Vintage musical equipment

Vintage musical equipment is older music gear, including instruments, amplifiers and effects pedals, usually sought after, maintained and used by avid collectors, record producers, audio engineers and musicians. While any piece of equipment of sufficient age can be considered vintage, in the 2010s, the term is typically applied to instruments and gear from the 1980s and earlier. Guitars, amps, pedals, electric keyboards, sound recording equipment (e.g., reel to reel tape decks and microphones) from the 1950s to 1970s are particularly sought out. Musical equipment from the 1940s and prior eras is rare and expensive, and as such, it tends to be sought out mainly by museums or serious collectors.

Collectible gear is either known for its sound quality, which can be a subjective perspective, rarity, or some unusual aspect. The cost of vintage gear may be higher than the reissued model or its 2010s-era equivalent, depending on the rarity of the item, how high the demand is for it, and the condition. In assessing the condition, minor scuffs or scratches from regular use are not the key issue; instead, a more serious issue is whether the original parts have been replaced with non-vintage equipment. If a vintage item contains substantial new parts, this will usually reduce its value, because new parts may not produce the same "tone" or "feel" as original parts. As well, for instruments that were previously owned by music celebrities such as Keith Richards or Jimi Hendrix, even burn marks or other serious damage may not harm the value.

Many individuals and institutions have maintained collections of musical instruments and paraphernalia for centuries and these collections ranged from antique or rare artifacts to samplings of musical items from cultures around the globe. In the last 19th century, American archaeologist Henry Chapman Mercer began a collection of then-contemporary musical instruments (among other things) with the intent of preserving them, knowing that the onset of industrialization would change their manufacture. Now antiques housed in the Mercer Museum, in their day Mercer's collection could have been deemed "ephemera" and is a precursor to the modern trend in vintage collecting.

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