About Guitaripedia

Every guitar has a story. This is where we tell it, with the specs, the players, and the numbers kept in the liner notes underneath. Not a shop.

What this is

Guitaripedia is a story-first guitar encyclopedia. The history, the players, and the legends are the main attraction: who built a guitar, who played it, what went wrong, and why people still line up for it. Specs, construction, rarity, and value are still here, as the fine print.

Each plate is one guitar. The story sits on top, and under it sits the research file it was written from. Nothing goes into a story that isn’t in that file, or isn’t common, well-established history. If we can’t source a date, a name, a number, or a quote, it comes out.

The research comes first, even though you read it last. Construction comes from factory pages, specialist dating, and named historians. Players are named instruments when we have them, and “known to play” when we don’t. Counts appear only when a named source states them. Where two good sources disagree, both stay on the page, in the research file and in the story.

What this isn’t

Not a shop. No cart, no “buy now,” no price as the hero.

Not an appraisal service. Nothing here is an offer to buy, a USPAP appraisal, or advice about a guitar you own. A number in the liner notes is an editorial range with a date on it. If you need a number for insurance, a sale, or a donation, hire an appraiser who can see the instrument.

Not a marketplace. Asking prices and sold results are evidence we cite. They are not listings.

Not a SKU catalog. A 1958–60 Burst is not a current Les Paul Standard. An original korina Flying V or Explorer is not a modern USA V or Explorer. A pre-war D-45 is not the Standard you can order from Nazareth. Reissues, Historics, Authentics, Murphy Lab, and Custom Shop recreations are their own tiers. We say so.

How a guitar page works

The story leads. A page opens on the guitar and a one-line hook, then a short standfirst. A timeline gives the short version. The chapters run like a record’s tracklist, with a numbers band between the sides. “Put this on” points to a few recordings made on that exact guitar, and “the cast” names the people in the story.

The liner notes come after. They open with the datasheet (woods, scale, pickups, hardware), and under it sits the full research file, folded shut until you open it: construction, the complete player record, rarity, a dated value estimate, and every source we used. A few plates carry a Collectible sidebar for a vintage object that shares a name with a current guitar and is not that guitar.

A guitar without a story yet still gets its page, with the research file open.

Stories don’t talk about what a guitar is worth. A historical list price is part of the history; a current value is not, and it lives only in the research file, with a date on it. Value is never the largest type on the page.

How we estimate value

Every Value section in the research files opens with the same kind of line, dated to that plate’s research:

Informal estimate, 28 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

That date is the research date, not a promise the market froze. Plates were researched on different days, so the dates differ from page to page. When we revise a plate, the line moves.

Ask is not sold. A dealer’s retail ask, a Reverb listing, and a hammer price are three different facts. On top-end vintage Fenders, dealer retail can sit about twice a mixed-condition marketplace median. We label which is which. If the sold ladder is thin (Jazzmasters, P-Basses, Gretsch 6120s, Rickenbacker 330/360s, early PRS Core, original korina V and Explorer), we say so, and we do not invent a median to look complete.

Guides are not auctions. Vintage Guitar, Blue Book, and dealer year-tables are opinion with a masthead. A Christie’s or Heritage result is a public sold. We keep both when we have them, and we do not collapse a 2026 magazine guide into a 1999 hammer.

Condition, originality, and provenance move the number. Original finish versus refinish can cut collector value roughly in half on many Fenders (True Vintage Guitar; Edgewater 45–60%). A clean example and a relic with replaced parts are not the same guitar. Provenance can double a result, or more. Artist-owned instruments are a separate market. They are not comps for ordinary production.

The cleanest sourced proof of that last point is not a Burst. It is two Clapton Martins sold the same night (Christie’s, 24 June 2004): the 1939 000-42 used on Unplugged (serial 73234) at $791,500, and another 1939 000-42 from the home/studio, not Unplugged, at $113,525. The Unplugged guitar resold for $4,101,000 on 12 March 2026. Same model year. Use, chain of title, then condition, then the underlying rarity. We do not treat celebrity lots as production comps.

Unpublished means unknown. Fender did not publish 1950s–60s factory model totals. Neck-plate serials were shared across models and overlap years; they date a guitar, they do not count a run. We do not treat a serial range as a shipping total.

A silhouette is not a census. The 1958 Explorer shipped 19 in 1958 and 3 in 1959 (22). Leftover-parts 1962–63 are a separate small batch. The “~100” shorthand belongs to the Flying V (81 + 17 = 98). Burst shipping for 1958–60 sunburst Standards is an estimate, not a census: public range about 1,400–1,700. Pre-war D-45 is a closed Martin census of 91. We keep those fights on the plates, and in the stories. We do not round them into folklore.

Photographs

A photograph goes on a plate only if it is the right model and it is freely licensed: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0, or public domain, credited on the page. We would rather leave a plate without a picture than hang the wrong guitar on it. If you took a photo of one that still needs a picture, you can send it in.

Also on the site

The Chord finder is a tool for playing, not part of the encyclopedia. Pick a root and a quality, and it shows playable shapes in standard tuning as a fretboard diagram, in standard notation, and in tab.

Sources

Each research file ends with the URLs that actually supported the copy. Wikipedia was a lead, not a source we rest on. Where research was blocked (Reverb Price Guide pages, some specialist tables), the Value line says the sold data is thin.

We would rather print a labeled ask than a fake sold average.

Last updated 28 September 2026.