Buying a vintage electric usually starts the same way. You find one you like the look of, you study the photos for a while, and then you sit there trying to work out what the photos are not showing you. Is the finish original? Are those the pickups it left the factory with? Is the price fair for this example, or fair for a better one? That gap is the whole difficulty, and it is what we spend our time and energy on.
We have been buying and selling vintage electrics out of Greater Boston for years. Vintage Gibsons - ES-175s, ES-335s and ES-330s, SGs, Les Pauls, and Melody Makers across the 1950s, 60s, and 70s; Fender Stratocasters, Telecasters, Esquires, Jazzmasters, and Mustangs, plus Epiphone, Rickenbacker, and the occasional oddity that turns up when you have been doing this as long as we have.
Every guitar here gets documented for originality before it is listed. What is original, what has been replaced, what has been repaired, and what that means for the guitar and its value. If a 1963 Strat has a refin or a changed pickup, you will read it in the listing rather than having to think of the right question to ask. And if the example on this page is not the right one for what you are chasing, we will say so. Vintage is a small world and we plan on being in it for a long time.
Better still, come play them. Two guitars that read nearly identically on paper can feel like different instruments the moment you plug in. Some people settle it over the phone and have the guitar shipped. Others drive in from across New England, line up a few, and take an afternoon over it at our showroom about 20 minutes from downtown Boston.
