-
Hi,
Seems like right now the arch top market is completely dead, maybe for 4-5 months already.
Lots of L-5/Johnny Smith/ES-175 etc etc accumulating on Reverb, Greg's guitars, etc. Half a year ago if you wanted a good quality arch top you would have to be fast on the purchase or you'd lose it in a day, now nothing sells.
I was wondering if this some periodical occurrence, or is it the end of the COVID guitar buying madness, or something else.Last edited by manatttta; 02-11-2025 at 06:18 AM.
-
02-11-2025 05:01 AM
-
The reverse of Covid-time hoarding and shock from Gibson discontinuing archtops. Those who viewed archtops as investments, may now be selling ahead of further price drop, accelerating it in fact. Also demographics: Baby Boomers are vanishing from the market and their inheritors may just prefer a quick buck.
-
What does this mean for today's luthiers?
-
Archtops had a big runup in prices over the last few years. Perhaps this is a situation where there isn't demand at the current price levels, and sellers aren't dropping prices sufficiently to move instruments.
-
I have bought and sold over 15 arch tops over the last 15 years. Gibson L5s, a Johnny smith, campellones, triggs New Yorker, 2 guild artist awards, a borys, a zimnicki, 2 tal fallows, 2 byrdlands, 2 slamans Ive probably forgotten the others. Im in the UK so all were imported and all were under £3500. I lost money on all of them apart from one of the L5s,
I didnt do it to make money. I got a small inheritance when my parents passed away and at that time I had had a 175 for about 6 years. I just really wanted to try out these top flight guitars and see what they are about. I kept each one for around 9-12 months then moved it on and bought something else.
Now it seems you cant get anything like the above mentioned for under £4500. I have a d'aquisto jazz line now and love it. I love the short scale, the single pickup and it doesn't feedback which is a huge plus, all the others apart from the byrdlands had this problem.
I would love the chance to own another high end archtop but in reality im just never going to have the money and high priced guitars are not really for the players that play loud gigs and are on stage.
All the guitars I sold went to people who couldn't play, just a few root position chords and that was it. Also the market is small in the UK.
Alexander Polyakov is the only luthier Ive found that will build an archtop with a base price of $3000 and he has nice designs too. I contemplated ordering a wu, but if I struggled to sell the guitars above, then id defiantly loose out on that. I tried selling my d'aquisto jazz line but had no takers at £1400 so ive kept it.
I still look daily though to see what's about. I do miss the new guitar day feeling
-
I did a search for "electric archtop guitar" on Reverb, sold listings only. I got 1,480 results. I don't think the market is "completely dead". There might be a shift away from expensive vintage guitars, which happens from time to time based on various economic factors.
Originally Posted by manatttta
-
The market for a real acoustic archtop made with emphasis on the acoustic sound is very small. A few regular players but otherwise they are hobbyist with money to afford them and this includes collectors that have means. The market really seems to be in the electric archtop with possibly the Gibson L5ces and Wes L5 as the current most wanted archtop guitars. They will sell if priced fairly but looking on Reverb you will see mostly, they are overpriced and sitting for long periods of time.
Gibson 175 are also the market but frankly there are many of them made so they are not rare and other than the few in the 1950's and early 60's they don't command huge sums of money. Again, if you price them fair, they sell. The boutique market is a whole other situation. Rather than go through the boutique individual makers I will just say the at this point I am really in the Gibson camp. Gibson does not make them anymore and even if they do it will only be in boutique-like numbers. You cannot go wrong with an L5 or Super 400 as long as they don't have any issues.
That said my interest these days in buying guitars is only the out clause. How easy to sell if I need to do that or my heirs? My goal right now though after all this talk is to get another Dangelico Excel of Style A or B. They are out there but I have not found the right one and the right price. If you want a great archtop look no farther than an L5 and plunk your money down. You only live once in this world.
-
I’m feeling you. I bought, and sold, over 100 in 6 years. Originally Posted by Heybopper
I have bought and sold over 15 arch tops over the last 15 years. Gibson L5s, a Johnny smith, campellones, triggs New Yorker, 2 guild artist awards, a borys, a zimnicki, 2 tal fallows, 2 byrdlands, 2 slamans Ive probably forgotten the others. Im in the UK so all were imported and all were under £3500. I lost money on all of them apart from one of the L5s,
I didnt do it to make money. I got a small inheritance when my parents passed away and at that time I had had a 175 for about 6 years. I just really wanted to try out these top flight guitars and see what they are about. I kept each one for around 9-12 months then moved it on and bought something else.
Now it seems you cant get anything like the above mentioned for under £4500. I have a d'aquisto jazz line now and love it. I love the short scale, the single pickup and it doesn't feedback which is a huge plus, all the others apart from the byrdlands had this problem.
I would love the chance to own another high end archtop but in reality im just never going to have the money and high priced guitars are not really for the players that play loud gigs and are on stage.
All the guitars I sold went to people who couldn't play, just a few root position chords and that was it. Also the market is small in the UK.
Alexander Polyakov is the only luthier Ive found that will build an archtop with a base price of $3000 and he has nice designs too. I contemplated ordering a wu, but if I struggled to sell the guitars above, then id defiantly loose out on that. I tried selling my d'aquisto jazz line but had no takers at £1400 so ive kept it.
I still look daily though to see what's about. I do miss the new guitar day feeling
-
Archtops go in and out of style, but there are always buyers of the quality archtops as they are among the best sounding guitars ever made. Price them right, and they will sell.
The end of the archtop guitar is not upon us. They have been pronounced dead before only to bounce back. I have 11 archtops (not counting my Les Pauls which are archtops of a sort or my Gypsy guitars, which have a bit of an arch to the top). I enjoy owning and playing them and whatever my heirs get for them is going to be a pure bonus to them. I will be dead and I won't have any skin in the guitar selling game at that point.
-
So while I love a great carved top guitar in the style of a Gibson Johnny Smith. The actual practicality and price involved,really precludes most serious musicians nowadays.
From just maintaining it from weather changes,traveling, or just feedback issues involved. I can see how players like Pat Martino, decided to just use smaller semi hollow instruments.
So great if you have one already, or are able to score a great deal. But for most it’s highly impractical at best.
-
You might find this thread on the current (un-)popularity of archtops interesting: LINK.
My two cents on the market : the prices aren't right for a liquid market.
More seasoned folks who own very nice guitars are not buying anymore, and are only slowly starting to reduce collections. Younger folks very often simply can't afford to spend 4-6k on a nice old Gibson etc. Plus the number of archtop players overall is declining. As a result, you get a market where things are put up for sale, but sit there forever. The (older) seller still has time to wait and the (younger) buyer doesn't have the means yet.
Grossly oversimplified, but I think that's at least a big part of the story.
-
Here’s my take. I think many may be getting a skewed view of the market. I think it may be getting tougher for individual sellers at least in part because people who are in a position to buy guitars like these are going more with dealers that they feel more comfortable dealing with. There is decidedly still a significant market for vintage and boutique archtops.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
Good point Chuck. Unless you know the person or can show up in person to buy the guitar it makes it hard to buy. That said I have a list of a few big dealers I would have to treat like individuals in buying. Of course you are not one of them for sure, but I have my suspects. Also, there are dealers who specialize in types of guitars. Originally Posted by ThatRhythmMan
-
But the fact remains, many here who own vintage Gibson archtop’s acquired them when they were priced a fraction of the price they’re currently priced. Even I in 2013, and as late as 2015 acquired 3 L5’s and a Super 400 for less than $5k.
Today’s prices are way beyond the range for just a normal buyer like myself.
And many here purchased L5’s in the 80’s and 90’s when they were very cheap by comparison to today’s prices. Can you see the difference?
-
We should come back to this question in six months, and see if anything has changed.
-
I believe that the prices went up considerably and the buyers need time to get used to it. When i was in the market for a GJS in 2016 they were advertised from around $7000 upwards if in good condition. Originally Posted by manatttta
-
I have a couple of archtops I've been poking around with selling for nearly a year now. Mine are not Gibsons or even that expensive- just boutique, rare. Dealers just don't want them, even with 25% consignment. I was just turned down by 3 NYC shops.
What's worse is, I have a '72 Gibson dread, extensive repairs done, and I can't even move that one, either! So it's not just jazz guitars.
-
I don't think my Vestax D'Angelico would still be sitting around at the price I have it listed for if it was a year ago to date. Same with other handful of guitars I had/have listed. But, to Chuck's point, I'm an individual seller, so maybe it's tougher.
-
Pretty much this! Originally Posted by jads57
About 8 months ago I got it in my head that I want yet another guitar and a hollowbody or similar was on the top of my list. But apart from the difficulty in finding a fun one to own (i don't like buying second hand and ain't buying sight unseen no matter how pretty the pictures are or how good of a luthier you are!) I also started worrying about maintenance: I already have a nice spanish guit that I kinda baby a bit too much and don't feel great taking out of the house so do I really wanna add to this (silly) worry?
I ended up with another solidbody instead and nothing to worry about. Oh, wait... it has a nitro finish Guess you can't win them all lol
-
Archtops have become too expensive for most musicians to actually use them, with today's prices it's just not worth it getting involved with one.
You can buy a nice D' Angelico or Ibanez and gig it anywhere, record, etc, and it will probably cost you below 2k. That's what I see most young jazz players today doing, unless they're rich. In that case they buy Gibsons or buy boutique and later end up trading them for Gibsons.
-
This ^^^^. We have seen this type of discussion before and I have seen it involving acoustic guitars in that forum. If the market isn't as you want it, wait a while until conditions are more favorable. Originally Posted by Litterick
Tony
-
if you can wait, that might work. These things do seem to be cyclical.
In purely practical terms, solidbody and semihollow guitars have it all over archtops. They sound fine, they are ergonomically easy to deal with, their small size makes it easier to tote them to/in/out of gigs and, as Ed Bickert commented about his Telecaster, "it's pretty hard to crush." But archtop guitars have a romance and a mystique about them that solid bodies cannot match.
I watched one of Frank Vignola's Guitar Nights yesterday, with Rodney Jones, Pasquale Grasso, Jimmy Bruno and Frank; all of them playing very nice archtop guitars (Jimmy was playing an ES-175, which I don't think I've seen before). And wearing suits. It looked like jazz! Guys in T-shirts playing Telecasters don't look like jazz. Last night the Ron Carter documentary was on our local PBS station which seemed to have been made around 2022 since they referenced New York City opening up from the pandemic. Every time Mr. Carter is on stage, he is immaculately dressed and presented and sees this as respect for the tradition and for himself as well as his fellow musicians. I got that same vibe from watching Guitar Night. I play jazz on an archtop and I play it on a Tele sometimes, but I'm aware that latter just does not look much like jazz even though it's profoundly practical and a nice sounding and playing instrument. I'm going to go play at 5:00 and, because it's almost 0F outside, I'll probably take the Telecaster instead of my arch top.
-
Originally Posted by Cunamara
Honestly, I find this view quite shallow. It's not the looks but the sound that makes teh jazz, no? I get it's the old guard's take on things, I have the same argument with my guitar teacher, while he doesn't have anything against my solidbodies, he keeps telling me I need at least a semihollow to play teh jazz ¯\_("/)_/¯
I almost bought a Hello Kitty Squire just to make a point and poke some fun, thank god they sold out in record time xD
Also, I do get the dressing up part (I do have bespoke stuff I like to wear) but I don't see that as anything else other than an accessory in this context which won't tell me anything about the quality and virtuosity of an artist.Last edited by jazzloverfat; 02-13-2025 at 01:00 AM.
-
I think that archtop guitars have a sound about them that solid bodies cannot match. Originally Posted by Cunamara
-
So when you have the money and are gigging locally, great play your beautiful Carved Top. Especially if the gig isn’t too loud.
But these are tools for musicians, and sometimes certain tools are not available. So you make the best choice possible.
I really think most of the members here ,don’t primarily do Jazz gigs to make a living. And it’s tough enough just being a pro musician to work. So I think we need to keep perspective of that when reading comments.
Even Bob Bain (Tonight Show) used only a couple of guitars, like a Tele with a PAF neck pickup for many gigs.
Reply With Quote
line array PA setup issues
Today, 05:12 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos