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Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars
 
 
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Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars [Paperback]

George Gruhn (Author), Walter Carter (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Authors George Gruhn and Walter Carter are no strangers to fretted instruments: Gruhn runs one of the best vintage instrument stores in the country, and Carter was Gibson's company historian for several years in the 1990s. In the second edition to Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars, the pair have created a useful resource for any lover of fine guitars, banjos, or basses. Though not a price guide, the book will enable collectors to identify the date, stock ingredients, wood, and evolution of their Fender, Martin, Gibson, Gretsch, or Mosrite axes, to name just a few. Many readers will probably want to complement this book with a separate price guide (The Official Vintage Guitar Magazine Price Guide is recommended), and it should be noted that many mass-market manufacturers (Kay, for instance) were left out. But with this book you'll at least know that the stock Epiphone Madrid you bought on the Internet is, in fact, truly stock. A great resource for lovers of collectable six-strings. --Jason Verlinde

From Library Journal

The market for vintage American guitars, basses, amplifiers, banjos, ukuleles, and other fretted instruments has exploded in the last decade. This updated and expanded second edition of Gruhn's Guide is more than double the size of its first edition (1992) and is superior in breadth, depth, and timeliness. The guide is organized by manufacturer and type of instrument. Every model is described in detail, with introduction date, body shape and size, woods, pickups (where applicable), bindings, inlays, and finish. All changes made from year to year are noted, ensuring the precise determination of model and originality. The book also provides serial number lists, identification charts, and over 100 photos of special features. While many books on individual instrument makers are available, this is the only guide that lists all makers and all their products while also offering comments about the collectibility of specific instruments. Highly recommended.AEric C. Shoaf, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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The Dobro brand name has been identified with resonator guitars since 1929 and is currently owned by Gibson Guitar Corp. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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3.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1.0 out of 5 stars Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars, Jan 4 2003
By 
Kevin Eikum (ottawa lake, mi United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars (Paperback)
This book was very limited as far as various makes of guitars. It didn't have any price guides on any of the things listed.
I would think that would be the main information anyone owning a vintage guitar or other musical equipment would be most interested in. This book was useless to us. I wish we could return it. Thank goodness we ordered "The Offical Vintage guitar Magazine Price Guide 2003" It included everything any collector would want to know!!!
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2.0 out of 5 stars Grain of Salt, July 6 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars (Paperback)
I found this reference to be riddled with ommissions and inaccuracies. The Rickenbacker bass section contains errors in almost every model. A simple check of the Rickenbacker website would have corrected the majority of inaccuracies. Production dates were the most obvious. Now if the book was to be filed under "fiction"...
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4.0 out of 5 stars This is the definitive guide, Aug 30 2000
By 
Joseph H Pierre "Joe Pierre" (Salem, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars (Paperback)

There is no other book, to my knowledge, that does what George Gruhn does here.

First, let me say that I respect Mr. Gruhn's knowledge. There are probably few people in the United States with his encyclopedic knowledge of guitars. I have corresponded with him myself, and he was very helpful

But, I am disappointed in one aspect of the book. I own an 1897 model George Washburn guitar which was made in the nineteenth century by Lyon & Healy. It is a small bodied "Parlor Guitar," with Brazilian rosewood sides and back, spruce top, and ebony fingerboard and bridge. It has beautiful tone, and I love the instrument. It is almost as beautiful as when it was built, and because of the aging of the wood, I'm sure that it plays better.

In this book, Gruhn only briefly discusses Washburn's guitars, and the short reference is buried in the Gibson pages (which is very detailed), because in the late '20s, when the Tonk Brothers acquired the Washburn brand from Lyon & Healy, Gibson built a few of them between 1938-40.

George Washburn (someone has said that his last name was actually Lyon, hence Lyon & Healy) was an American guitar maker, and he built superlative guitars. I've heard that his closest competition at one time was Martin. To give him short-shrift in such a book as this, I find incomprehensible. It isn't as if Gruhn did not know about the guitars--he told me much of what I know about them.

But, perhaps I nitpick. This is a fine book. I recommend it to any guitar aficionado who is buying, selling or trading guitars--especially American-made guitars--or even one who simply wants to learn more about these wonderful instruments.

Joseph Pierre

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