"Lenny"....

[Skarekrough]

Nice guitar, but that's alot of cash for the guitar he's not even most recognized for.

The entire train of logic makes perfect sense once you factor in that Guitar Center bought the original at the auction.

They don't buy celeb axes for the status, they do it for joint ventures like this.

17k x 250 = more than they spent on the axe.

Odds are Fender's getting a good cut, and it serves as a good PR tool for the Custom Shop. But even at 5k an axe from Fender it's still pure profit.

If GC gets ahold of it, they'll find a way to clone it. They did it with the Clapton 335 and Blackie, they're doing it with Lenny, and the next celeb auction that comes up they'll likely snag something and do another.

[Ayrton]

That's difficult to compare, because a 59 Les Paul is a vintage instrument vs. a Re-Issue Lenny or a Blackie are just simply copies of the original. If there's a big demand for a Lenny or a Blackie, yes it could possibly be worth more in the future.

Well my point is that it is impossible to really predict what guitar taste will be in 20 years. Buy guitars to play and enjoy, not as investments.

[Skarekrough]

Well my point is that it is impossible to really predict what guitar taste will be in 20 years. Buy guitars to play and enjoy, not as investments.

I agree and I disagree....

In comparison to 401k's, savings, CD's or just about any standardized investment outlet a guitar really isn't all that great an investment. This is of course with the standard rules applying.

However, someone once said you should invest in what you know. And I DO know guitars, and their worth and I have spent enough time obsessing about them to discern what something has for a fair market value as well as what is likely to be desirable at a later point in time.

The $500 investment I made on a used USA Strat a few years ago that I flipped in three months for $800 was a good investment. The Bensalem PA. Ibanez I picked up for $200 will likely fetch double what I paid for it if I unloaded it today. If I sit on it for awhile the odds are the price is only going to go up.

But for something like the repro axes I think there's a limited market to begin with and the nature of them eliminates them being guitars to be played, which makes that potential target market even smaller. I do tend to think they'll likely be more of an oddball or curiosity in a span of time and remain non-players rather than really acrue any real value. No one's going to burst onto the scene playing one and bring the value over what the original investment was on them.

[Rainmaker]

To me a signature axe should be as an exact an experience as the artists actual instrument in regards to components and materials. That's what I want to see, hear and feel when I play a Signature model, not some amalgamation that started with what the artist liked and then got watered down by Marketing in order to sell more of them.

+1

The 'cool factor' goes up the roof when Fender gets it right... just look at the reverence we give to the Eric Johnson Strat here on these forums.

[Bludave]

14 G's for a brand new guitar is insane and anybody who pays it is foolish, or has way to much money. 17 G's for a "vintage" Fender would be a better investment IMHO.