dubtrub wrote:Don't feel bad though, I refinished my '62 Stratocaster that I purchased new in sunburst. It originally came with the custom see through blonde ash body. heck in '62 if a guitar wasn't sunburst it was considered cheap looking. I didn't own it two weeks before I refininished it in a red and black sunburst with lacquer that Semie gave me...but there went the collector value.
Back then no one could could have predicted what has happened to the guitar market. If I had to think about it, I am guilty of de-valueing millions of dollars of guitars, by doing modifications requested by owners. I can't count the number of times I routed out old Strats and Les Pauls to add humbuckers, or to change tuners or to add whatever the whammy bar of the day was to a perfectly good guitar.
Back then they were just used guitars. It was only in the late sixties that the Les Pauls started to gain "Vintage" value.