SOUND INVESTMENTS
GEORGE GRUHN
Fakin’ It
Vintage guitars have proved to be a great
investment over the years. Unfortunately as
the value of these instruments has escalated, so has the incentive to make convincing forgeries.
When I first started collecting in the mid-
1960s, copies of Fenders, Gibsons or
Martins were virtually unheard of because
the originals were readily available and relatively cheap. The first copies I encountered
were Gibson Mastertone tenor banjos with
“replica” five-string necks, which were due
to the incredible rarity of original
prewar five-strings. From re-necking, it was only a short step
to converting raised-head tone
ring models to the more desirable flat-head configuration,
and then onward to complete
replicas of these instruments.
Fortunately for me, it was not
difficult to determine altered or
fake instruments from originals
since no one yet was doing
workmanship that would truly
pass for original.
In the early-1970s, it was still very rare to
encounter forgeries of Fenders, but during
that period I did start to see forgeries of
Gibson sunburst Les Pauls. Some of these
were earlier Goldtops with added humbucking pickups and refinished sunburst
tops. Others were 1970s Les Pauls that had
been re-topped with a curly piece of maple
and refinished cherry sunburst. By the mid-
1970s, as prices of 1958-59 Flying Vs and
Explorers were rapidly escalating, copies
of these instruments began appearing with
some regularity.
expensive models. In the case of Fenders,
such an alteration may amount to noth-
ing more than finding an old instrument
with a very rough finish or one which has
been previously refinished and doing a
very professional refinish job to resemble
an original. The best of today’s refinish-
ers do work which can be fully equivalent
in quality to anything done by the Fender
factory. The art of the “relic” treatment is
becoming more and more sophisticated,
and old refinishes look more and more like
old original finishes as the years go by, so
determining originality is more
and more challenging every day.
It is virtually impossible for even a
very skilled builder to truly duplicate all of the distinctive workmanship of a factory-made instrument such as a Martin, Gibson or
Fender. However, it takes years
of experience and a keen eye to
ferret out the originals from the
forgeries and altered instruments
being offered today.
By the mid to late-1960s there
were also a few people altering Martin dreadnought guitars,
particularly style D-28s, to resemble higher-grade models such as the pre-World War II
D- 45. Some craftsmen went as far as altering the model number and serial number
stamps on the neck block, occasionally even
copying serial numbers of known genuine
D- 45 guitars. Still, to an experienced eye,
the ornamental work differed from the genuine prewar D- 45, and the overall dimensions and specifications of a 1950s or 1960s
D model would not conform to the genuine
1930s original.
During the 1970s, I knew most of the
people who were doing this work. While a
few of them were quite skilled, their workmanship clearly differed enough from the
originals to such a degree that I had no difficulty in distinguishing them. Additionally,
there was virtually no one doing a refinish
job at that time that would fool an experienced eye.
While the proliferation of forger-
ies and altered instruments may
seem frightening, the situation is
not very much different from the
art and antiquities world, which dealt with
a similar problem for hundreds of years.
It is absolutely critical for a buyer to be
keenly aware of this situation and to act
with proper caution. Just as an art collector
would not buy a Van Gogh painting with-
out a receipt and certificate of authenticity,
one should not buy a vintage guitar at a
high price without proper documentation
and certification from the seller.
By the late-1960s Gibson F- 5 mandolins,
particularly those from 1922-24 signed
by Lloyd Loar, were going up in value
enough to attract forgers. In some cases
they would build instruments entirely from
scratch. The workmanship varied depending on who made them, but some were
quite good and would require a discerning
eye to identify them as fakes.
The scene today is very different. Original
examples of pre-war D-45s, sunburst Les
Pauls, Explorers and Flying Vs can bring hundreds of thousands of dollars. Early Fender
Telecasters and Stratocasters, especially in
custom colors, sell for tens of thousands (and
some for over a hundred thousand).
Obviously, there is a great incentive to
make copies or alter instruments to more
closely resemble the more desirable and
George Gruhn
has been dealing vintage guitars since the 1960s. Gruhn’s
Guide to Vintage Guitars (co-written with Walter Carter)
is the “bible” for vintage collectors. Visit gruhn.com or
email gruhn@gruhn.com.
