The Electra Forums

After having been away from Electra buying for a while, I have a question. I've watched the vintage guitar market plummet. I've seen my friend's 60K 1950's Strats drop to less than 20K value, I've also seen him obtain a 1959 Les Paul that once sold for upwards of 400K for just under 70K. I had a nice little career of flipping low end guitars, buying cheap, fixing them up, re-selling them for a small profit...even that's dead now. It seems that the bottom has fallen out of the used guitar market along with the rest of the economy. Now, while searching Electras on fleabay, I see MPC's and other Electras listed for up to 700-1000 bucks and danged if some of them don't actually sell for these prices...not many, but some. So my question is, are Electras really immune to this recession, or are they not really selling for these prices? At some point I'd love to pick up another MPC to keep for life, but I just don't see paying a grand for one.

Many, many variables at work here. First and foremost we're in the middle of the biggest Global economic downturn since the 1930's, so everyone is cutting back on discretionary spending, even rich people.

Secondly, the market is flooded with instruments. Cheap cr@p from 20 years ago, and even cheapier cr@ppier stuff made recently... I can't even tell the Chinese forgeries in person, so as I've blogged a few times, I wouldn't buy a Gibson unless it was from someone you trusted or knew really well.

Thirdly, the Vintage Guitar Bubble could not last. There are only so many people willing to plunk down a house downpayment (or more...) on a single vintage instrument. Art is Art though, and those pieces will likely bounce back, either two years from now, or fifteen years from now.

As far as Electras go, some Ibanez and Greco models have been selling for over a grand for quite some time... would you say that an Electra is any less an instrument? These have been undervalued for DECADES, and I think that there is some genuine excitement going around for this cool line recently, who knows, possibly generated right here.

We saw a MPC sell for just over $300 recently, so there are deals out there still. They may not be cream-puffs, but if you want a museum piece you may have to fork out $700 or so. Play it side by side with your rich friend's Burst, but make him put on his depends first, cause he'll be cr@pping himself for the rest of the night! Personally I'd rather have a house full of different models than a single Vintage Fender that you're afraid to take out and play (investment not withstanding). Cheers, Mike.

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ What he said !! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Most sleeper deals these days seem to be in digging deep into Craigslist and Kijiji type listings when the instrument is listed as an "electric guitar".

Those are becoming few and far between as well however...

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...throw me a frickin' bone here, people...

The Electra Brand guitars are finally getting the recognition they deserve and have finally shaken off the cheap Japanese junk reputation they were stuck with by the bigger names. They are indedd great values and quality instruments. Depending on the models they are still very affordable and fun to play. The high end hollowbody models which were the pinnacle of the craftsmanship seem to go for the most. The MPC prices are a toss of the dice. You see the higher end minty ones with modules and cases go for the most usually but then you may find a closet classic at $300 or so if you look hard enough and long enough. I have had several hard core Gibson and fender players that were blown away when they played my Electra models. Good Quality will win out every time and an affordable price helps even more. Look hard and dig deep and you will be rewarded at what you may find out there. The posts here in the Auction section are also a good place to track and watch for different models. Well thats my opinion but I guess I can be classified as an Electra lover and a bit more prone to them even though I do own a few of the other ones as well.Thanks Arthur

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

Well, I've owned just about every model of MPC and several non MPC Electra's and as much as I loved them, they can't seriously be mentioned in the same breath as a 1959 Les Paul, remember, I've played both But yes, Electra guitars are still a great value at 600 bucks, probably not so much at 1000. When I started buying them in the mid-late 90's they were insane values! MPC's for under 200 bucks regularly. I'm thinking I'll be looking for an X-930 in the near future.

And Mike, my buddy's Strat's & Les Paul's are just investments and in his case they're still good ones. For day to day playing, he has luthier made copies of both types. And yes, I'm glad I have my 1981 Les Paul because I'd be uncomfortable paying big bucks for a LP or Strat with the forgeries out there. Chinese ones aren't tough to pick out for the most part but some luthiers are making Strat & Paul copies that are fooling experts!

I reckon it was inevitable that the Electras starting gaining some traction; after all, APII, Vantage and Westone have been on the rise (slowly) for ages now but Electra were slipping under the radar.

No, they're not 59 LPs but they were never meant to be LPs, were they; Matsumoku was going down a slightly different road in the 80's. APII had LP style guitars which are tarting to fetch real money nowadays - the PE series - , and the top-of-the-line Vantage, Westone, and APII had features and a build quality that pulled Gibson and Fender up and made them take stock.

We've seen the last of the cheap Matsumokus, I think, although as Steve said, there will always be a bargain in there if you're prepared to hunt it down. I tried to get a Westone Raider I off the 'bay this week, but it went for way too much in my opinion, so I didn't get it, but that shows that people are starting to get canny about prices and that some bidders are prepared to go that little bit extra!! Might be the Ibanez bubble all over again....

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

There's no rhyme or reason to the prices as far as I can tell. Electra basses seem to be ridiculously low for the most part while some of the guitars have been selling very high. Still, for the money, I consider them to be undervalued. The craftsmanship from '75 to '83 or so is just as good, if not better, than the same era Genders and Fibsons in my opinion and still for quite a bit less dough.

I would agree but you do have to remember that those were just about the worst years for F & G. That said I have not been all that impressed with the latest offering from them, though the prices are impressive

That's a fact, the 70's were a lost decade for Fender & Gibson (both were doing so much to cut costs they just disregarded quality). I remember sending away for brochures for Electra's & Ibanez c1976/77. The X330 I wanted at the time with Modules would have cost me near 1000 bucks shipped to Montreal while the IBZ Bob Weir I think was even more. I wanted that MPC so bad but I ended up picking up a 2 year old Les Paul Deluxe for $450.00...what a boat anchor. I also had a 1975 Strat that weighted a ton and did nothing for me. I will give that Electra's and similar Jap guitars were every bit as good as 1970's Gibson & Fender products, in some cases better. But the comparison to a '59 LP above kinda left me scratching my head.

I may have mentioned this before, but after owning about a dozen different Les Paul copies that all came up short for me I said screw it, time for another Gibson...this was about 7 or 8 years ago. I was ready to fork out $2000-$3500 for the right Les Paul. I played tons of them and none of the new ones impressed me. In fact in just about every store I'd play 4 or 5 Gibson's, be unimpressed and go across the store to try Epiphone LP's and often the Epi's felt and sounded better! Some of the uber expensive Custom Shop Paul's were pretty cool, but out of my price range. I then did some research and found out that the early 80's Gibson Heritage 80 Les Paul's were very well regarded. I saw one on Elderly Guitars in Michigan's website and called them up. I talked to the salesman for almost an hour asking him every possible question and made an offer sight unseen of $1760.00 shipped. The deal went through and it turned out to be one of the finest Les Pauls I've ever laid hands on. So long story short, the new Les Pauls do about the same for me as the 1970's ones did. Now that's not to say there aren't some good ones out there, but I just expect so much better from the name and for the huge bucks they're asking.

Now somebody find me an X930 with 12 modules and OHSC for 500 bucks, will ya...LOL

Good Luck with that one. I am still searching for the X930 also. The owners just don't give those up. I have seen a sparse few of those in all my searching.Found one listing on Clist but never got an answer from seller so I guess it was a scam. Good Luck and if I find one I will be certain to post an PM.

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

The sad thing is I had a really nice Vulcan and cleared it out in one of my irrational purges...DOH!

I own 4 Electras, One is an MPC that I bought new. As a teenager I wanted a Gibson les Paul real bad. They had both guitars at the music store, but the sales man Said I should take a look at the MPC before I made up my mind on the LP. I compared and went with the MPC. The sales man was a blue grass player, smoking a pipe. I was into rock (still am). I dont think it was about the money for him because he offered to tote the note there at the store on any guitar I chose. I could have paid more and got the LP but got the MPC for close to 500. Maybe people now days are going thru the same thing. The japenese guitars were hitting high on the quality end around 84. A lot of the copies were getting pro quality ads and endorsments in the mags. Now the internet helps move the trends real fast so maybe its all coming back in style like everything else. They cant afford 7000 for that LP but can get that Electra for 600 with a tree of life finger board.

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SlmGuy

This is a discussion that can go on forever but there's no arguing that Electra's usually win in the bang for the buck department! I was just saying when you compare a 70's Les Paul to an Electra they were about the same price in Montreal (NEW) in the 70's and I feel the Electra was better value (but the Gibson is worth more today)...Electra vs '59 LP no contest...but the '59 is at best 10 times the price (I'd still kill for the '59 tho)

See now, the 59 LPs are valuable partly because there were only 300-odd built, and they were - near as darn - handbuilt, as well as having those PAF pups. I'd love to be able to A/B test a 59 against a 79 just to see if there is actually that much difference in the sound....

And, just to add a little perspective, there were 48 X350s built, and only 96 X390s.... Comparative rarity values can be a little misleading, eh...

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."