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Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars : An Identification Guide for American Fretted Instruments (2nd Ed) | 
 enlarge | Authors: George Gruhn, Walter Carter
Publisher: Backbeat Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $18.44
You Save: $9.51 (34%)
New (18) Used (10) from $14.84
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 171147
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 582
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 0879304227
Dewey Decimal Number: 787.871973075
EAN: 9780879304225
ASIN: 0879304227
Publication Date: June 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: SHIPS from 5 locations based on your Zip Code and availability! (PA TN IN OR SC) *-* Gift Quality *-* Orders Processed Immediately! - We get your book to you Very Quickly! -L2356.11321
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Amazon.com
Authors George Gruhn and Walter Carter are no strangers to fretted instruments: Gruhn runs one of the best vintage instrument stores in the country, and Carter was Gibson's company historian for several years in the 1990s. In the second edition to Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars, the pair have created a useful resource for any lover of fine guitars, banjos, or basses. Though not a price guide, the book will enable collectors to identify the date, stock ingredients, wood, and evolution of their Fender, Martin, Gibson, Gretsch, or Mosrite axes, to name just a few. Many readers will probably want to complement this book with a separate price guide (The Official Vintage Guitar Magazine Price Guide is recommended), and it should be noted that many mass-market manufacturers (Kay, for instance) were left out. But with this book you'll at least know that the stock Epiphone Madrid you bought on the Internet is, in fact, truly stock. A great resource for lovers of collectable six-strings. --Jason Verlinde
Product Description
The original version of this guide has sold over 30,000 copies. This new edition has been expanded by 25% and promises to become an invaluable resource. For collectors, dealers and players, this completely updated "field guide" provides specifications, serial numbers, and more for determining the originality of vintage American acoustic and electric fretted instruments. Detailing thousands of models by every major manufacturer, the book now includes expanded coverage of Martin, Guild, Mosrite, Dobro, Gibson banjos, Fender amps, Gibson amps, plus updates on the latest models from Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and others since 1990.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 THE authoritative guide. June 13, 2008
I am a collector of vintage stringed instruments. I purchased George Gruhn's first volume in 1991, which was called the "Guide to Vintage Guitars". As I used it, I found that it corraborated, expanded and corrected the many other sources I use. The 2nd edition is greatly expanded, and now includes "American Fretted Instruments". It continues to be the most usable, informative and authoritative guide to vintage stringed instruments I am aware of. This is my "go to" guide. All other sources are used for additional detail and corraboration. A must have reference for anyone interested in vintage stringed instruments.
 Would really benefit from having pictures. And some corrections/editing... December 6, 2007
I bought this second edition hoping to find more information than I found in the old edition, but beyond expanding the breadth of models, the book is still not extremely helpful. Its basic setup is to use a one-line description of a change that occurs to a guitar model and note the year that this happened in. That's fine of course, but it sure would be helpful if the lines referred to illustrations or pictures. the result is an extremely dry text summary - and it doesn't even really go far enough. for example, the area on Fender Stratocasters lists every model throughout the 20th century, yet the initial list entries of changes seem to stop in the 70s, and while it does make mention of the shoulder on the control cavity routing changing in 1959, it doesn't mention changes in pickup routing in 1970 or so, nor the addition of a ground screw shoulder in the control cavity in 1979-81. it mentions how many patent numbers are on the headstock during which year, but no mention of what they are nor illustration of where they are placed. no mention of logo design changes.
the list of fender serial numbers is sort of accurate, but the lowest and highest numbers per year listed are just plain wrong. they might look in Duchossoir's book for more information!
I think it might help people to have more information on Norlin-era Gibsons as well, explaining which were made in Kalamazoo and which in Nashville and how to tell... one thing i noticed was that they say how the reintroduction of Les Paul Standard/Deluxe models had 4 piece pancake bodies, but in my experience I've seen more very early 70s whose bodies were two pieces of mahogany with a maple top and had (3-piece) mahogany necks prior to 1975 when they became maple, and some even had bodies that were one piece of mahogany.
also since people on ebay seem to be making so much money peddling parts of old guitars, it might be nice for someone to take on the description of how to correctly identify potentiometers, capacitors, even knobs, pickup covers and tuners!
all of these suggestions would make this a very useful guide! but - especially pictures.... describing how a screw position changes on a pickguard from one year to another is not nearly as comprehensible as an illustration!
 Much Improved Gruhn's Guide February 18, 2006
This is a vast improvement over the older version of Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars. I would like the next version to include vintage Sunn amps, heads and cabinets, as well.
Fine! Splendid !! September 26, 2005
You can get all information quick and without doubt !! I had the first edition, but this second edition is a lot more complete and updated !!!
 Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars January 5, 2003
5 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book was very limited as far as various makes of guitars. It didn't have any price guides on any of the things listed.
I would think that would be the main information anyone owning a vintage guitar or other musical equipment would be most interested in. This book was useless to us. I wish we could return it. Thank goodness we ordered "The Offical Vintage guitar Magazine Price Guide 2003" It included everything any collector would want to know!!!
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