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| Passion Investments: Collectibles |
Sound Investments
Lee Sherman
12/01/2004
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Collector Gary Schiff, now in his 50s, has been playing guitar
for 15 years. A successful electrical engineer who serves as chairman of the
Security Services Group at Kroll, a risk-consulting firm, Schiff purchased a ’59
Gibson ES-335 previously owned by Clapton at the 1999 Christie’s auction.
“Everybody thought I was insane because it was more than 10 times what I’d paid
for any guitar up to that point,” he recalls. The association with Clapton, who
played it on his From the Cradle album and his Nothing but the Blues tour,
ratcheted up the selling price to $75,000. Schiff remains convinced he made a
sound investment. Considered the most coveted year for that model, the ’59
ES-335 is worth approximately $25,000 in its own right. Schiff strums the
instrument on occasion, but, he notes, its investment value “does make me think
twice before playing it.”
 |  | SEVERAL OF Johnny Cash’s guitars were sold at a Sotheby’s estate auction in
September. Top: 1960s
Grammar custom acoustic guitar with case, $131,200. Bottom: 1976 Martin D76
acoustic guitar B Centennial model with case, $50,400. (Photographs courtesy of Sotheby’s.) |
While owning a guitar played by a musical idol may
stoke a collector’s passions, authorities are quick to caution novice investors
about diving into the market for celebrity instruments. “You can never quantify
the passion that people are going to have,” Dunbar says. “What we have found
consistently is that when you have iconic performers who have carved out unique
identities and they have unique pieces that go up for sale, anything is
possible.”
This is particularly true when a guitar comes complete with a
provenance that establishes its rightful place in music history. Clapton’s 1964
cherry-red Gibson ES-335, the second guitar he ever purchased and one he
played from his days with the Yardbirds up until recently, sold in June for
$849,500, more than 10 times the presale estimate. This set the world auction
record for a Gibson guitar. Clapton’s 1939 000-442 Martin, which he played on
his Unplugged album, sold for $791,500, nearly 10 times the high end of the
presale estimate. This set the world auction record for a Martin guitar. “It was
the guitar that is singularly responsible for reintroducing the public at large
to acoustic guitar playing,” Keane says. Another Martin acoustic owned by
Clapton, a 1966 000-28/45 model that he purchased in 1970 and used onstage
throughout the decade, sold for $186,700. The guitar is visible on Clapton’s 461
Ocean Boulevard album cover, which added tremendously to its value.
Warts and All
Collectors will pay a premium for a celebrity’s guitar, and
even more if there is a story behind the instrument. However, they value
originality above all. Many purists argue that an investment-quality vintage
guitar must be unaltered and unmodified. “The guitar market is a little
different than the car market,” says Dave Belzer, a collector of Sunburst-finish
guitars and a buyer for Guitar Center, a national retail chain that purchased
Clapton’s Blackie at auction. “You can buy a vintage car and restore it, and it
is worth more money; in the guitar market you don’t want to touch it. Once you
refinish or modify that guitar, you are cutting the value in half.”
 |  | | TOP: WILKANOWSKI & Son Airway Fiddle Guitar with case, circa 1930s,
$31,200. (Photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s.). Bottom: Clapton’s “Blackie,” a black and white Fender Stratocaster that he played
extensively on his albums throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, became the most
expensive guitar ever sold at auction. (Photograph courtesy of Christie’s.) |
In fact,
most serious collectors scoff at the sum Guitar Center paid for Clapton’s
Blackie. (The company plans to launch a touring exhibition of it and other
vintage guitars.) The instrument is actually a Frankenstein’s monster, assembled
from parts of other guitars. “If an unknown person walked into a vintage shop
and wanted to sell that, they’d laugh him out of the store because originality
is such a big deal with vintage stuff when you are trying to sell it,” Smith
says. Meeker claims a “parts” guitar similar to Clapton’s Fender, made from
vintage pieces, might fetch $7,000, without the essential pedigree.
Because
of the recent surge in collecting, Belzer says that aficionados are finding it
increasingly difficult to locate specific models. Gibson made only 600 of the
iconic ’59 Les Paul, played by Clapton, Jimmy Page, Billy Gibbons and Duane
Allman. Even off-the-rack models are now worth anywhere from $100,000 to
$300,000, depending on condition. Other collectors, particularly young ones,
have recently begun clamoring for guitars made in the 1970s and played by their
musical icons, causing them to appreciate more quickly than instruments from
other eras, Meeker says.
Signed guitars, typically brand new guitars that
have been autographed, but never played, by an artist, comprise yet another
category of rock ’n’ roll collectibles. Dan Courtenay, owner of Dan’s Chelsea
Guitars in New York, estimates that a signed Paul McCartney Hofner “Beatle” bass
can fetch $8,000. “Beatles collectors are a rare breed; they collect guitars
primarily because the Beatles used them at one time or another,” Courtenay says.
An Epiphone EJ-160E jumbo acoustic/electric, can be worth $1,000 more than the
Gibson version of the same guitar, merely because John Lennon played that
model.
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