The ShadowMusic Web Community

I wonder what the value of 34346 would be if it were not owned by a famous person as not very original. Respray electronics tinkered with refrets replacement parts etc. I would still think quite high.

Any guitar that age that has been played would have had a refret before now and may not have every single original part due to wear and tear.
Something that hasn't been mentioned about 34346 is that it now has straplock buttons instead of the originals which can be seen in recent videos & pictures.
Would have been better if it didn't get painted white at the time though and still had the original finish but that was before the vintage guitar thing.

I don't know if anybody watches Pawn Stars on the History channel. Last nights episode featured Vic Flick selling his '61 strat which was all original, but has had a re-fret. He provided documented evidence of the hits that he played on it. The funny thing was that, the owner of the shop didn't really know who Vic was but when he called in an expert, all was revealed. The guitar changed hands for $55,000 with a valuation of between $60 - 70,000.

I know back in '94 or '96 when Bruce was interviewed by Guitarist, he said if anyone wanted it, they could start at £250,000, I'm not sure if he had been taking anything.

Again going back to Pawn Stars, a number of months back the nephew of Mary Ford (the wife of Les Paul) sold her original white Les Paul guitar (SG shaped) and he got $75,000.

So, as in all things, the value will be determined by what someone is prepared to pay for it.

I have a '62/3 Strat that has the original body & neck/tuners but over the years it has had parts replaced and thus lost it's originality. It has also been resprayed, the original colour was black and I had it done red immediately after buying it in 1982. It was later spayed a light blue synthetic colour in the early nineties before going back red, again using modern synthetic paint but the sound and tone has never altered in the time I've had it.
Last year I began sourcing original parts for it and have put it back to almost what it should be, though I kept the brass bridge plate rather than put a chrome one back, as the parts are gold. The guitar sounds stunning and although not worth the price it ought to be, it's not for sale anyway, but in years to come it may fetch. a fair few quid for someone else.

The original 1960 fiesta red/rosewood board Strat owned by a former bandmember's son, was owned by Taj Mahal and played on some Paul Simon tracks is worth onwards of 50k - and it looks no different to mine other than the chrome parts. It doesn't sound any better either.