Well the reports are rolling in from all corners of the country on the vintage guitar show in Texas this past weekend . I was overwhelmed at the amount of e mails i got Sunday about the show and so here is a few highlights from the show.

First at least 30 people told me they sold a lot  for guitars at the show and that they all brought a good price for this market. lest start with what i heard for the Gibson market .1959 Es-335 were selling for $30,000-$38,000 , 1957 paf gold tops were selling for $75,000 – $85,000 1954 Les Paul  gold tops were slow but a few sold in for  30,000 that were clean . The burst market although down was still ok i heared 4 burst were sold ranging from $225,000 -$350,000. As expected the $1000- $3000 guitars were wiped out if they were straight and clean the all sold and people were scrambling to find more. So the Gibson market was rocking and most dealers I talked to were happy. Well that’s a relative statement because as you know th are  all miserable, hahahhah or lets just say moody.

The Fender market was a bit more hit and miss.  1954 Stratocatsers  were selling for $55,000, 1952 telecaster  were bringing $45,000 -$55,000 this is all  great news. The super rare custom color stratocasters were still bringing great money like fiesta red coral pink Sherwood metallic green etc. and some for what i thought were record prices. A dealer friend of mine sold his 1960 fiesta red stratocaster  in 9+ condition for $68,000 !! I heard a 1959 blonde stratocasters  with gold hardware sold for $65,000  again I feel strong for this market .Most clean bakelite stratocaster  were selling between $38,000-$42,000 the later being super clean. Fender Telecaster in general were a bit slow again unless in some wild color. I heard from most dealers that candy apple red, white and lake placid blue colored fender were a bit slow.

The other models such a Rickenbacker , Gretsch and Martins did well if they were super clean with no issues I do not have exact prices but i did hear for instance that  a few Gretsch duo jets sold and of course any clean martin were gone if the price was right . Again i dd not get any exact example so i do not want to speculate but again no ones was complaining.

So the general mood was positive and traffic at the show was great. Again it was not 1997 but guess what it never will be again !!!. It is a rare thing to get a good vibe from almost 90% of the people i talked to so i feel better as far as the market moving even further in a positive direction. Those of you know if it was a bad show I never hold anything back and have said many times if a show was horrible but this one seems to be a good one for everyone. If you need any otehr info on teh show e mail me at THE PARTSDRAWER thanks

Jim Pasch

We are happy to announce that we have been invited by 300guitars.com one of the leading guitar sites on the Internet to write a bi-monthly column the vintage guitar and vintage guitar parts. We are honored to have been asked by Bill Penn and the crew and will be contributing information each month to help the guitar enthusiast.

300guitars.com  has a monthly following of  100,000 people per month and is growing monthly. We have been watching this site grow over the years and feel that it is not only a good site but one that we can hands down recommend. We have been asked by many sites due to our reputation and popularity to write for them but we Will not write for a site we do not believe in. This is a site i am confident is both useful to the public and an honest site.

We obviously have a large drawing power and the fact that we are teaming up with another heavy hitter on the Internet will i believe benefit the public and each other. We focus on solely used guitars and parts and bill does both new and vintage so it is a good marriage of old and new.  bill has years of hands on experience and most important;y he is a player and loves guitars !!! that is the real caveat for me. He is a working musician and is not in this for the money. I have known him for about 18 years and i believe in what he is doing so that is why i will be taking allocating time for this article on his website.

We will will be submitting article staring in a week and you can look for the article around the 15th and the 30th of each month or there abouts. These article will also have a link directly to me and i can personally answer any questions you may have directly an i am confident due to the volume that within 48 hours i Will be able to answer every one’s questions personally and efficiently. The good thing is if I cannot answer a specific question i have the resources to direct you to the person who can. Over the years i have made many friends and connections many who specialize in one thing or another .

I look forward to hearing from all of you and thanks once again for all your support over the years

Jim Pasch

I am re running this brief post as I have just recieved  another 50 emails this week on this top . please book mark this I will not be posting this again.

This is a brief outline of the various pots and caps and wiring used by Gibson. This is not a complete summary but is a good start for the beginner. The basic companies Gibson used were IRC ,CTS , Central Lab. IRC used (615) code to begin the sequence of numbers on the pot case . Central Lab used ( 134 )and CTS used (137) codes.  The way to ready a pot code is as follows . There are several scenarios.

IRC always began with 615 xxxxx  354 . The x’s stood for stock numbers the last three numbers were the year and the week. here is example : 615 34657 334  this is a  IRC pots 1953 and the week is 34th week .

CTS  always started with 137 xxx or 137 xxxx  . The first x or first two were the year the last two x’s were the weeks.  Here is an example 137828     8 represents the year 1958 and week 28th week.  In second example :  1376828  68 represents 1968 and 28 the 28th week .

Central Lab always begins with 134 xxx or 134 xxxx. first example 134521 this dates the pot to 1955 and the 21st week . the second example 1346232 show a 1962 pot from the 32 week.

Remember this that pots can  pre-date a instrument year but never post date it . It was common to have pots 6 month earlier than an instrument but an exact cut off time is impossible to nail down. Usually the earlier the instrument the closer the pot dates are to the instrument manufacturing date. As the companies grew they bought more inventory and pots sometimes were mixed or lying around for a period of time before they were used. In the extreme instance of Fender Guitars in 1966 to cut costs Fender purchased enough pots to last the company for 5 years and so they are found in guitars from 1966-1971

Switches were made by the Switchcraft company and still are to this date . The early switches do not bear the company’s name. but by 1961 all switchcraft switches bear the company name stamped into the switch. Most were three way switches but they also had 5 way switches.

The caps are a very important part of the harness but i would need several full pages to dive into them and their variations . I Will list a few common ones but it is by no means a complete list. The earliest Gibson caps were made by Cornell Dublier or (cd). they were know as grey tigers ( the name found on many ) and were used in hollow bodies and solid body guitars. They were .022 @ 400v . by 1956 they has switched to the Sprague Company. The values were the same but the waxed paper grey tiger caps were now replaced by the Sprauge bumble bee it was black plastic shell with multi colored stripes and is probably the most recognized cap in the world for guitars. There were again a few exception but not many. In 1961 the Sprague caps changed again to the black case with two red stripes one  on each end and they were used up until around 1970.

 This is a brief outline if you have any further questions please e mail me at THE PARTS DRAWER