The Guitars Players Regret Selling — And Now Can't Afford

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]It is 1997.

[00:00:02]You are at a guitar shop in Denver looking at a 1973 Stratocaster hanging on the wall for $450.

[00:00:12]The headstock is a little dirty. The pick guard is yellowed.

[00:00:17]The previous owner replaced the bridge saddles. The salesman tells you 70 Stratocasters are not worth much because the necks are too thick and the bodies are heavy. You play it for 10 minutes, decide it is not the one and walk out.

[00:00:32]>> [music] >> 29 years later, that guitar trades for between $4,000 and $7,000 in playable condition.

[00:00:41]The hardtail version with the rosewood fretboard goes higher.

[00:00:45]You did not buy it.

[00:00:47]Almost nobody did.

[00:00:49]And now nobody can.

[00:00:51]This is the story repeated thousands of times across the American guitar market over the last three decades.

[00:00:59]Players sold guitars cheap because conventional wisdom said the guitars were bad.

[00:01:04]They were wrong.

[00:01:06]The market figured it out.

[00:01:09]And now the supply has dried up at the same moment demand exploded, leaving an entire generation of collectors looking back at decisions they made in their 20s and 30s and trying to do math that does not add up.

[00:01:23]We are going to walk through seven of the worst regrets.

[00:01:27]Guitar one, the '70s CBS Stratocaster.

[00:01:32]For 30 years, the conventional wisdom on these guitars was brutal. Avoid them.

[00:01:38]The bodies were heavy. The necks were chunky.

[00:01:41]The three-bolt neck plate was a cost-cutting disaster and the pickups were considered murky compared to originals from before 1965.

[00:01:51]Vintage dealers would not stock them.

[00:01:53]Guitar magazines wrote them off in single sentences.

[00:01:57]Players who came up on older instruments would not touch them.

[00:02:02]This conventional wisdom was about half right.

[00:02:05]Yes, the necks were thicker.

[00:02:07]Yes, some bodies were heavier.

[00:02:09]But the pickups, while different from the older units, had their own character.

[00:02:15]Slightly darker, slightly fatter, perfect for the kind of overdriven blues rock that dominated FM radio when those guitars were new.

[00:02:26]Players who actually spent time with them discovered they were excellent instruments that simply were not 50s or 60s Stratocasters.

[00:02:35]A clean 1973 Stratocaster sold for $400 to $600 in the late 90s.

[00:02:41]Today, the same guitar in playable condition trades between $4,000 and $7,000.

[00:02:48]The hardtail variants are higher.

[00:02:51]Anything from 1971 or 1972 with original parts is now genuinely rare because most of them got modified, parted out, or refinished during the years nobody wanted them.

[00:03:05]If you sold a 70 Strat at any point before 2010, you are not alone.

[00:03:11]You are in a club with thousands of other players who took the conventional wisdom at face value.

[00:03:17]The conventional wisdom was wrong.

[00:03:20]Guitar two.

[00:03:22]The 70s Les Paul Custom.

[00:03:25]The Norlin years at Gibson got mocked even harder than the CBS years at Fender.

[00:03:30]Gibson Les Paul Customs from 1973 through 1980 were called boat anchors.

[00:03:37]Some of them weighed 12 lb.

[00:03:39]The mahogany was often substituted with cheaper wood.

[00:03:43]Three-piece pancake bodies replaced the solid construction of the originals.

[00:03:48]The famous volute on the back of the headstock, a thick reinforcement nobody wanted became the symbol of everything that went wrong at Gibson during the period.

[00:03:58]For two decades, [music] you could find a black or wine red Les Paul Custom from 1976 in good condition for between $1,100 and $1,600 at any decent guitar shop.

[00:04:11]Players bought them, played them through their 20s, then sold them when they decided they wanted something lighter or something with a thinner neck profile.

[00:04:21]The market shrugged. Nobody wanted boat anchors.

[00:04:25]The market then quietly changed its mind.

[00:04:28]>> [music] >> A 1976 Les Paul Custom in clean condition trades today between $5,000 and $7,000.

[00:04:37]The maple neck variants from 1975 to 1977, once considered the worst of the worst because the neck wood was wrong by Gibson's traditional standards, now go for higher prices than the mahogany neck versions because so few of them survived in original condition.

[00:04:56]The pickups, >> [music] >> the T-top humbuckers, are now considered some of the best Gibson ever made and pull around $500 each on the parts market.

[00:05:07]Guitar three lawsuit era >> [music] >> Japanese guitars.

[00:05:14]For decades, the conventional wisdom on Japanese copies was simple.

[00:05:18]They were fakes. They were illegal knockoffs that Gibson and Fender had successfully forced off the American market.

[00:05:25]They were not real guitars. Players who owned them knew better, but the market treated Tokai, Greco, and Burny instruments from the lawsuit era as second-class objects for 40 years.

[00:05:39]In 1979, a Tokai Love Rock Reborn in good condition sold for between $400 and $700 in the early 2000s.

[00:05:49]A Greco Super Real from 1980 was in the same range.

[00:05:54]These were instruments that in many cases were better built than what Gibson and Fender were producing in the United States during the same years.

[00:06:02]The wood was better.

[00:06:04]The fit was tighter.

[00:06:06]The pickups were closer to vintage spec than the pickups Gibson was shipping in 1980.

[00:06:12]>> [music] >> Today, that same Tokai Love Rock trades between $3,000 and $5,000.

[00:06:19]The top-tier models with mahogany bodies and the original dry Z pickups push past $6,000.

[00:06:27]Greco Super Real instruments are climbing past $4,000.

[00:06:32]The lawsuit era is now recognized for what it actually was.

[00:06:36]A brief window when Japanese craftsmanship outpaced American craftsmanship at [music] a fraction of the price.

[00:06:43]And the buyers who knew about it then are now sitting on guitars worth five times what they paid.

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[00:06:53]We cover the gear, the history, and the debates that define guitar every week.

[00:07:00]Guitar 4 The Charvel San Dimas era Between 1979 and 1985, a small workshop in San Dimas, California, run by Wayne Charvel and then Grover Jackson built some of the best superstrats ever produced in the United States.

[00:07:19]The early Charvel guitars, the ones built before the Jackson brand absorbed the operation and shifted production to Texas in 1986 are now among the most coveted vintage instruments in the entire American market.

[00:07:35]Eddie Van Halen played one.

[00:07:38]Randy Rhoads played one.

[00:07:40]Allan Holdsworth played one.

[00:07:43]The instruments were custom orders in many cases with serial numbers in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

[00:07:51]They were built one at a time by a handful of people who knew exactly what they were doing.

[00:07:56]For most of the '90s and the 2000s, you could find a real San Dimas Charvel for between $1,500 and $2,500.

[00:08:07]Players sold them constantly because the '80s shred aesthetic had fallen out of fashion.

[00:08:12]Floyd Rose tremolos were unfashionable.

[00:08:16]Pointy headstocks were unfashionable.

[00:08:18]The guitars sat in shops.

[00:08:21]Today, a verified San Dimas Charvel from 1982 in good condition sells for between $6,000 and $12,000.

[00:08:31]The custom order pieces with documented histories trade for $15,000 and up.

[00:08:37]The market for these instruments has gone from quiet to extremely loud in less than 10 years and the supply is finite.

[00:08:45]Only a few thousand were ever built.

[00:08:49]Guitar five.

[00:08:51]The original Ibanez Jem.

[00:08:54]Steve Vai's signature Ibanez, the Jem, launched in 1987.

[00:08:59]The first models were the Jem 777 in loud green, the Jem 777 in desert yellow, and the Jem 777 in shocking pink.

[00:09:11]They were built in small numbers in Japan with a level of craftsmanship that Ibanez had never previously delivered to a production market.

[00:09:20]Hand-painted bodies, edge tremolo systems built to tighter tolerances than anything else at the price point.

[00:09:28]Neck that played faster than what most American makers were offering.

[00:09:32]Players bought them.

[00:09:34]Players also sold them, especially through the late '90s and the early 2000s, when the neon shred aesthetic became deeply unfashionable.

[00:09:44]A clean original run Jem in good condition could be had for between $1,500 and $2,200 in 2005.

[00:09:52]Sellers were happy to move them.

[00:09:55]Today, an original 1987 to 1989 Jem, 777, trades between $5,000 and $10,000 depending on the color and condition.

[00:10:08]The shocking pink versions are higher.

[00:10:11]The supply is gone.

[00:10:13]Steve Vai is still touring.

[00:10:16]Younger players are discovering the music.

[00:10:19]The combination of historical significance, low original production numbers, and renewed cultural interest has created a market that did not exist when most of these guitars [music] were originally being traded.

[00:10:34]Guitar [music] six, vintage Gibson Flying V and Explorer.

[00:10:39]For decades, the Flying V and Explorer were treated as novelty guitars.

[00:10:44]Metal players bought them, hard rock players bought them, and serious collectors avoided them.

[00:10:50]The conventional wisdom said the standard [music] Les Paul was the real Gibson, and the radical body shapes were a distraction.

[00:10:58]A 1976 or 1977 Gibson Flying V in good condition sold for between $1,500 and $2,200 [music] throughout most of the '90s and the early 2000s.

[00:11:13]The Explorer was in the same range.

[00:11:16]Players bought them, played them in metal bands, and sold them when their taste shifted toward more conventional instruments.

[00:11:24]The market rediscovered both shapes around [music] 2015.

[00:11:29]A clean 1976 Flying V now trades between $4,000 and $8,000.

[00:11:35]The Explorer is in the same range.

[00:11:38]The originals from 1958 to 1959, the ones built in tiny numbers when the shapes first launched and largely failed commercially, >> [music] >> now sell for over $200,000 when they appear at auction.

[00:11:52]The supply of both vintage shapes is essentially gone and the market continues to climb.

[00:11:59]Guitar seven.

[00:12:01]The original American-made PV Wolfgang.

[00:12:05]When Eddie Van Halen left Music Man in 1996 and signed [music] with PV, the resulting PV Wolfgang, built in Meridian, Mississippi, between 1996 and 2004, was one of the highest-quality production instruments either company ever produced.

[00:12:23]Eddie was personally involved in the design.

[00:12:26]The build quality was outstanding.

[00:12:28]The pickups were custom-wound.

[00:12:31]The patented D-Tuna tremolo system worked. Players sold them constantly through the late 2000s.

[00:12:38]The PV brand was associated with budget gear and players did not believe a guitar with a PV logo could be a serious instrument.

[00:12:47]Used Wolfgangs traded between $1,200 and $1,800 in 2008.

[00:12:54]Some sellers struggled to move them at all.

[00:12:57]Today, an American-made Wolfgang from the original PV production run sells for between $4,500 and $9,000, depending on the model and condition.

[00:13:08]The special and standard variants are in different tiers and the rarest custom color versions go higher.

[00:13:16]Eddie passed away in 2020.

[00:13:19]The original American PV Wolfgang production run is closed forever.

[00:13:24]The supply will only shrink from here.

[00:13:27]There's a pattern in all seven of these stories.

[00:13:31]None of these guitars were undervalued by accident.

[00:13:34]They were correctly valued at the time, given what the market believed about them in that moment.

[00:13:40]The '70s Fenders were considered worse than the '60s Fenders.

[00:13:45]The Norlin Gibsons were considered worse than the Kalamazoo originals.

[00:13:49]The Japanese copies were considered fakes.

[00:13:52]The shred era guitars were considered tacky.

[00:13:56]The market wasn't wrong.

[00:13:58]The market just changed its mind.

[00:14:01]The deeper truth is that this process is still happening right now.

[00:14:07]Somewhere in a guitar shop today, there is an instrument hanging on the wall that conventional wisdom currently treats as second rate.

[00:14:15]Maybe it is a Korean-built signature model from the early 2000 era.

[00:14:20]Maybe it is a discontinued production line that nobody respected.

[00:14:24]Maybe it is a brand that is currently being mismanaged by a corporate owner who does not understand what they have.

[00:14:31]Whatever it is, it is there.

[00:14:34]And 10 years from now, someone will be making a video like this one explaining why nobody bought it.

[00:14:41]If you have made it this far, the question is not which guitar you should have kept 20 years ago.

[00:14:47]That guitar is gone.

[00:14:49]And beating yourself up about it serves no purpose.

[00:14:53]The real question is the one you do not want to ask.

[00:14:57]Which guitar are you walking past right now, >> [music] >> today, that you will be regretting in 2036?

[00:15:05]What's the one that got away from you?

[00:15:08]Drop it in the comments.

[00:15:10]We've all got at least one.