I had the opportunity to play a 66 P-bass a few years ago at a very expensive vintage shop in Carmel California. I was surprised that they would even let me touch anything but they plugged the p bass into a 60's vintage Bassman amp and handed it to me. You really can't understand how good some vintage instruments are until you play one. This bass was obviously set up perfectly and it just played effortlessly. The 50+ year old wood fibers in the body just seem to vibrate more easily since a lot of the material bonding them together has probably decayed. Any wood experts feel free to chime in.
This bass was $6,500 at the time.
The price of these vintage basses is debatable but if you can afford the price of admission and don't want to just hang something on a wall they might be worth it.
I have a 2013 P-5 that is a good bass, sounds like a P-bass but it doesn't have that organic feel that the 66 did. Maybe it will by the time my grandson is 50.
Rick B.
Yeah. A guy in my area had a 1964 Strat which he let me play, sitting in with his band. BEST Strat I ever played, resonant, woody sound, perfect Strat neck. Like buttah. He payed $450.00 for it, before the "vintage" craze had kicked in. He also had an electric archtop guitar from the late 1930's, a similarly fabulous instrument. These were his regular workhorse guitars at the time, though he used them less frequently as time went on and their marketplace value soared.
This doesn't mean that every instrument from those years was fantastic, but they did have much easier access to really good woods, that weren't "green" when the instruments were put together. And it can happen that as guitars and basses "settle in", as the wood keeps drying over time, they become more resonant. I'm old enough to have seen this with some of mine. It's a larger effect with "acoustic" instruments, but also can happen noticeably with solid bodies. I'm aware there are those who see this is impossible or a non-factor, etc., etc., and hey, whatever, people are free to believe as they will. Old argument.
In any case, I wouldn't pay the kind of money that these old instruments now bring, unless I had so much money that the price just didn't matter. And even then, would I want to take it out to play at venues where it could get knocked around or stolen? Maybe not. So no, I don't think "this is really what they're worth", the prices are insane now, and a well made instrument from current materials is all anyone needs. And the bass in this example is suspect anyway, so ... no.
