72 P bass new bought at Manny's Music was $249 with hard shell case. Seemed like a lot money at the time.
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Fender prices back in the day...
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allotabass
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Regardless of what they're going for now, any vintage Fender shouldn't be worth more than what is was originally going for when it was new. Newer modern guitars play ten times better then your average '70's made guitar and with higher levels of quality. For most of us, the 1970's era is the cheapest tier of vintage we can afford and we're looking at a lot of crap during that time.
Dealers have the unique ability to hype a guitar line simply because they're stuck with them and need to move inventory and how many of those guitars are even truely authentic ? Unless the guitar is dead mint (and vintage) it should never be worth more than a 'player'. When refinned parts-o-casters go in the low to mid grands then we as players have truely sold out.....or have lost our minds.
I love vintage Fenders be it closet queens or real rats, but to pay hard earned cash for a guitar / bass that has had the living **** played out it especially when your the one not responsible for the history, is absolutely bonkers.
Buy it mint as an investment. Don't buy it because you look cool standing in front of a mirror with someone else's grime all over the guitar. Posterity in that case is bad karma.
Vintage guitars are great guitars, but none of them should be worth tens of thousands of dollars, on in the case of the 1950 Broadcaster on ebay.....$140K ????? thats insulting.
I might catch some slack for this but most of the smart ones on this forum know it's true.
Dealers have the unique ability to hype a guitar line simply because they're stuck with them and need to move inventory and how many of those guitars are even truely authentic ? Unless the guitar is dead mint (and vintage) it should never be worth more than a 'player'. When refinned parts-o-casters go in the low to mid grands then we as players have truely sold out.....or have lost our minds.
I love vintage Fenders be it closet queens or real rats, but to pay hard earned cash for a guitar / bass that has had the living **** played out it especially when your the one not responsible for the history, is absolutely bonkers.
Buy it mint as an investment. Don't buy it because you look cool standing in front of a mirror with someone else's grime all over the guitar. Posterity in that case is bad karma.
Vintage guitars are great guitars, but none of them should be worth tens of thousands of dollars, on in the case of the 1950 Broadcaster on ebay.....$140K ????? thats insulting.
I might catch some slack for this but most of the smart ones on this forum know it's true.
That would've been $2,789.06 today
For a Czech Spector, yes. In '88 they didn't offer European models, so all you could get was a USA model. A new American NS-2 lists out at $5,299.00
How about this one for a good indication that things have really changed and Fender prices are way over-inflated.. I bought a used 1968 Fender Mustang (stock) with hardshell case for $150 - $160 in 1973.. I traded it even for a 1970 USA Pbass two years later.. Those kinda deals were pretty common back then I seem to remember.
In '69, I bought a '68 Jazz Bass from my brother for $125. I think he paid $250 for it. In '73 I bought a new Rickenbacker for $350. Rickenbacker prices have gone up much more substantially than Fender, and they don't seem to be as good as the old ones.
Too bad gig pay hasn't risen proportionately.
Too bad gig pay hasn't risen proportionately.
I fetched my 65 Jazz Bass new out of the shop in 66, everyone who played it drooled over the feel, I took it to most of our local shops to compare it with new models; none of them had the beautiful soft feel that my 65 had.
I sold it about four years ago so I was resposible for the history.
I remember back in '76 when I was working at a music store I bought a black maple neck P-bass for about $275. I don't remember how much of a discount I got for working at the store. It was a pretty strong bass but it lacked a little high end. Being the dumb schmuck I was back then I sold it to a band mate as I was also playing keys at the time. The best Fender bass I have ever played was a pre-CBS Jazz. I've never played a better bass since then.
Man, if I only knew back then what I know now. Nowadays, I routinely drop between $1500 and $2000 for my used Fender re-issues and Custom Shop models.
Man, if I only knew back then what I know now. Nowadays, I routinely drop between $1500 and $2000 for my used Fender re-issues and Custom Shop models.
Even when I started playing in the mid 80s, you could find early and mid 70s Fender basses for $400-500 all day long. Even an occassionally late 60s beater. They were not vintage. They were used. This was the new-wave and hair band era and, at least in my neck of the woods, the more traditional looking instruments just were not that desirable. The whole "vintage" thing came in with the grunge era.
While today's return on that $500 may seem like a good "investment." The same $500 in microsoft stock bought in 1986 would be worth about $200,000.
I probably should have skipped economics less to play bass!
While today's return on that $500 may seem like a good "investment." The same $500 in microsoft stock bought in 1986 would be worth about $200,000.
I probably should have skipped economics less to play bass!
In 1972 I bought my first fender.
A L.P.B. P-bass. (1970)
And a Ampeg B-15S.
For $489.00 total.
The amp was brand new.
The bass was NOS nobody liked the LPB.
So, it sat in store for two years.
I Payed $30.00 a week till it was payed off.
+1. I started playing in 1977. I started the "merry-go-round" of buying and selling just a few years later.
In the very early 80s I managed to score (not all at the same time, nor did I own all of these at the same time) a '64 and a '65 Fender Jazz (one fretless), a '68 Fender P, a '66 Fender Strat and Fender Teles from '71 and '73 for under $500 each (though the '64 J had been through a terrible attempt to refinish it...looked like someone just dipped it in bright yellow housepaint.)
I did sell or trade all of these at one time or another for more than I paid for them, but I also offloaded them all in the early-mid 1990s, before eBay and the collectors market really blew up.
If I had sat on them and waited, I could have made 10X what I sold them for.
My first bass was a 66 Jazz. It cost 320 dollars. It was/is custom white and left handed and took six months to get.
Andy
Andy
The 1976 J bass (Clear ash/rosewood with binding & MOP blocks) that I was bought for Xmas that year cost my mother a whopping $350 (with HSC) brand new from Apex music in El Cajon, CA. I remember this figure clearly because the other bass I was coveting was a Rick 4001 that was $490...
And, as it happens, this bass was a raging POS. 3 bolt neck that constantly shifted, gloppy finish on the body an neck, weighted a metric ton... I was never happier to get rid of a bass than that one, no matter WHAT it might be worth now...
And, as it happens, this bass was a raging POS. 3 bolt neck that constantly shifted, gloppy finish on the body an neck, weighted a metric ton... I was never happier to get rid of a bass than that one, no matter WHAT it might be worth now...
According to that calculator and that a '51 went for 150 in '51.(This is according to information in a Bass Player Book article),the price of that P was equivalent to 1185.34 in our dollars today. So '51 P in '51, was about 1185.34 in modern US Dollars.
I bought my 1978 P-Bass in May 1979 for $200.00. I bought the 1978 fretless P in 1983 for $225.00. I bought both used, and neither came with cases.
