I am a guitar player and during the last 30 years collected some guitars, centred my interest to old German and European instruments.
I bought in times when no one seemed to be interested but me
and managed to get free of the hunting fever when collecting strange instruments turned to common guitar players sport, no matter what quality, judging instruments just by a serial number or simply age (that is what I see on ebay every day and wonder, how people could spent an average year income for a guitar they never touched... too strange for me, the magic is the touch whenever I am fascinated by an instrument, maybe I would trust someone who knows what I like when buying and playing, but the final decision is made by the touch).
I don't really like the vintage market, it is ruled by hype and mostly by people who rather see financial aspects than instrumental quality, unfortunately, and hard to tell who is different and true expert.
Nevertheless still there are lots of people with the old spirit, players who understand and can tell a bad 64 strat without being blinded by a serial number.
Playing strats as main instruments (a bad heritage from the days when I started playing in the 70s ... ), I loved to experience other constructions, materials and form factors.
European guitars are my favourites for experimental playing because of some points:
they don't sound "like (anyone famous)"
they were grown where I was grown
there are a lot of esthetically strange
instruments during the early post war period with interesting sounds and constructional ideas
they were really cheap when I started
