MUSIC
INTAGE
Guitars
Music's Passion
In Art & Sound
Design
Vintage American made guitars have become
very collectible items in recent years. Many record-
ing artists realized in the 1970s that current guitars
were being made with lesser quality wood and
fewer handmade manufacturing processes. Some
guitar companies were purchased by larger corpo-
rations who were always looking to cut corners to
reduce manufacturing cost
and increase profits.
Musicians like Stephen
Stills and Neil Young
were among the first to
start collecting older gui-
tars from the same compa-
nies because they sounded
better than the current models. Older
guitars pre 1970 were made with more hand-
made operations and less assembly line methods.
The wood selection was also much better. Brazilian
rosewood was regarded as superior tone wood
for acoustic guitar bodies and fretboard wood for
many acoustic and electric guitars. Brazil stopped
export of rosewood in 1969 which increased the
value of many pre1969 Martin acoustic guitars. Mar-
tin switched to East Indian rosewood in 1969 and
many feel they can hear the difference...
Vintage 1954 Fender
Telecaster
Text by Perry Sconzert
HOOK
2023
A Pick Of HOOK's Music Features 2003 -2026 Excerpts
8 HOOK
