The Virtues of Vintage

They don’t make ’em like they used to.

- Art Dudley

That aphorism has few fans among people shopping for cancer drugs, contact lenses, GPS receivers, and laptop computers, all of which seem to get better with each passing year. Hell, even I know that.

It earns a more positive reply from anyone who’s shopping for an oriental rug, or a fly rod, or a tweed jacket, or a musical instrument—people who will tell you that their fond response to the market for vintage examples of such goods is motivated by two things: older products were better made than their newer counterparts (better designs, better materials, better manufacturing techniques), and some, if not all, of those products, over time, actually improve with use.

Take musical instruments: Many, if not most, adult westerners are aware that the stringed instruments made in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by Antonio Stradivari are prized not only for their superior sound but also for their seven- and eight-figure values. Less well known—though common knowledge among certain male baby boomers, a group for whom this magazine’s founder felt a special warmth—is the extent to which other instruments, including those associated with more modern music, have earned similar distinctions. There are markets for vintage drums, mandolins, banjos, analog synthesizers—and, of course, guitars. The market for the last is thought by some to have been kick-started by a 1975 auction in which musician Stephen Stills and a Japanese industrialist fought a bidding war over a WWII-era Martin guitar. Because the final price was in the high four figures—a remarkable amount for the time—the event is linked to the endurance of guitar shops that cater more to the investor than to the musician, and whose proprietors, many of whom are otherwise scrupulous, engage in a continual effort to raise prices for no reason other than the hope and expectation that the market will bear them.1