1. Guitar Appraisal By Serial Number
2. Taylor Guitar Appraisal By Serial Number

• Official Epiphone site: Buy electric or acoustic guitars, Les Paul electric guitars, or bass guitars. Artist and Music News and Features.
• Ensure you photograph the guitar in a well-lit room and that the closeup headstock photographs are clear and in focus. Click on the 'Attach photos link,' upload your five photos and click 'Purchase Appraisal.' You will receive a written evaluation with the guitar's age and value.
• Vintage Guitars & Musical Instruments. View Lots Auction Info. View Lots Auction Info. Request Free Appraisal Search Auction Archives. Collectible Values. Featured Instruments View All Featured Items. 1932 Martin OM-28 Natural Acoustic Guitar, Serial #49937 View Item Auction Info.

Instrument Appraisals

Rick is a member of the Vintage Guitar Magazine Price Guide Dealer Team and is also on the Fender Dealer Advisory Board. Online appraisals can be done by providing photos, the serial number and a description of the instrument. The charge is $75 per instrument and, upon completion, the appraisal is mailed and/or emailed to the purchaser.

While Fret Not does not offer written appraisals I do have some pointers for those who are trying to find out what their instrument is worth. A little directed research on the internet may help to yield a good picture of an instruments value. If you need a written appraisal for insurance or replacement purposes I highly recommend contacting a reputable instrument dealer for an appraisal. My first recommendation would be to go straight to the source, George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars. He is the author of several vintage guitar guides and is a vintage instrument dealer in Nashville TN.

Instrument value will be based not only on the model and year of an instrument but also it's condition. Have there been modifications? Are the parts original? Is there any damage?
All of these factors affect the bottom line, there is a vast difference in value between a player and a collectors item.

Blue Books

A lot of us turn to Blue Book / Price Guides for instrument valuation. I believe this is a good resource for arriving at an estimate of an instruments current value. One should bare in mind that Blue Books can't predict changing economic times and regardless of an estimated value, it's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, as they say. That being said I use the Vintage Guitar pricing guide.

Internet Searches

Obviously the internet is a tremendous resource but some still find it difficult to locate information. Gbase® Gear Mall is a large collection of dealers who have placed their inventory online, into a common database. Here you can perform a search for a particular instrument and, when available, be shown pictures and prices of those being offered for sale. If you can find an instrument similar to your own you are likely to get a good idea of the current price range.

Reverb is another source that will allow you to see prices for used instruments.

Enclosing the instruments date, manufacturer and model in quotations can help you locate exact matches. An instance is, '1948 Martin D-18'. The use of quotations instructs the search engine to find the term exactly as it is typed. Exclude them and the search engine may yield results containing those words but not necessarily in that particular order.

There are quite a few brands that very little is written about. When information is scarce, pricing and value is often impossible to find documented. When a brand is not mentioned in Blue Books or on the internet there's little more that I can offer. This indeed follows the theory that it is worth 'what someone is willing to pay for it.' If the instrument appears well made with high quality tonewoods and appointments you may still wish to consult an appraiser to verify it's origin if possible.

Fret Not is not a retailer of used or new instruments and therefore I am personally not equipped to give people estimates on what their instruments are worth. I recommend contacting dealers who regularly buy and sell instruments for their knowledge and experience in the sales market.

Before collectibility and value can be determined about a Gibson guitar (and before you emailme asking, 'what kind of Gibson guitar do I have?'),several things need to be identified:

1. The type of guitar (flattop, archtop, solidbody, lapsteel, etc).
2. The exact model within the type.
3. The year it was made (or approximate year/era).
4. Oringinality (have any of the parts been changed or modified?).

First Determine the Type of Guitar and the Model.
Sometimes there is a tag inside the guitar stating the 'style' or model.If the model is hollow, look on the inside for any tags and madenote of any ink stamps (sometimes the model is ink stamped inside the guitar).But unfortunately, especially on the low to mid line models,usually there is NO tag or label inside the guitar specifying what it is.If this is the case, start at the beginning and first determine whattype of guitar you have.These are several different types of Gibson guitars made.Once this is known, go directly to the section aboutthat type (listed in the blue table of contents text above),and look at the model pictures and descriptions that matches your guitar.

Here are the general types of Gibson guitars:

Guitar Appraisal By Serial Number

• Electric Solid body Gibsons: body is a solid piece of wood(no soundhole or cutouts), 1.5' to 2' thick, pickups and knobs routed into the top of the guitar.
• Flattop Acoustic Gibsons: single round sound hole under the strings, body 3.5' to 4.5' thick with a flat top, usually not electric(but often owners add a sort of bolt-on electric assembly).
• Acoustic Archtop Gibsons: two 'f' hole stylesound holes cut in the top, body 3' to 4.5' thick, slightly arched top, acoustic with no pickups (but sometimes these models have bolt-on electic assembly added later by players).
• Electric Archtop Gibsons: same as above ('f' holes, arch top)but the factory installed electric pickups into the guitar with volume/tone knob(s).
• Electric Thinline Archtop Gibsons: same as above (electricwith two 'f' holes in the top), but the body is thinner at 1.5' to 2' thick. These are always electric from the factory.
• Electric Lapsteel Gibson: a small solidbody guitar (no cutoutsor sound holes) that is playedin the lap, Hawaiian style, with a metal slide bar, pickup and knob routed into the top.

Once the type of guitar is determined, figuring out the exact model isMUCH easier! (just go to one of the above six linked webpages that describes your guitar, and compare each model specs to your guitar, until you find the one that matches). Trueview download 64 bit.

Next Determine the Year or Approximate Year.
Gibson guitars usually have a FON (Factory Order Number), a serial number, or both(but sometimes neither!) Various serial number systems were used by Gibson,and often the same serial number could be used in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.See the serial number/FON section for details.Duplicate or no serial/FON number doesn't make things easy, but there are other traits that allow theserial number to make sense (see the General Specs sectionfor more details). Also mid to top end instruments usually have a label insidethe guitar with the serial number. Guitars with no label are usually lower end instruments(or are a solidbody guitar!)

Probably the first thing when trying to determine the year on an old Gibsonis whether the guitar was made 'pre-WW2', during WW2, or 'post-WW2'. This is easy to do, as Gibsonused different peghead logos for pre-WW2, 'wartime', and post-WW2 (see the General Specs section for more details). Knowing the general era of the Gibson guitar will make Gibson's rather complicatedserial number/FON systems less tangled.

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Next Determine the Exact Model.
There are several general questions which can be asked in determining a guitar's model,once the type of guitar (flat top, arch top, etc.) has been determined:

• What is the color of the top of the guitar? Common top colors include 'sunburst' (a yellow center that fades to a darker red or brown around the edges),black, natural and 'cherry red' (a translucent red which shows the wood grain).
• What is the color of the back of the guitar? Common back colorsinclude translucent dark brown, translucent light brown, sunburst, cherry red, etc.
• What is the body size? (measure the guitar across the top at the widest point, which isthe guitar's 'hips'). This is really important for all model types except solidbody electrics.
• What is the style of fingerboard inlays? (dots, blocks, trapezoids, double parallelagrams, etc.)
• What is the style of 'Gibson' peghead logo? That is, is it white silkscreen,gold silkscreen, or pearl inlay? Also if the logo is pre-WW2, wartime, or post-WW2 (see above).Also fancier models can even have some sort of pearl inlaid decoration (a 'crown' or longskinny 'diamond') on the pegheadjust below the 'Gibson' logo.
• What is the style of binding? Binding is the whitish/yellowish/tortoise 'band' that goesaround the edges of the body. Most Gibsons have some sort of body binding.Often binding is multi-layers (white/black/white, etc).Some guitars also have binding on the neck. The more binding a guitar has, the fancierthe model.

Taylor Guitar Appraisal By Serial Number

Finally Determine the Originality.
Originality of an instrument is very important. Modifications (any modifications),are a bad thing in the eyes of a collector. This will greatly influencevalue. Modifications can often be determined by looking at the modelspecs for a particular year guitar in this web page (after the approximate year is determined), and compare to your instrument.