The Vintage Stratocaster Market in Germany

by WOLFGANG EISTERT and Tom Watson

Strat Collector News continues a series of articles that examines the collectible Stratocaster market outside of the United States. In addition to his opinion about the state of the market in Germany, contributor Wolfgang Eistert was asked how he would advise a client who wanted to invest $50,000 USD in collectible Strats.

The Vintage Stratocaster Market in Germany

by WOLFGANG EISTERT

The German vintage-guitar market is very small. Market interest is similar to that in the US, but only with respect to Fender and Gibson guitars. That’s the most amazing difference between here and the United States market - the interest in Germany is limited to these two manufacturers. There are only a handful of customers and collectors for banjos, ukuleles and acoustic guitars. Although popular in the US, Martin, Rickenbacker, Epiphone and Gretsch guitars are hard to sell in Germany.

German handmade guitars from the fifties and sixties are still around, and you can always get them here for less money than the more popular Gibsons and Fenders. Lang, Höfner, Framus - wonderful handbuilt master guitars for less than $100 USD, but, unfortunately nobody at present seems very interested in such great German jazz boxes.

The vintage guitar market started around the early eighties in Germany. Before this time, they were just used guitars! Unbelievable today! In the late seventies I bought fifties and sixties Fender Stratocasters in German pawn shops for just $100 to $300, and the seller would say, "Sorry, you can't play it, there are no strings on the guitar and it has some ugly scratches!"

I remember the good old days when there was no Internet, no guitar books or any guitar literature! The very first book about vintage guitars in Germany was the one by Tom Wheeler: American Guitars: An Illustrated History. All our knowledge in Germany at the time was from this one book!

What's highly sought after in Germany?

1954 to 1969 Fender Stratocasters
1950 to 1969 Fender Telecasters
1960 to 1968 Fender Jazz Basses
1960 to 1968 Fender Precision Basses (rosewood fingerboard only)
1952 to 1960 Gibson Les Pauls
1958 to 1964 Gibson ES-335s

Who is in the market to buy a vintage guitar in Germany?

I would say, there are three groups of customers.

1. People who played guitar during the fifties and sixties but couldn't afford an original Fender/Gibson guitar at the time. Remember, we didn't have a distributor for US guitars in the fifties and early sixties! These people are now forty to fifty years old and can now afford to make their early rock dreams come true. Many are now playing again at home or in a “just-for-fun” band.

2. Those who play professionally in German bands, searching for the ultimate tone, and studio musicians. There is a phenomenon many pro players recognize: Nobody knows or can remember the name of the guitarist from the band he saw last weekend, but they remember the guitar player with, for example, the Olympic White 1963 Stratocaster! So it's also a kind of business card for serious working musicians!

3. The collector/investor: We have some serious collectors here in Germany with 100 to 600 guitars in each collection - all models, all years and mostly in near-mint condition. After a period of five to eight years they change their collection and some of their guitars end up back on the market. For example, a particular collector might specialize in Stratocasters from 1954 to 1969 in Sunburst. After completing the collection set, the guitars might return to the market if the collector changes his attention to Custom Color guitars or maybe a particular color for each year.

Quality and quantity

The first Fender and Gibson guitars to arrive in Germany came from American GIs stationed in Germany (Heidelberg, Zweibrücken, Ramstein). Many sold their guitars here before returning to the US.

When Germany got the first new guitars from Fender (distributed by the Selmer company from the United Kingdom), we finally had the opportunity to buy them new (although only three guitar stores in Germany carried them). The guitars were all shipped with the original case, which was not an option - they all came with the original case! That’s why most of the vintage guitars found here are still in excellent condition. And, since they were very expensive at that time, we took really good care of them!

Overall, the quality of the German vintage guitars is just amazing!

Most guitars are still 100 percent stock original down to the solder joints, and there are only a few refinished guitars around. Very interesting: There is no market for refinished guitars in Germany! Collectors and even players want only 100 percent original guitars; only a professional re-fretting would be considered acceptable!

Even the big dealers and collectors in the US are always amazed when I go to the Dallas or Arlington guitar show and present a dead mint '58 Les Paul or a dead-mint Custom Color Stratocaster from the early sixties at my booth. The quantity of vintage instruments in Germany, however, cannot begin to compare with what's available in the US!

Prices in Germany

Today, prices are absolutely equal to the US market! Everybody has an Internet connection and price guides.

If a customer wanted to invest $50.000 USD in vintage Stratocasters

Here is a fine package deal which includes all three “must have” goodies in my opinion.

1956 Stratocaster, 2-tone-Sunburst, Bakelite
1959 Stratocaster, Sunburst, slab-board
1963 Stratocaster, Sunburst, dark Brazilian rosewood neck (and early '63!)

These guitars are still available for a reasonable price (unlike most of the Custom Color guitars) and their value is sure to grow higher and higher.

Why not a Custom Color?

Too expensive to find the right one which is stock original down to the solder joints (original condition being very important on a Custom Color Stratocaster), and you would get only one or two guitars for $50.000 USD! I wouldn't recommend putting all of your eggs into just one basket.

Here's what I like about Sunburst Strats from these three years.

1956 Stratocaster
Much less expensive than a 1954 or 1955 and sounds much better than any '54 or '55. They still have the beautiful 2-tone Sunburst finish and all Bakelite plastic.

1959 Stratocaster
First year with the big, fat slab-board neck, and the wonderful dark, Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. They have the rare single-ply pickguard and are usually a very lightweight guitar.

1963 Stratocaster
The early '63 with the screw next to the middle pickup (in March of '63 this screw is moved .5" closer toward the neck). To me, the Strats produced between January '63 and March '63 are some of the best sounding Stratocasters you can get. They have such a big, fat and dirty tone! They are very light, have a big neck profile and a beautiful faded Sunburst.

Wolfgang Eistert
April, 2004

About Wolfgang Eistert and The Guitar & Coffee Shop

I was born in February, 1960. Got my first acoustic guitar in 1971; it was a Framus in Sunburst and I still own it. My first electric guitar was an Ibanez Stratocaster copy in Sunburst with a maple neck, purchased around 1974. I played in several bands from 1976 to 1981.

Bought my first "old" ("vintage" wasn't the word used at the time) guitar in 1977 - a 1958 Fender Stratocaster in original Dakota Red - from a pawn shop in Germany for $200 USD (discounted because there were no strings on the guitar!). During the eighties and early nineties I bought many guitars for my personal pleasure and fun and never sold one of them. Something around 200 Fender guitars from the fifties and sixties. I visited my first vintage guitar show in Dallas in 1988 and had by then started buying vintage guitars from an American dealer in 1984 (George Gruhn).

In 1996 I opened my first vintage-guitar store in Mannheim, Germany. From the first day until today I only buy, sell and trade vintage guitars. No new Fender or Gibson stuff. From the start until today mine is the only vintage guitar store in Germany that doesn't also sell new instruments. It's sometimes a hard way to make a living, dealing only in vintage guitars.

No daily business with "cheap" guitars! I'm proud to own and sell only guitars that I'm in love with. I have never had the feeling, when a guitar is sold: Thank God this ugly toy found a customer! Not once. I never buy or sell guitars I'm not personally in love with.

That's also why we have a small corner in our showroom called the "Coffee Shop". This is a place where our friends and customers can sit down, relax and talk about guitars or vintage stuff while drinking a cup of fine coffee, cappuccino or espresso. It’s a daily meeting place for all people interested in vintage equipment, a place where they can talk to each other without any obligation to buy something. And, since the first day, the coffee has always been... FREE.

My store became bigger and bigger, and we moved to a new location with a huge showroom in 2002 in Plankstadt, near well-known Heidelberg. Most of my business today is online through my website. I buy, sell and trade worldwide, and I have many happy longstanding customers all over the world.

The second part of my business are the guitar and vintage shows. One of the most exciting events in Europe has been, and still is, the famous “Musikmesse Frankfurt”.

I have been there for the last three years with my own booth - the only vintage-guitar booth among all the brand new equipment from all around the world. Being the only vintage booth at this fair has made it an amazing magnet for people to come by and have a closer look to the real old stuff.

I'm also present with my own booth every year at the Dallas and Arlington guitar shows and sometimes at the Costa Mesa show in Southern California during the Winter NAMM - and at many other shows to which I get invited!

[Images from top to bottom: Wolfgang Eistert with a 1961 Stratocaster at Guitar & Coffee Shop; interior of Guitar & Coffee Shop; interior of Guitar & Coffee Shop; Eistert at the 2003 Arlington Guitar Show. All images courtesy of Wolfgang Eistert and copyright 2004, Wolfgang Eistert. All rights reserved.]

Contact Information

Contact: Wolfgang Eistert
Company: Guitar & Coffee Shop GbR
Address: Wilhelmstr. 9, 68723 Plankstadt, Germany
Telephone: +49 (0) 6202 - 126811
Fax: +49 (0) 6202-127032
Email: guitar-coffee-shop@t-online.de
Website: www.guitar-coffee-shop.com

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