Quote:
Originally Posted by slewfoot
I could see not messing with it if it belonged to someone famous showing the wear and all but if you were the original owner? So what?
What's the harm in a "restore" not rebuild?
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For this type of instrument, the finish and color is what is rare so you wouldn’t want to strip and paint it because it would destroy the value. Having a famous owner isn’t the only reason instruments end up valuable to collectors. The most common reason is the number made. In my case, it’s looking like only five were made and, so far, mine is the only one I’ve found with an ebony fretboard. (Standards never came with ebony. All were rosewood).
In fact, on Gibsons, trapezoid fret marker inlays mean rosewood. Ebony gets rectangles. Mine has traps plus ebony. Apparently ebony is now illegal to import.
I have had it re-fretted and one pickup needed repair. It also has new pots and switch which doesn’t harm the value. For some collectors, the wear would be a detriment. For others (usually pro players) the wear is a plus.
The wear doesn’t impact playability now that the frets are new. It was unplayable before the refret because I wore them down so far. It’s mostly paint worn off.
The biggest factor with re-fretting these is damaging the binding. (A plastic strip around the edges that finishes it off). When it gets old it gets brittle so it takes a lot of skill to do it right. If you Jack it up, you can put in new bindings but it’s super expensive and decimates the value. I got really lucky that I found a very good luthier to do the work.
At first, she wouldn’t touch it due to fear of messing it up which I thought was odd. She knew it was rare before I did.