Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: I bought it in 1961, brand new.

APPRAISER: We've got to look at these pictures, because these are of you.

GUEST: Sure.

APPRAISER: You were a real hipster back then-- 1961.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: So you're the original owner of this guitar.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Do you still have the boots?

GUEST: No, they're...they're gone.

APPRAISER: But you still have the hat.

GUEST: The hat, yeah.

APPRAISER: The hat is fantastic.

We've got, uh, the original Fender-- --we would call this the "hang tag," but it was actually the instruction booklet.

So, you-you were good.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: You held on to that.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: It's got something kind of special in the neck.

We call that bird's eye maple.

But uh what makes this so great is that it's never been refinished, none of the parts have ever been changed.

The pickguard is taking on sort of a greenish color, and all of the control knobs and the pickups are all exactly the same color, fading quite a bit with age.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Have you ever had this uh appraised at all?

GUEST: This one guy, uh, he wanted to give me $2,500 for it.

APPRAISER: Okay.

How long ago was that?

GUEST: Uh, about nine years ago.

APPRAISER: Nine years ago, okay.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: And do you remember how much you paid for it?

GUEST: Yeah, $350.

APPRAISER: $350.

So the present value of a guitar like this, trading on... on the open market, is gonna be about $18,000 to $20,000.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

I should have bought two of em.

(laughter)