Today I attended the 2015 Orlando International Guitar Convention. It was fun and I enjoyed myself, and I will go again next year. Hooray! But I like to overanalyze everything, so that’s next.
The Facilities
Here’s the quick summary. The Orlando State Fairgrounds are dumpy. The food sucked but that’s typical so don’t be a snob. The parking was free. And the event was 12 bucks per day, which I consider to be super cheap. Inside the building it was comfy – not hot, not cold. And there were oh so many guitars. Heaven probably looks like this.
The People
Inside the convention hall were hundreds and hundreds of male guitarists, and about 7 women. No, not really – there were more than 7 but the show was predictably dominated in attendance by men, and mostly guys 40 and up (like me.) Lots of older guys. I felt at home in the crowd – these were guys who dug guitars as much or in some cases more than I do, which is a big achievement. But there was sort of a serious tone to the event – plenty of people brought guitars to the convention to sell or trade. Lots of transactions going on. Bidness first. Serious people shelling out thousands of dollars for vintage guitars. And then there’s me, taking pictures of a Jimi Hendrix action figure and laughing like hell.
The Guitars
There may have been some more expensive guitars that I missed, but the guitars I saw topped out at about $25,000 (a 50’s era Strat.) I really dug this 1954 Les Paul Gold Top. I asked my wife if I could spend 22 grand on a guitar and she said “sure,” but I think she didn’t mean it. If you wanted to buy an older Strat or Les Paul, this was the place to be. A lot of those, a good number of PRS guitars, Silvertone guitars, various acoustic guitars, Epiphones, and Telecasters. There were plenty of guitars from companies I’d never heard of as well as some custom builders. What I did not see a lot of where the pointy metal guitars. Which made me like the convention even more.
If you were born in the 60’s and liked guitars, you likely spent your fair share of time staring at the Silvertone guitars in the Sears catalog. This is a cool model that came with a tube amp built into the case.
But the real fun was ogling the Les Pauls and Strats. I saw a MIM Strat for $199, the cheapest I’ve seen one in person (meaning not counting ebay.) There were good deals on used American Strats starting around $600. I saw a few Squiers from Japan, which are neat guitars. I saw one for $300 and one for $600. $300 for one of them seemed like a reasonable price to me. I don’t get why some people pay double that. They’re good, but they’re not $600 good.
Sorry for the blurry pic. My next phone will be the iPhone 6s with the “anti-shaking hands” feature. This Silvertone is something I remember staring at in the Sears catalog when I was kid. They weren’t sure when it was made, but they know it was made sometime in the 70’s. The idea being that you’d have all of your effects built into your guitar, available at the flick of a switch. I took a picture because I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me. Neat piece. A piece of crap of a guitar, but neat piece.
Funky body shape, crooked pickup, Bigsby, must be a Mosrite. There was a time when this was cool. Some people think this IS cool. I don’t, but I do think it’s an interesting piece.
Part of me can’t understand why people will pay a grand for a really old crappy guitar. No, I’m not talking about the Mosrite – I’m talking more about the Silvertones and such. They were cheaply made bad guitars. But I guess people want to rebuy their youth. Or something.
Now we’re talking.
This guitar was drool-worthy, though the price demonstrates the market value for such a piece. I can appreciate an instrument and understand why it sells for so much money without scoffing. It’s worth what someone will pay. Not me. But someone. Still, this guitar really struck me. If I owned an ES 125 I don’t know if I’d ever put it down. P90’s, Bigsby, hollow body 60’s Gibson… ah…
Another Silvertone, this one of higher quality than the others. I’m not drooling over any Silvertone, but I thought this was such a neat guitar. Neat in a gaudy, silly way, with all the switches and knobs and the f holes and groovy pickups. Actually this guitar probably sounds amazing. I just took a pic because I thought it was a really neat piece.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on the Silvertones. I’ve only played two of them. Didn’t like either one. Oh well.
Pedals
There are pedals, pedals, and more pedals. There were pedals I’d never seen or heard of. I’m not into pedals, but if I were, I’d have bought one. Maybe. Not every booth had electricity. A wise man seeking a pedal might bring a couple of brand new 9 volts. A really wise man might also bring a super-small battery powered amp. Some booths had amps and were willing to let someone try out a pedal from another booth. At the very least, I’d make sure the booth had a business card with an email address and a website address. And even an honest seller can be unaware that one of his 57 pedals no longer works.
Is this… Zippy the Pinhead? Or some generic cousin? Or a bad drawing of Curly? I have an artist friend named Rich Johnson who loves guitar pedals and Zippy, so I’ll be consulting with him on what the heck this thing is. Famous pedal? Handmade one of a kind? Bring in the expert. In the meantime, I’ll leave a little space.
This is the area where I will insert new information about the odd pedal. I wanted to leave a space, but I use WordPress, which sucks at layout. Want to insert space? Too bad! All these years and it still sucks. So here’s a block of text to replace. WordPress, you still suck.
Amps
There were amps – mostly older amps, some solid state and some tube. Roughly every 45 minutes some idiot who didn’t know how to use an amp would deliver some accidental piercing feedback. A customer, no doubt, not a vendor. But mostly the affair was relatively calm. Noise was not a problem at all and you could easily carry on conversations with people.
There were a couple of vendors selling junker guitars for around $35. One guy had a generic neck that looked like someone had tried to fake as a Fender. It was also heavily worn. I said “Where did this neck come from?” The vendor said “I don’t know.” He wanted $60 for it and I passed. One guy had three guitar bodies – a red strat shape that was dinged up but very solid, another strat shape that felt like it weighed two pounds (balsa, I asked, which got me a chuckle,) and the third was I don’t remember what but it was junk and had a billion stickers on it. There was also a low end Jackson strat-type neck. He sold me the red strat body and the neck for $15. That’s exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to find. The body is dinged but still in decent shape. The neck was apparently used by Robin Hood. Maybe not the straightest neck I’ve ever seen, but for someone who wants to learn how to do fretwork you can’t ask for too much more. Now I can buy fretting tools and destroy this neck while learning.
My other “budget” purchase was a Mighty Mite Strat pickguard with the white mother of perl toilet seat look that I have on most of my guitars, but set up for two humbuckers. I don’t have a two humbucker Strat yet. This goes for between $25 and $39 and I got it new in the bag for $15. Another good deal.
The vendors were interesting. I had a lot of brief conversations with various vendors. One thing I wish I’d done was to spend more time talking to the vendors selling really old Strats and Les Pauls. These guys are fountains of information. The convention today was open from 10 am to 5 pm. The best time to talk to vendors would have been after about 3 pm. They don’t really have time to shoot the shit if there are other customers who might buy an expensive old guitar. Unlike me. Next year I’ll try to plan better for that.
Strategy
This is tough. This is a three day conference with Friday being dealers-only, Saturday being 10-5, and Sunday being shorter (I think. I don’t remember.) I didn’t get there until about 1 pm on Saturday, and stayed for about four hours. There were likely some good items sold between 10 am and 1 pm that I missed out on. On the other hand, that’s also when this conference was most likely crowded. It was crowded at 1 pm and by about 3:30 pm it had really tapered off. Also around 3:30 PM some of the dealers seemed more willing to deal on price. Still, the best bet would be to show up at 10 am and be prepared to either snap up the good stuff or wait and see that’s still there late in the day. Either way you’ll probably find something.
Conclusion
This convention was a lot of fun. Free parking, inexpensive ticket, fantastic town, billions of guitars to look at and drool over, and if you spent the time there were some great deals. Well-organized, well-run, great vendors. Next year I’ll spend some more time talking to some of the dealers. If you’re cool with a hot dog and a beer (or badly mixed soda,) you can eat there. Otherwise plan accordingly. If you stay overnight, book a hotel on International drive. It’s less than 20 minutes away, and it’s a big long road of hotels, shops, restaurants, and you can play skee-ball while you drink a beer. I recommend the Embassy Suites on International (not the one on Jamaican Court.) With tax you’re at around $200 depending on the time of year, but you get a suite with a wet bar, microwave, fridge, and the hotel has indoor and outdoor pools and hot tubs. There’s free drinks for 2 hours every night and free breakfast in the morning.
— Saturday, January 17, 2015, in Orlando, FL
