What are your thoughts on Mossman and Santa Cruz acoustic guitars as investments?
I’ve got a 1990 Les Paul Standard, cherry sunburst, that I bought a couple years ago. I bought it as a player, not as an investment, but it seems to be holding its value pretty well.
I'm sorry; I somehow missed your post earlier, or I would have responded earlier.
First, realize that I'm a collector and not a guitar investor. I think there's a fine difference. Second, I'm hesitant to identify any 'brand' as an investment, as opposed to a particular model.
Guitars by small companies, like Mossman, don't have a history of going up in value. There's a chance that they may be considered a very special guitar some day. I honestly am not familiar with Mossman.
However, there a lot of high quality small luthiers, so the chances of any one of them becoming the next Stradivarius is slim. There's a place near Asheville, NC, called Dream Guitars, that specializes in carrying high-quality guitars by individual luthiers or small companies. They also carry the standards like Martin, Collings, Gibson - and Santa Cruz. Here's a listing of Santa Cruz guitars that are or were in stock at Dream Guitars. Scroll to the bottom of the page and look at how many guitar companies and individual luthiers Dream Guitars represents.
When most of those luthiers are dead or their companies are gone, virtually nobody will be seeking their guitars. For a few of these luthiers? There will be a fevered market whenever one of their guitars is available for sale.
Santa Cruz makes very nice guitars and some will appreciate in value. When they were the 'hot' guitar 20+ years ago, I thought they were overpriced at the time. Since then, I think the prices have equalized with the comparable quality of guitars on the market. But I'd play one Santa Cruz and think 'wow' and then another and think 'what's supposed to be so special?"
It's the same with virtually all guitars within a brand. Most are good. Some are great. Some . . . shall we say . . . "don't live up to expectations."
And all of this is just my opinion. And Mrs. Scoutmaster would tell you that my opinion is not worth much.
I've been thinking and want to be certain you understand that I don't consider myself an expert on guitars.
I know quite a bit about guitars, but I'm not an expert and I'm certain there are those on Free Republic who know more.
In particular, I don't even pretend to have seen or heard of 75% of the luthiers on Dream Guitars' list. I'm certain there are those on Free Republic who are luthiers themselves who are familiar with many more.
I know something about the guitar industry and I've followed it for years, but there are those on Free Republic who know more about it.
When these second raids on Gibson occurred, I was somebody who knew about guitars and the guitar industry, who knows some executives and others still fairly high within the industry, who is a lawyer who has read the pleadings in the ongoing civil case against Gibson, who . . . .
Well, I wasn't an expert on anything, but I knew more than the normal amount about so many areas that I immediately could tell that Gibson's press releases were carefully worded releases that left out key details. When bloggers began to jump on the story, I could tell that they hadn't done much research, that they were lacking in background on the story, and were simply taking Gibson's press releases as fact. They were also just flat-out wrong on many facts . . . . and yet the things they said that were wrong were being parroted by other bloggers and Free Republic members.
I was amazed when Juszkiewicz - who never blamed the first raid on Obama on the Obama DOJ - suddenly started playing to the conservative press ONLY AFTER the conservative blogosphere began with the Obama/DOJ conspiracy theories. He saw an opportunity - and took advantage of it.
From my first post, I've been trying to tell people "those are corporate press releases, folks, read them with a grain of salt and do some research."
If in the process I gave the impression that I'm an expert on guitars, then I apologize. I didn't mean to do so. I know my segment of guitars well, but I'm not an expert and there are many others on Free Republic who know more about guitars than I do.
I think that I have a unique view on the Gibson situation as somebody who didn't just start following it with these last raids, and who didn't just start learning about Henry Juszkiewicz with these last raids, or about the problems with Madagascar rosewood and ebony in the last couple of weeks.
I'd love to see a Mossman guitar sometime.
And, by the way, cherry sunburst is my favorite finish on a Les Paul, followed by a Gold Top.