Gibson ES-175 / 165 prices on the rise

[andrew]

Funny, I just bought a genuine 1959 ES-175 yesterday for $1,500 USD.


It’s only missing its electronics, bridge, tailpiece, nut, and the previous owner made two big holes in the top for some funky pickups.

[chris32895]

This is the exact opposite of reality.

Care to explain?

[jzucker]

What's up with original PAF's being so expensive? Aren't they just coils and magnets? I would think the real value would be in the wood of the guitar.

My barney kessel had burstbucker II pickups in it. One a gig, a guitar player came up to me and asked what year the guitar was. "1963", i answered.

"Boy, those old PAFs sure make a difference, don't they?"

I didn't have the heart to correct him.

The guitar just had a '60s vibe to it. It ain't the pickups!

[PMB]

Yeah, I've seen such ads stay up on on Reverb and eBay for years (literally), they must be waiting for one of P.T. Barnum's proverbial "suckers born every minute" to come along.

Quite appropriately, that's an apocryphal aphorism. There's no evidence at all that P. T. Barnum ever wrote or uttered such a phrase:

There's a sucker born every minute - Wikipedia

[Mick-7]

Quite appropriately, that's an apocryphal aphorism. There's no evidence at all that P. T. Barnum ever wrote or uttered such a phrase:

There's a sucker born every minute - Wikipedia

I can be excused because even an Android got it wrong: "In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 4 episode 13 ("Devil's Due"), Captain Jean-Luc Picard mentions "There's a sucker born every minute" as he explores the possibility of a con artist at work, and Lieutenant Commander Data attributes the phrase to P. T. Barnum."

[vernon]

This is AI… right?

[joe2758]

waiting for someone to make a reply starting with "actually..."

[Rodney Gene]

Care to explain?

In substance, you are right, just a humbucker and very reproducible. And although 'PAFs' have generally remained the standard benchmark for vintage tones, only some of them were great.

As for price? Supply and demand. 'Patent Applied For' humbuckers are scarce and were short lived. Unpredictable windings, random alnico magnets etc.. many 'one of a kinds'. An entire generation of guitar players and collectors suspend tone logic for the lure and lore of that golden era.

[Christian Miller]

I’m not sure Reverb prices have anything to do with reality


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[Christian Miller]

I can be excused because even an Android got it wrong: "In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 4 episode 13 ("Devil's Due"), Captain Jean-Luc Picard mentions "There's a sucker born every minute" as he explores the possibility of a con artist at work, and Lieutenant Commander Data attributes the phrase to P. T. Barnum."

That’s a citation I can respect


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jim777]

Funny, I just bought a genuine 1959 ES-175 yesterday for $1,500 USD.


It’s only missing its electronics, bridge, tailpiece, nut, and the previous owner made two big holes in the top for some funky pickups.

I recently played a '59 ES175 at the local Guitar Center, and while it was absolutely gorgeous, the neck was as smooth as the surface of the moon and like Jack's, absolutely nothing was original. She sure was pretty though (at $6999!)

[Herbie]

So, in the end: the prices of the PAFs are on the rise, not the price of the ES-175s or ES-165 (which never had real PAFs).

[John A.]

People naively believe that a nearly 70 year old pickup will give them The Tonez. Even though it probably no longer sounds like it did in 1957. Along with fake Bumblebee caps that are just a wrapper over a cheap ceramic capacitor at about a 1000% markup. The strength of the belief we are hearing what we want to hear is often proportionate to the price tag.

Also, most of us are using recordings by someone other than ourselves using highly colored signal chains as benchmarks for The Tonez. So to me it does not make a whole lot of sense to pick up a guitar, note that I don't sound like the Beano album or Pass's Django and give the pickups a dirty look. To the best of my recollection the only genuine PAF I've ever played was in an original dotneck 335 I tried in a shop. That guitar did not strike me as magically different from other 335's I've played, but I wouldn't generalize from that one observation.

[olejason]

I've been casually shopping for a 50's single P90 175 for a year or so and it seems like prices are fairly stable, I haven't noticed things going up much if at all. I just haven't found the right guitar at the right time just yet. The PAF market is its own thing and wildly inflates the price of any guitar that houses them.

[garybaldy]

I recently played a '59 ES175 at the local Guitar Center, and while it was absolutely gorgeous, the neck was as smooth as the surface of the moon and like Jack's, absolutely nothing was original. She sure was pretty though (at $6999!)

The switch grommet is where the value is!!

[Little Jay]

Funny, I just bought a genuine 1959 ES-175 yesterday for $1,500 USD.


It’s only missing its electronics, bridge, tailpiece, nut, and the previous owner made two big holes in the top for some funky pickups.

Don’t know if you are joking, but if you’re not I’d like to see that! (I love player grade guitars)

[Little Jay]

I had the change of playing my 1950 ES-125 side by side to an early single P90 ES-175 and they felt, played and sounded almost identical. So if you can live without the cutaway and extra ornamentation, an ES-125 is your perfect poor man’s 175!

[garybaldy]

I had the change of playing my 1950 ES-125 side by side to an early single P90 ES-175 and they felt, played and sounded almost identical. So if you can live without the cutaway and extra ornamentation, an ES-125 is your perfect poor man’s 175!

Did they sound similar to each other acoustically?
As probably expected, the acoustic sound of my '58 125 so much more resonant than my '63 (2 x HB) 175. I haven't compared them closely plugged in.

[andrew]

Don’t know if you are joking, but if you’re not I’d like to see that! (I love player grade guitars)

Nope, not a joke. Right now it's on its way to the master himself, Mark Campellone for restoration. It'll eventually make an appearance in Mark's guitar rescue thread, I'm sure.

[bluejaybill]

In substance, you are right, just a humbucker and very reproducible. And although 'PAFs' have generally remained the standard benchmark for vintage tones, only some of them were great.

As for price? Supply and demand. 'Patent Applied For' humbuckers are scarce and were short lived. Unpredictable windings, random alnico magnets etc.. many 'one of a kinds'. An entire generation of guitar players and collectors suspend tone logic for the lure and lore of that golden era.

I have owned PAF's or a PAF guitar for 40 years and played dozens of others. While there is some variance, I have found that they vary within a range and are still usually identifiable as a PAF. I have never played a bad one, though we always hear they exist. Even the weaker ones sound great in my experience.

In general I think too much is made of the degree of variance in those pickups, and that they are desirable for a reason.

I have never been able to replace the real PAF's that I have in my R8, and not for lack of trying!

[Aiq]

Nope, not a joke. Right now it's on its way to the master himself, Mark Campellone for restoration. It'll eventually make an appearance in Mark's guitar rescue thread, I'm sure.

Clear violation of the Geneva Instrument Abuse Treaty of 1879.

[Hammertone]

Care to explain?

OK. In terms that have been in effect for decades, at this point: The '57-@mid-'62 Gibson ES-175 is a guitar-shaped plywood box the purpose of which is to store and protect one or two PAF pickups (and related wiring, tuners and no-wire Tune-o-matic bridge if present) until those parts can be removed and used for the restoration or forgery of 1957-@1960 Les Paul Standards or (more recently), '58-@mid-'62 Gibson ES-335s, or '61-'62 Gibson SG Les Pauls.

While the aforementioned parts reside in the plywood box, the value of the box equals the value of those parts plus a residual amount of money. Since the value of the Les Pauls, ES-335s and SGs that require these parts continues to rise, the value of the parts necessary for their restoration and forgery also continues to rise. Once the parts are extracted, the salvage value of the box is enough to justify replacing its original parts with comparatively inexpensive reproduction parts, available from a variety of suppliers.

There is a secondary market in replacement original tailpieces as used on the '57-@mid-'65 Gibson ES-175, because the original tailpieces have been known to break. While production of the various versions of the ES-175 was important to Gibson in the 1950s, it became less and less important in the decades after the 1950s, and was a mere rounding error in the overall production of Gibson electric guitars for several decades until it ceased production in 2019.

A group of jazz guitarists (almost entirely irrelevant to the guitar industry) favour these guitars and a subset of these people is willing to buy vintage tailpieces and other hardware bits at a premium.

[vernon]

I knew it was AI!!!

[Little Jay]

Did they sound similar to each other acoustically?
As probably expected, the acoustic sound of my '58 125 so much more resonant than my '63 (2 x HB) 175. I haven't compared them closely plugged in.

Yes, acoustically also very identical (both single P90). My 125 a bit darker and more pronounced bass I think. But mine’s an early all mahogany laminate one, with a flat back.

[Stringswinger]

@Hammertone, IIRC, 2017 was the last year of the 175. Am I wrong about that?