Does planned obsolescence exist with guitars?
Are certain guitars designed to fail early?
Before I answer that, know that planned obsolescence refers to anything manufactured that is designed to fail so you keep buying it again and again.
As far as I'm aware, there are only two things with an electric guitar that will make it fail early.
The first thing is fret wire type. If the frets are made of nickel/silver, yes, they will wear out quickly no matter how big the wire is. If you want frets that last longer, specifically use stainless steel fret wire.
The second thing are strings. Certain strings made by certain manufacturers are fret wreckers. There are specific brands of strings I absolutely will not use because I know they wear down frets fast simply from how abrasive the string is to the fret.
If you know how to set up a guitar, know how to perform basic maintenance and use strings that are not fret wreckers, you will get many years of use out of the instrument. This is true even for the cheapest of guitars.
Basically put, no, planned obsolescence does not exist when it comes to electric guitars, simply for the reason there's really no way to engineer it in there.
And even if there were a way to engineer planned obsolescence into an electric guitar, the guitar modder community would find ways around it quick (as they have been doing for decades).
How can you tell if a certain brand of string is a fret wrecker?
Chances are you have a guitar with nickel/silver frets, so the only thing you can really do to prevent early fret wear aside from playing lighter is to use strings that don't wreck frets.
The easiest way to tell if a certain string brand is a fret wrecker or not is to examine the unwound G string from a brand new pack of strings before installing it. Why the G? Because it's the thickest unwound string of the set and the easiest to spot imperfections, should there be any. The string should be smooth all the way through, have no discoloration and no weird bumps nor coarseness anywhere along the wire.
If you do see discoloration, coarseness and/or weird bumps anywhere along the wire, consider switching to another brand of guitar string.
Does it matter how much the string costs? No. Spending more on a different brand of string doesn't guarantee it will be any better. What does matter is that every unwound string is straight, not discolored and smooth from beginning to end. As for the wound strings, you really can't visually determine anything from those concerning how they will affect frets over time. But you can visually determine how an unwound string would affect frets over time.
In other words, if brand new never-used unwound strings out of a fresh pack look bad, they are bad and will wreck frets.
Cheap guitar of the week #35 - HardLuck Kings Chop Shop Spider
Possibly the cheapest way to get a Gibson Firebird shape guitar.
The HardLuck Kings Chop Shop Spider is one of the very few axes for cheap that has the Gibson Firebird shape to it.
The Firebird has mini-humbuckers, bound neck, reverse headstock (the tuner gears are actually behind the headstock and not to the side), and has block inlays on the fingerboard.
The HardLuck Kings guitar has full-size humbuckers, no neck binding, standard headstock with standard tuners and spider-shape inlays. The knobs are also placed slightly differently.
What makes the Spider the attractive guitar? It's at least $700 less than a Firebird is...
...and like I said above, it's one of the very few axes where you can actually get the Firebird shape for cheap.
What are the "safest" guitar styles?
There are 3 specific guitars that always work when playing it safe.
What is "safe"?
Certain styles, as in looks, are guaranteed safe. For some buyers, this is important because they want to purchase a guitar that they know is considered "good" but will also hold decent resale value in the future.
Note that I'm talking about style here. Not sound. Not reliability. Style. Just style, and only style.
Brand
The three safest brands are Fender, Gibson and Martin. Fender and Gibson cover the electrics, and Martin covers the acoustics.
Color
On electrics, only one color matters. Sunburst.
On acoustics, only one color matters. Natural.
Model
The only model that matters from Fender is the American Standard Stratocaster.
The only model that matters from Gibson is the USA Les Paul Standard.
The only model that matters from Martin is the D-45.
Specific classics that always work
- Fender American Standard Stratocaster, 3-Tone Sunburst, maple neck/fretboard
- Gibson USA Les Paul Standard, Heritage Cherry Sunburst
- Martin D-45 (any, as long as it's natural, no sunburst)
Which would I personally buy?
If I actually cared about going with a "safe" guitar, I would get the Strat.
Would I get it because it's the "cheapest" of the lot? No. I'd get it because I know the Strat very well and I could get the most use out of the instrument for what I play.
Should you get one of the above?
If you care about resale value, yes - BUT - and this is a big but - you absolutely CANNOT modify the guitar in any way.
Once the guitar is bought, the only thing you can change on it is the strings and that's it. If you change anything else on the instrument, you lose resale value instantly.
Remember, "safe" guitars are boutique instruments that have to be babied because you bought it for the resale value. Treat your Fender, Gibson or Martin as you would a Rolex Submariner. You only use it on special occasions, and when you do, you're very careful not to get so much as a scratch anywhere on it.
Vintage guitar of the week #19 - 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior in TV Yellow
What is TV Yellow all about? I'll tell you.
Before we get into why "TV" is in the name of the finish color, let's talk about the rest of the guitar first.
The '56 Les Paul Junior is to Gibson what the MusicMaster model is to Fender. These are lower-end models that, while full instruments, are scaled down and have barely any features to them. All you get is one pickup, two knobs and that's it.
How does a Les Paul with a single P90 pickup sound? Pretty darned good, provided you know how to wield a P90 correctly. True, you don't get all the appointments that the Les Paul Standard has, but rest assured, it is still a Les Paul.
Personally, I could get along very well with a Junior as I like its minimalist approach. The Junior is the polar opposite of my complicated Jazzmaster, which is what makes the guitar attractive in the first place.
A modern - and really cheap - version of the Junior (somewhat) is the Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90. If you really like a minimalist Paul with the "wraparound" bridge but want one real cheap, well, there you go.
So anyway, TV Yellow. Let's talk about that.
TV Yellow came into existence because of black-and-white television.
In the early days of TV in the 1950s, everything was black-and-white. While true color TV has been around since 1953, the adoption of it in the marketplace was very slow. And I mean slow-as-molasses slow. Why? Price. Color televisions were prohibitively expensive.
Side note concerning color TV: Color really didn't become common until around the mid-1970s. Yes, it took that long before everyone finally got color TV.
A problem that presented itself with black-and-white broadcasts is that anything white washed itself right out. Whether it was a suit jacket, shirt, dress, shoes, chair, table, desk or whatever it was, it absolutely could not be white because of color washout.
Remember, we're talking about a tube-type 525 scan line small display and not a crisp, clear modern panel. Anything white on a tube-type like that simply washed right out.
The solution to this problem? Don't use white.
What Gibson decided to do in order to present a light-colored guitar on television was introduce a "TV" color, hence the creation of TV Yellow. On black-and-white television, TV Yellow looks white, even though it's not. In person, the guitar looks yellow because it literally is yellow.
Another interesting side note: Even on color televisions back in the early days, a TV Yellow guitar finish still looks white because of the way color is displayed on a tube-type television set. Color representation really didn't start getting "true" until modern panel televisions much, much later in the 2000s.
So there you have it. Everything you ever wanted to know about the TV Yellow guitar finish.
Why does TV Yellow still exist for Gibson and Epiphone guitars? Tradition. That, and it's still a really cool color on a guitar.
Does Epiphone have a true Junior model aside from the Special?
Yes, but it may not be in TV Yellow when you see the listings.
The jump into men's wristwatch fashion
When you get older, you stop dressing like an idiot and start getting civilized.
When I became middle aged, several things changed concerning my personal appearance.
First, I lost a bunch of weight and am no longer overweight. When I started, I had a BMI of 29 (which is borderline obese). I now have a BMI of 22.
Second, I stopped dressing in t-shirts all the time and started wearing polo and casual button-down shirts. Rarely will I go in public wearing a t-shirt these days.
Third, I started wearing wristwatches again.
I used to know next to nothing about wristwatches, but I've been learning more about them; what I've learned is quite interesting.
All-analog or nothing?
My current daily watch is a digital, a Casio B640WD. Cheap, retro and has all the features I want...
...but I know it's not really a man's watch.
And just what is a true man's watch?
Answer: Something with a proper analog face, doesn't look like it came out of a Transformers movie, doesn't look like something an old coot would wear, and has a 9-to-3 face measurement of 40mm to 45mm.
Analog-digital doesn't count. The watch has to be all-analog or nothing for it to be a true man's timepiece.
Examples of true men's watches
Omega Speedmaster Professional
If you know watches at all, the Speedmaster Professional is the famous "man on the moon" watch or just "moonwatch", as it was the one worn by an astronaut during the Apollo 11 mission.
The Speedmaster is really expensive, but has a timeless design and is a standard when it comes to what a proper man's wristwatch should be.
When you see a Fossil men's model, you know it's for a man. This one has a really nice blend of old world + modern world design going on. The knurled crown is a nice touch as that's an easy-grab style.
Dive watches usually aren't my thing, but I like this one. With a 12-3-6-9 design, it's either totally right or totally wrong, and the Aquadiver gets it totally right. The blue works too because it is a dive watch, after all. The nicest part is that the price is low for this timepiece. Looks expensive, to be sure, but it isn't.
Why list a cheap-ass Casio analog? Because this is one of the very few watches that's an analog with round face, no numbers and no date that is a proper 9-to-3 40mm men's size.
It's the no-date part that makes a style like this tough to come by.
There are a lot of guys out there that want a watch just like this simply for the fact they don't want to deal with a date display. All they want is the time, only the time and nothing but the time. That's what you get with this Casio without it looking like a watch an old fart would wear.
When you want a watch that "goes with everything", so to speak, a basic black Casio analog really works.
Another one from Casio?
See the MTP-1370L model. I have one on order at the time I write this. It's not a basic black as it has day/date on the face - but I wanted that because I think it looks cool.
What got me interested in analogs again?
Since turning 40, I examined what I was wearing on a daily basis and made a decision that it was time to change things around. I started researching men's fashion, and something that popped up routinely was the watch. A proper man wears a proper watch, so that's where things started.
I began with a Timex Weekender, which is a nice, basic watch. I swapped out the nylon strap with a leather NATO strap, and yeah, it looks good.
After that I decided to go all retro-digital and bought a few Casio watches with metal bands, which is far superior to resin bands. Casio digitals appeal to the geeky/nerdy/nostalgic side of me, and there is a "geek chic" style with a retro-styled digital. But a Casio digital is obviously not a true man's watch as I noted above.
The Casio analog I have on order is the second analog watch I've ever bought. Will it be my last? No, because there are a few other styles I'd like to try out, such as a 12-3-6-9 and maybe a few others.
Do I plan on having a crazy amount of watches? No. I've already bought a few that I've returned. At the moment, my daily is the Casio B640WD I mentioned. But if the MTP-1370L works out, I might start wearing that one full time.
Why don't I wear my Timex Weekender full time? It's for just one reason that is well known to Weekender owners. Pronounced ticking. You can really hear a Weekender tick, which to some is annoying. Most of the time the ticking doesn't bother me, but there are times it does, and that's why I don't always wear it.
Casio analogs as far as I can tell have a much quieter tick. Not as quiet as a Seiko (which to my understanding have near-silent if not absolutely silent ticks,) but darned close.
Anyway, yeah I will be picking up a few more analogs eventually. But as for digitals, I'm done with those for now because in all honesty, there's really nothing better than what I already have.
Will I ever completely give up digitals?
No, because there are functional conveniences with digital that analog just can't do. For example, my Casio B640WD can run a stopwatch, timer, hourly chime and alarm all at the same time. My AE1200 can do all that plus show 5 time zones all with optional DST on/off settings and run 5 separate alarms besides that. Can't do that with analog.
Digital's strength is function. Analog's strength is style.
Can you have style and function with a watch? In my experience, that would be a no. With digital, I've seen a bunch of different brands try to make digital look upscale and it just doesn't work. For example, a really expensive analog-digital is the Omega Speedmaster Skywalker. Simply put, it looks cheap and there's just no avoiding that. When you want that look, you get the Speedmaster Professional analog and not the Skywalker.
I use both, but keep them separate because I've not found an analog-digital that looks good. When I want features and retro geek chic, I wear digital on the wrist. When I want a man's timepiece, I wear analog.
Does wearing a watch really make that much of a difference?
It does in my experience.
Whenever you wear something shiny on the wrist, it gets attention; people will stare at it.
If wearing a digital, anyone who stares will think, "Oh. Cheap watch".
If wearing an analog with some nice style to it, anyone who stares will think, "Wow, nice watch".
Does getting the better reaction - even if unspoken - really matter in the grand scheme of things? Yes. It can mean the difference between a good or bad experience when dealing with pretty much anyone.
If you're sporting a cheap digital, people think you're cheap. But if wearing an analog with some nice style to it - even if it's cheap - you're treated better.
This is part of the reason I bought a digital that uses a metal band. Digital looks cheap, but at least the metal band offsets that somewhat.
However, a proper analog with good style is still the best thing going to make the best impression, at least with a watch.