Is This Music To Your Ears?
Hi Friends!
Last week, Christie’s auction house began the process of auctioning off one of the more interesting series of items we’ve seen come to market in a while. Estimated by some to be in the $1 billion dollar valuation range, the music and memorabilia collection assembled by former Indianapolis Colts owner and General Manager Jim Irsay is undoubtedly one of the most significant, if not the most significant ever assembled. Featuring one off, celebrity owned, stage and studio used pieces of critical pop culture and more, the heroes of this installment of the sale (one of four total events) included David Gilmour of Pink Floyd’s main black Stratocaster (sold for $14.6 Million – Estimate $2 – $4 Million), a custom Tiger guitar synonymous with Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia (sold for $11.6 Million – Estimate $1 – $2 Million) and the Fender “Competition” Mustang used by Kurt Cobain in the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video (Sold for $6.9 Million – Estimate $2.5 – $5 Million). Estimates across the board were significant, but seen by many as conservative. This clearly proved to be an accurate speculation as top lots across the board overperformed dramatically, with the three lots in question, lining up pretty well with what we’ve seen in the market recently with things like Ferrari Enzos, F50s and 288 GTOs.
Although, it could pretty easily be stated that these were outlier sales and not a true reflection of the marketplace, the reality is, vintage guitars, primarily pre-CBS era Stratocasters and Telecasters, late ’50s and early ’60s Gibson ES-335 and most significantly Gibson Les Pauls that fall into the “Burst” range of years between 1958 and 1960. Respectively, these guitars are pulling prices in line with things like mid-century Alfa Romeos (ES-335), mid-year Corvettes (Fenders) and Ferrari Daytonas (Les Paul Burst) and are now really serious collectibles.
I’ve seen this begin to develop over the years. My first job as a teenager was in a guitar store in Boulder, Colorado and even at that time, these exact guitar models were the subject of lots of conversations. Usually focused on the fear that they were going to wind up on the other side of the world in the hands of the same Japanese collectors who at the time were going so crazy for Levis 501 jeans, it’s largely been proven recently that a lot of these guitars stayed here, developed clean and documented ownership changes and that their owners in a lot of circumstances made really smart decisions and how they preserved and maintained these instruments.
The number speak for themselves on this too. Over the last decade or so, there’s been very few collectibles that have been as stable as vintage guitars. Where we’ve occasionally experienced dips with collector cars, although not as explosive, there has been a steady upward trajectory for these instruments and they’ve largely been really safe investments as a result. Between 2015 and 2025, Pre-CBS Fenders pretty reliably appreciated an average of 67%, while ES-335 stood strong in the 80% range. The real heroes of the era however remain high dollar Les Pauls. Not only are those the Ferrari GTOs of the collector guitar sphere, but they’ve also led the way and appreciated over 100% in some cases, at times bringing nearly a million dollars at sale.
One of the guys who’s really been on the forefront of this for several decades now is Trevor Boone of Emerald City Guitars in Seattle, Washington. Growing up in his family-run business in the Great Northwest, Trevor has had an interesting perspective and holds a unique position as somebody who’s really helped to develop that hobby and is in many ways responsible for some of the incredible results seen therein. Their YouTube channel and Instagram page (which are highly recommended follows – some of the best content you’ll find anywhere online) has millions of views and sells guitars and amps in the multiple six-figure ranges sometimes within 24 hours or less through them. He’s also constantly on the road, meeting with high profile musicians, movie stars, etc helping them build collections as well as acquiring guitars to sell through his store.
I spoke with him this morning and he wasn’t particularly surprised by some of the results seen in the market lately. He relayed that well documented, significant instruments will always sit at the top of the market and always pull a premium. He also told me that the market in a lot of ways has gone back to basics. Like with cars, the cleanest examples with the best paper trails ring the bell the hardest. If it’s within the range of the classic models, features things like custom colors (for example, they recently sold a couple of highly exotic, custom color Shoreline Gold Fender Stratocasters) are especially sought after.
I asked him who his primary consumers were at this point and who was really pushing the market forward for him and his team. Although, the working musicians of the world (John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, etc) are certainly a major part of Emerald City’s customer base, he’s now starting to see more and more investors coming into the fold. This makes a lot of sense from my perspective as there’s a layer of convenience involved with guitars that may not be as present with things like collector cars and motorcycles. For example, you can put a guitar in a case and stick it under a bed or buy a seat on an airplane for a guitar. A lot more difficult to accomplish with a 1971 Porsche 911T. On the other side however, Trevor pointed out that there is a “required skill set” involved with guitars and that most of his customers don’t just come in off the street with no knowledge or previous experience. It’s something that they work their way into. Ultimately, anybody can learn to drive a stick pretty quickly and everybody sees cool cars on the road, but most people that appreciate guitars have years of effort into learning how to operate them and that’s not something that everyone can do.
Another interesting fact that he pointed out was there’s a workup period with guitars that may be alittle easier to get into, but also may take a little longer to navigate then with collector cars. Both myself and Trevor joked a little bit this morning about the eclectic nature of both of our collections and how Ibanez and cheaper imported guitars along those lines provided the roadmap to get where we are with this stuff now. As has been stated in this newsletter repeatedly, a lot of times the young collector that walks into your establishment looking to purchase a six-cylinder Mustang coupe, comes back a few years later to buy a GT350. The same thing works with guitars. Very rarely will somebody walk in off the street looking for a Slab Board Strat. They start with an Ibanez RG or an ESP LTD first. Cheap means of entry, but that turns into a long, long climb for sure. It’s not the same thing as watches for example where there’s a high likelihood that somebody appears with an Apple watch and then leaves with a Submariner. With cars and guitars, you need to work your way up in a different manner and to a degree that makes both of these markets complimentary.
So, then the question remains, with this steady, emerging market clearly in bloom, do these collectibles present a possible fragmentation of collector dollars and in turn pose a threat to the collector car market across the board? I think both Trevor and myself agreed that the answer to that is probably no. People that collect things tend to collect a lot of things and there’s a lot of money floating around out there right now. Personally, I collect guitars, motorcycles, cars, memorabilia, you name it and anytime I walk into virtually any semi-significant collection of anything, there’s always multiple avenues represented. Trevor echoed this, as when he’s frequently out in the world buying and selling and trading, he’s also walking through some of the best car collections on the planet in the process.
So, back to the Irsay sale last week. Obviously, that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it pretty closely mirrors another situation we saw in this marketplace in January. Mecum’s Bachman Ferrari Collection sale produced results across the top really similar to what we saw with these guitars last week. Rare, one off, historically important artifacts from a significant collection, offered in unison, largely at no reserve. While initially, the Bachman results certainly appeared to be an anomaly, to a degree this was the most defining market moment we’ve had in quite a while. We’ve all known for a long time that “a rising tide lifts all boats” with collector cars (think 300 SL vs 190 SL for example) and that adage has been immediately and repeatedly been proven true across this marketplace since. Multiple Enzos at this point have now changed hands at this level and things like Carrera GT, F12 TDF, 360 CS (which we’ll talk more about next week), 16M, etc, have all been immediate beneficiaries of this.
Results produced by Christie’s with the Irsay sale definitely caught the attention of the mass media and as a result, if patterns follow, now may be a really good time to start looking harder at old guitars.
That’s it for this week……
Darin Roberge