Guitars: Better investment than houses

It's official - guitars are better investments than homes, says rock 'n roll memorabilia expert Ted Owen. They're also better investments than stocks and shares. A 1958 Gibson Explorer bought for $247.50 was sold in 2006 for $611,000. That's almost a 20% year on year annual return versus an average of 12% for the typical house or the 9% typically produced investing in shares. Adam Newman, manager of Vintage & Rare Guitars says, 'Late fifties Les Paul Standards bought for a few hundred dollars could be worth over $300,000 while Pre-War Martin D45's would fetch over half a million dollars now and bought for $200.'

With rock 'n roll memorabilia auctions taking place on a regular basis, it's now easier than ever to purchase a collectable guitar. The recent Gibson Guitartown London exhibition is going under the hammer on 20th November via Ebay and an event being held at the IndigO2 with bidding starting at a very reasonable 250 GBP. Some of the more collectable guitars include a Pink Floyd guitar designed by Gerald Scarfe and a Ronnie Wood signed and designed guitar. The recent film 'Control' has propelled interest too in the Depeche Mode Anton Corbijn designed guitar.

Says Darren Julien, president of specialist rock 'n roll memorabilia auction house, Julien's Auctions, 'With confidence falling in the housing market, we've seen a huge upturn in interest in rock 'n roll memorabilia. We've virtually doubled our database of customers from what it was a year ago. Just last month, a similar auction we held for GuitarTown in Texas saw two guitars going for $55,000 each.'Now is definitely the time to start collecting and there's every possibility that one of the guitars going on the 20th Nov may form someone's future pension.'

All guitars can be seen at : http://tinyurl.com/2ahq55