Investment Guitars

Investment Guitars are guitars that you can buy for a low price and sell for a higher price.

If you need expert advice buying or selling investment grade guitars
Please Call Ed Roman  702-875-4552

BE VERY CAREFUL  !!!

Don't buy guitars where the collector cache value is packaged in at the purchase price.
It is extremely rare that one of those will go up in value.
In fact the manufacturer is gouging you and reaping the reward when you buy it.
You will probably never be able to get your money back. 
 

Do Not Buy With Your Emotions !!!!
Use Your Brain!!!!
 

For example, lets say you bought a Gibson Eric Clapton 335 in 2006,  The Gibson factory gouged you an extra $4,000.00 more in cache value than you should have had to pay for the cheap plywood guitar that it actually is.   Then "Guitar Center" the only place you could actually buy one from,  gouged you an additional $6,000.00 or more at purchase time.  Of course you had to pay the tax almost $1,000.00 in most states. You have now paid $13,000.00 plus for a guitar that is overpriced at the normal $2,100.00 it usually sells for. You will never make your money back !!  The guitar itself is definitely nothing special. You could have bought a guitar carved from a real piece of wood for less than 1/4 of what you paid. You could have gotten beautiful inlays, Ebony fingerboard, multiple binding, high quality pickups and an ebony bridge or finger tailpiece. If you were one of the people who bought that $25,000.00 Eddie Van Halen Charvel, or the Jimmy Page Gibson Doubleneck. You will likely never make your money back. If you wait 20 years you may make a small profit but consider inflation. The stock market over twenty years would have quadrupled your same investment. If you already have bought one, I submit to you that you have more money than brains.  Those are both horrible investments. People will hate me for saying this, The Jimmy Page fans and the people who bought them will really be upset with my comments. This is why I get flamed on the Les Paul forum. I'm sorry but I call them as I see them!!!!     A good investment would have been a cheap Hohner Prince model guitar made in the 90's for about $450.00. Today you can sell those for $4,500.00.  If you bought a cheap Washburn Ace Frehley model back in the 80's you could sell it for 10 times as much.  My point being,  expensive guitars are not good investments.

PRS GUITARS

Lots and lots of people made lots and lots of money on PRS guitars during the mid 90's. I was one of those people. Today they are worth much less than they were then. You have to remember that PRS went into mass production in 1995. During their factory move & changeover to high production there was a real shortage of PRS guitars.
Naturally everyone always wants what they can't get. 
Therefore people were selling PRS guitars for triple what they were worth just because people thought they couldn't get one. PRS Dragon ones got as high as $45,000.00 my cost $4,900.00. I sold both of them at incredible money. I sold a set of Dragons 1, 2, & 3 for almost $80,000.00 today I would be lucky to get $20,000.00 for them.

Who knew, I certainly didn't, People eventually found out the Dragons were all done by computer and were incredibly overpriced  to start.  People realized the Dragon was nothing more than a $1,700.00 PRS Custom 22 which in my opinion was one of the worst guitars they ever made.

PRS donated a Dragon to the Smithsonian and to MOMA the Museum Of Modern Art.  This was the catalyst that caused the whole investment guitar craze.

Good PRS Investments  Any 1985, 1986 or 1987 PRS that you bought back then.  It's too late now, the prices have escalated and that makes them a bad investment. If you want one by all means buy one. Just don't think of it as an investment.

Any 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 PRS CE24 model.  Probably the best & most versatile PRS ever made. Plus they don't cost much more than $2,500.00 which makes it a good investment.

Any 1989, 1990, 1991  PRS Signature model  (PRS's first limited edition and definitely the best set neck model they ever made.

Any PRS Artist 1  Very few made, they are exactly like the signatures, except they used gold hardware and came with a leather case.  I have a whole bunch of original PRS parts and cases available for restoration of these guitars.

Any PRS Signature Ltd Edition,  Most of them were redwood, very few were maple. Just make sure you get one with the Tune O matic bridge. There were some tremolo models stay away from those. This is the only PRS ever to come with a Tune A Matic Bridge.  (Far superior to the stock PRS bridges)  I once had a PRS employee made guitar that was a CE model with a Tune A Matic bridge, like a jerk I let it go.  What a guitar that was !!!!!

Bad Bad PRS Investments
 

It's a proven fact that 22 fret models do not bring the dollars that the 24 fret ones do. In fact I won't buy any 22 fret model unless it's a trade in that I can get pretty cheap.
Artist 2 Model
Artist 3 Model
Artist 4 Model
10th Anniversary
Dragon 1
Dragon 2
Dragon 3
McCarty Any Solid Body Model
Most Private Stock Guitars, There might be a few exceptions here, I have seen several very cool ones.
Singlecut All Models I Have Seen
Most Santana Models unless you can pick one up dirt cheap like the one I am dumping !!
 
More to come, time does not permit me to finish,  but I will get back to this !!!

MORE Coming Soon

Ryan to me
show details Aug 31 (1 day ago) Reply


Hey Ed<

Thanks Again
Ed