Do Vintage Guitars Really Sound Better With Age?
Guitars are often said to sound better with age. How much of it is due to worse-sounding guitars being discarded before they reach vintage age?
It is possible that some guitars just never live long enough to become “vintage”, because they never sounded good in the first place. And a bad sounding guitar is not going to improve much with age. In the case of a laminate top cheap mass produced guitar, no amount of aging is ever going to make it sound like a new solid wood guitar.
Acoustic guitars have proven to the ears of many players – to sound better as they age. The theory that best explains this is – that as the wood in the body ages, it becomes lighter and more responsive and more resonant.
In an acoustic guitar, the sound comes from the vibration of the top – also known as the sound board. The vibration of the strings alone produce very little sound. The vibration of the strings is transferred to the top through the bridge and saddle. The vibration of the soundboard (top) is what produces the audible sound we hear from an acoustic guitar.
My Dad’s Amazing Guitar Collection. Must See!
How To Value A Rare Vintage Guitar
Here’s an interesting topic… just how do we put a price on a GUITAR that is: 1. Vintage, 2. Ultra Low number of it produced, 3. Lack of sales history, 4. Excellent to Museum Quality Condition
Let’s run through one example that meet all 4 criteria above. We’ll take a 1968 Rickenbacker OS, Fireglo Model 360 with pointed horns… as pictured in this article…
