” a utility instrument that later becomes collectible.

Musicians should not necessarily be vilified for this, because few would knowingly damage a valuable instrument. Sooner or later, as musical tastes and styles change, the same thing would happen to virtually every guitar left in the possession of working musicians. Who replaced those necks and made all those other modifications to the Strads? It wasn’t the collectors. Think what it would be like if all but six of the sunburst Les Pauls and pre-CBS Stratocasters had a replaced neck. Guitar collectors complain about a broken solder joint or a replaced tuner. The result was absolutely appalling: There is only one original Stradivarius violin left anywhere in the world. Musicians were not only playing them and inflicting normal wear and tear, they were thinning down the tops with radical re-graduations and replacing the necks. Their passion has driven much of the research that has been published on vintage instruments.Ĭustomized instruments also go back at least as far as the violins of the early 1800s. Collectors make a great contribution in the area of education.

Nevertheless, musicians often customize instruments in ways that destroy originality. Often, the instrument had no significant value at the time they had their way with it.

#PROFESSIONAL MUSIC COLLECTOR PROFESSIONAL#

As professional musicians, they have to make a living with their instruments, and the instruments must be up to the task at hand. After all, in most cases they’re just being pragmatic. We really shouldn’t vilify musicians for that sort of treatment. They’ve routed and drilled and refinished and renecked and modified instruments until there’s no originality left, and the only vintage value of the instrument is its celebrity association. But some of the greatest musicians have been among the biggest abusers of guitars-at least from a vintage collectible standpoint. We would all like to hear the finest musicians playing on the finest instruments, of course. Are musicians really deserving of these instruments? Well, yes and no. Let’s address the last part of the argument first. And the argument was as groundless then as it is now. It’s been circulating for almost 200 years, ever since the emergence of violin collectors in the early 1800s. In the vintage guitar business, we often hear the complaint that rich collectors have pushed prices so high that the finest guitars have been taken out of the hands of deserving musicians.

Professional music collector