The vintage guitar market has always been about more than wood, wire and lacquer. These instruments have acted as emotional anchors for generations of musicians and fans. For people who grew up in the 1960s and 70s the sound of a Stratocaster or a Les Paul wasn’t just something they heard; it was part of who they were. When they reached the age where they had disposable income, those guitars stopped being unobtainable objects of desire and were now easily affordable. 

You have to remember that for people growing up in the 50s or 60s American guitars were not easy to come by. They were hugely expensive in the UK, hard to find and out of reach for many. It's very common for people to look back at those things they couldn't obtain as a youngster and try to right that wrong later in life by buying more than one of them!

But as we look ahead to 2040, we must be realistic. The buyers who have driven this market for the last forty years are ageing and dying. Culture has shifted. The relationship younger generations have with music and musical instruments is very different. And that has consequences. As the baby boomers head to their graves their guitar collections hit the auction houses, back on the market after being hidden away for years, thus creating a glut of supply. 

To understand where the market is heading, we need to revisit how it started, who funded it, and how outside forces are now pressing in on it.

How the Vintage Market Began

The rise of the vintage guitar market in the 1970s and 80s was not accidental. There were two main drivers:

1. The best guitars ever made (Fender and Gibson, pre-mid 60s) were built in relatively small quantities by people who genuinely cared about craftsmanship.

2. The most influential musicians in history had used them.

At the same time, the quality of newer guitars dropped. CBS-era Fender and Norlin-era Gibson prioritised volume and margin. If you walked into a music shop selling new guitars you were met with rows of identical glossy polyurethane clones. Players quickly realised that the older instruments simply felt and sounded better. So demand emerged organically, from musicians first, collectors later.

As players from the 50s, 60s and early 70s entered their well-paid career years, they had money to chase the sound and memory of their youth. This is the emotional foundation of the vintage market. The 50s and 60s American guitars began the transition from old second hand instruments to interesting and highly desired collectibles. 

Imagine it's 1975, you hear about a guy in your town who's selling his guitar, a Telecaster he bought new twelve years earlier. Theres no ebay, internet or even a free ads paper, just the local rag or a copy of the exchange and mart. You get his number and pop round to check it out. A new one retails for around £250 in the shops, maybe less. So the guy sells you his semi worn out 62 Tele for £95... Just another pre owned guitar! 

The Market as It Stands Today

There are three clear layers in the vintage market, and each has a different future.

Artist-Owned / Historically Important Guitars
These guitars have moved beyond the music world and now sit in the same category as fine art. Clapton’s Blackie, Hendrix’s Woodstock Strat, early prototypes, anything with historical provenance. These pieces will remain valuable. They are bought by high-net-worth collectors, museums, and investment-class buyers. They are cultural artefacts.

Top-Tier Non-Famous Vintage
This category includes clean, all-original examples: custom colour pre-CBS Strats, late 50s ES-335s, 1950s Martins with original cases, and anything with PAFs that hasn’t been touched. These guitars are still seen as the pinnacle of craftsmanship. They will hold value, but the buyer pool will shrink. Only the most exceptional examples will maintain long-term price resilience.

Player Grade and Modified Vintage
This is where the market becomes vulnerable. Heavily played, refinished, re-fretted, routed or part-swapped guitars used to be the “affordable way in” for working musicians. But there are fewer working musicians now, and fewer young players who associate guitars with cultural identity. This segment could lose a considerable portion of its demand.

Scarcity and the 90s Myth

There’s a common belief that 1990s guitars will become “the next vintage wave.” I don’t agree.

Vintage guitars from the 1950s and early 60s are valuable because:

• They were made in small numbers.

• The materials (old-growth timber, Brazilian rosewood, early nitro) were exceptional.

• The cultural importance of the electric guitar was at its peak.

In the 90s, production was industrial and global. Factories produced tens of thousands of identical instruments. Many were built well, but not to the standard or scarcity that drives true collectibility. Scarcity cannot be retroactively created. Time alone does not create value. Cultural significance does.

If a generation does not attach meaning to an object, that object will not become desirable.

The Demographic Shift

The buyers who drove vintage values up were born between the 1940s and early 1970s. They grew up with guitar music as the centre of popular culture. They played in bands. They bought records. They watched Hendrix light a Strat on fire on live television.

This emotional framework does not exist in the same way for Millennials and Gen Z. Their musical identity is tied more to hip-hop, electronic music, digital production, beat-making and algorithmic consumption. The guitar is no longer the centre of musical aspiration.

Collecting is autobiographical. People collect the objects that defined their youth. If the next generation did not grow up dreaming about being Jeff Beck, they will not spend £20,000 on a pre-CBS Strat.

A Parallel: The Vintage Car Market

Pre-war Bentleys and Bugattis have collapsed in value. The people who wanted them are gone.

Meanwhile, 1990s Japanese performance cars have soared because the people who are 40 now grew up wanting them.

The same logic applies to guitars. Nostalgia is generational. It has a lifespan.

The Broader Cultural and Economic Shift

Beyond music, the economic realities of the next twenty years are different:

• We are entering an era of AI-composed and AI-performed music.

• Young people are moving toward renting and streaming rather than ownership.

• Disposable income is falling relative to living costs.

• Physical storage space is declining.

• The idea of identity being tied to “what you own” is weakening.

The guitar market was built in a world where:

• Ownership signified identity.

• Music was made with hands, not software.

• Live performance was the cultural focal point of youth.

That world is fading.

Where This Leaves Us by 2040

Artist-played or museum-grade guitars
→ Will continue to rise or remain stable.

Top-quality, exceptional-condition vintage
→ Will hold if the condition is truly outstanding.

Average vintage
→ Likely to soften as the number of meaningful buyers contracts.

Player-grade and modified examples
→ Most vulnerable to long-term decline.

90s mass-produced instruments
→ Unlikely to ever become meaningfully collectible.

Final Thoughts

The vintage guitar market isn’t dying — but it is changing shape. Its future depends on whether the electric guitar retains cultural significance. If guitar music remains a niche but respected form, the market will stabilise at a smaller scale. If the cultural link breaks entirely, only the absolute best instruments will retain value. Will we ever get a point where a genuine 1963 Strat is worth roughly the same as a Fender Custom Shop Relic? Who knows... It seems impossible right now but with so much rapid change in global society, anything is possible! 

In the end, the guitars themselves will still be here. The question is whether the stories attached to them will still matter.