Value of Partscasters

Ive been playing mine for 20 years... it’s not going anywhere.

 

I would build a parts guitar or a scratch build waaaay before i pay fender their ridiculously inflated prices...thats for sure...having said that though the logo holds a certain value and accountability that you cant ignore...for example you said...your schaller tuners....your lace pickups...not your whatever tuners and your unnamed pickups....you know what you are getting cause of the accountability of those logos too.....

A parts guitar holds no accountability cause there is no logo that guarantees anything....thats why you can sell all the parts individually and if they are from reputable third party manufacturers you ll get your money back part by part...but the guitar as a whole lacks the identity all the other parts have individually....that is why parts guitars should be made by folks who wanna marry them....not get rid of them like they usually do with their...logo instruments.

 

Great thread!! I’m still not done reading so excuse me if this has been brought up already.. How does Clapton’s original Blackie factor into this? And would that be considered a Partscaster? I always figured a parts caster is any Stat with mismatching neck body. But I have always hesitated to call the Strats that I have put together “Partscasters” just because they have mostly, if not all, real USA fender parts. But I also have never really wanted to sell any of the guitars I have put together..

 

I have 2 "partscasters" that are the result of a broken neck getting replaced with WD products, and while I was at it I upgraded the pickups as well. The other one is a crazy flame maple MIM neck that I saw on eBay 15 years ago and figured I had to have and put a relic'd MJT body with it and they are both glorious. The 1s one It's one of my best playing and sounding guitars and I would never sell it, ever. The 2nd is so stunningly beautiful (not to mention sounds and plays great) that I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay me what it would take to get rid of it. Do I care. No way. If you worry about resale value, you should stick to vintage stuff.

 

Depends if you know what you're doing.
All of my Guitars are Partscasters to some extent.
My #1 is a 2011-12ish Alder Body with an early 90s Compound Deluxe Neck. Running Fralin Blues Deluxe Pickups
My #2 Firestorm is 91 Alder Body with an early 90s Compound Deluxe Neck. Running Lace Sensor Hot Gold w/Extra Hot Bridge.
Both of those were totally pieced together down to Tuners & Tremolo. Wired & Soldered myself. Tho I did a lot of Soldering at my 1st Job Electronics Board, Drive, etc repair back in the 90s.
My other 2 are mainly as they were from Fender with Lace Sensors.
The Stock from the Factory Strats are weak & need attention, have not tried a Custom Shop, but did a "Rarities" which is a higher end Factory Guitar but that didn't cut it either

#1 is White on Left - #2 is on far Right

 

The pawn shop offered $5 for it. The tremolo alone is worth $280. I'll just hang onto it. Hopefully when I die someone has the sense to keep it in the family. I'll be rolling in my grave if they sell it for some bull****. Probably not the most impressive one on this site or thread but it began it's life as a fat headstock starcaster lmao.

Right now I'm planning to swap the pickguard for a HH pickguard and I'm gonna source the materials to wind some custom pickups. It's got a Seymour Duncan Black Winter rn but I've recently fallen in love with the Jason Richardson Music Man pickups, you can only get them by buying a $3500 guitar though, so I'm gonna give it my best shot at emulating that and maybe even taking it a step further.

 

That all depends on what the market wants. For the most part, the market wants original. If you can build a better than original, it's still not original. Same goes for old antique cars, They make better cars now than when these collectable/classic cars were built. That's why I don't go for the old teles and strats, the newer ones are made so much better.

 

A parts caster is worth more if you pull it apart and sell each part individually. To keep the value up, dont paint or permanently alter any of the parts.

 

Slowly making it's way onto Reverb. Put a couple pedals on there today. Too much granularity to post them on here. Have a carton of loose pickups. Medium USPS box full to the top, none of them in Factory container, just loose top grade pups in a large box.

Thanks for watching.

 

No different than if you buy a junkyard body and frame and assemble a '72 Chevelle, compared to a cleanly restored but original '72 Chevelle, and compared to a 100% factory-original "barn find" '72 Chevelle.

You'll get 5 figures for your rebuild or restoration, but you might get 6 figures for the "barn find" that nobody has messed with.

 

I have quite a few...I’ve built many. I do some commission work on some too, as well as mod/refinish actual strats for people too. And in that light; if it’s a build someone commissioned then the price usually reflects that. I do build some very affordable (cheap) guitars and usually I get about the cost of the parts plus some labor. My builds also come with detailed pics, wiring and all. However I don’t spend a ton on those parts (except for PUPs usually) which means I can flex a little more out of the final price. I can say this for sure tho, the workmanship, the sound, and the playability of the final product will usually give you a better chance at getting your build money back out of it.
I wouldn’t expect to get $1000 out of a random partscaster build tho. Just my opinion...

 

I have a friend who restores Lambretta scooters. She rode them in the UK during the Mod/Rocker period, and now finds old and abused ones, and brings them back to life. She's part of a world-wide network of enthusiasts who patiently chase down NOS parts, rebuild and recut pieces to the original specs, and invest countless hours into each machine... which then get on-sold to fund the next one.

Pretty sure she'd makes a loss on every single one if her labor time was included.

But she keeps doing it. Because she loves it.

So the value of a partscaster is unlikely to ever reflect what you put into it. Unless you have an amazing name as a luthier (possibly coupled with a massive personality like Ben Crowe from Crimson Guitars), it's almost impossible that somebody is going to feel that the value of the instrument is worth more than the sum of its parts. After all, anybody can go online and source components - new and used. There is some skill in wiring and setting up, fret finishing etc, but those aren't a massive barrier to entry. We're competing with factories in Korea and Japan mass producing amazing instruments. Indonesia and China will get there. Partscasters aren't about building the best guitar - it's about building the best guitar for you (or your customer).

If we were finding rare, broken instruments and restoring them to former glory using traditional techniques, maybe things would be different... but without a reputation to show value add, somebody who could demonstrate 20+ years experience working in the Fender custom shop, we're just a bunch of people with screwdrivers and soldering irons.

Fender invests a massive amount of money in its brand name. It's buying trust. We all know that spending $6k on a custom shop strat is going to give you an amazing guitar... but we also know that we can get 95% of the way there for 30% of the price. It's keeping the mystique and value for what are (and largely always have been... by Leo's very intention), mass produced instruments that could be pulled apart, reassembled and customised.

Robbie Robertson dipped his 1954 Strat in Bronze. (The first year of the Strat - a same year model owned by Eric Clapton, is for sale for $1.5M). Eddie van halen created the Frankenstrat. Gilmour's black strat was originally sunburst. Clapton's "Blackie" is assembled from three donor instruments. Almost none of the famous strats are from the custom shop, or even off the factory floor.

I guess that's the other approach. Become an amazing guitarist, get worldwide renown, and then your partscasters are worth a mint.

(EC's 1954 strat auction here, just in case anybody wants to buy it: https://gottahaverockandroll.com/catalog.aspx)

 

It's a partscaster. It was built from three donor instruments.

But the value isn't because of the components, it's because it's been touched by the hand of God. People aren't paying for the neck, they're paying for the neck-wear. They're not paying for the body, they're paying for the pick scratches and belt rash.

The 54 strat that is currently being auctioned for $1.5M is stock (as far as I know)... but it belonged to Eric, so it has additional value.

 

Bingo.
Neither you nor I nor anyone else on this forum is Eric Clapton, David Gilmore, or SRV.
Any of those three guys could sign a t-shirt and it would become worth more than a brand new US-made Fender.
You can't compare the outliers that have some other aspect that impacts the value.

A used Squier may only be a $150 guitar, but if it was played by Eric and provenance preserved, it would be worth much more.

 

If only Joe had kept this one...

 

If you have just a neck that says, "Fender" on it...you have pure gold. List that neck on Ebay and watch the feeding frenzy. People will pay more for a loose Fender neck than what the entire guitar cost.

 

Oh okay.

NC

 

Sounds like some real hate for Fender and their "pissing" employees. Did one of them piss in your Cheerios? Haha !

 

I do a lot of modding for my own use. It takes a lot of time and I get results that work better for me than stock Fender stuff but I am fully aware that the financial value of what I am making is nothing more than the cost of the parts MINUS the time somebody else would have to spend taking the bits apart and customising their own result.

In other words...a fraction of what a genuine Fender would be worth.

 

Great thread.

but I’d be interested in what people think of high end vintage partscasters.
I’m on the hunt for a pre 69 Tele/Esquire. Hopefully with some issues like rewind or a refin that brings the price under 15k $

But my local vintage dealer I know has a rack of 50s and early 60s necks and bodies. Probably vintage pickups too. He could put together just the right guitar for me using those pieces so it would be vintage but also a parts caster.
Might save a hell of a lot too. Maybe 8-9k in total. stupid idea or?