I’ve had a couple thousand guitars pass through my hands over the years and you get familiar with the key details over time. Since the net has permitted ready exchange of pictures, though, the knowledge base has really exploded....in fact, way past the point where I care enough about it to keep up. Long before I could actually afford to buy guitars, I used to obsess over the old catalogs, but even today you can learn a ton of stuff just looking at the pix on ebay. Going even deeper, you can search for user groups for every type of guitar you can name. These days, I just don’t have the spare brain cells to keep track of all the “affinity” models coming out by the major mfrs, much less the smaller mfrs. One thing I’ll say is that when I (rarely) go to guitar shows, I can’t even believe the market is big enough to absorb all the zillions of guitars I see for sale. But apparently it is!
I hear ya about the market.
It always amazes me how many people bid on guitars on Ebay, when you wouldn’t think there were enough people in the U.S. to even buy them.
It applies to nearly everything you see for sale. Not just guitars.
When I was younger I used to keep up with the different model and makes of cars. I could even tell, with some, what was coming down the road just by the sound.
Not anymore. The market is so flooded now I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Hyundai and an Chrysler Eagle.
Matter of fact. I don’t think there is any difference because they are both made from Japanese parts.
I’ll just stick to my two Strats and Epi.
Unless, of course, I could find a really good deal on another ARTISAN.
Man, I miss that guitar.
:0(
It really is amazing. Now every medium-sized city has at least one "Guitar Center" type-store with 300+ guitars hanging on the walls. When I first started playing in the early 1980s, you'd have to go to a "music store" which sold everything from trumpets to pianos and had maybe a dozen guitars in stock.
I don't know the exact numbers but between 1958-1960 Gibson made roughly 1700 Les Paul Standards ('bursts). At the time, they couldn't give them away. Now Gibson probably makes several hundred Les Pauls a month --if not more, and they sell every last one of them. Not to mention the countless other manufacturers.