Were are all the "Vintage Taylor Guitars"

[cpmusic]

Edward, your point is taken, but the comment still sounds dismissive, not just of Taylor's pre-CNC era but any guitars that were are are made in that older fashion. If your interpretation is correct, I think there are better ways of expressing it, such as "I'm proud of every guitar we've sold, but we've learned a lot in 40 years, and I'm more interested in talking about the guitars we're making today." Just a thought.

[Fire]

Here's a direct quote from Bob Taylor:  "I would never think an early Taylor is anywhere near as wonderful as a pre-war Martin. My "pre-whatever" guitars could be called "pre-knowing what you’re doing!"  He then goes on to say, "Now, if you want to talk about new guitars, I’m pretty proud about those."

By the time the venerable pre-war Martins were made, Martin already had 100 years of experience. A fair comparison would have been an "early 70's" Taylor versus an 1830's Martin ...Martin's version of "pre-knowing what you're doing" era.

[mgap]

Here's a direct quote from Bob Taylor:  "I would never think an early Taylor is anywhere near as wonderful as a pre-war Martin. My "pre-whatever" guitars could be called "pre-knowing what you’re doing!"  He then goes on to say, "Now, if you want to talk about new guitars, I’m pretty proud about those."

By the time the venerable pre-war Martins were made, Martin already had 100 years of experience. A fair comparison would have been an "early 70's" Taylor versus an 1830's Martin ...Martin's version of "pre-knowing what you're doing" era.

by pre-war are you talking about the Mexican-American war in 1846

[michaelw]

Here's a direct quote from Bob Taylor:  "I would never think an early Taylor is anywhere near as wonderful as a pre-war Martin. My "pre-whatever" guitars could be called "pre-knowing what you’re doing!"  He then goes on to say, "Now, if you want to talk about new guitars, I’m pretty proud about those."

By the time the venerable pre-war Martins were made, Martin already had 100 years of experience. A fair comparison would have been an "early 70's" Taylor versus an 1830's Martin ...Martin's version of "pre-knowing what you're doing" era.

by pre-war are you talking about the Mexican-American war in 1846

martin had been in business for 100 years in 1933, but they did not have experience in making steel string
acoustic guitars until about 80 years after the company was established & it wasn't until the mid 1920's(?)
that a steel string guitar actaully had the martin name on the headstock, but that's neither here nor there -
there's a lot of reference to pre-war guitars, especially the ones built in the late 1930's, or so,
made with adirondack spruce, brazilian rosewood, nitrocellulose lacquer, hot hide glue, etc

there were Taylor guitars being made in 74, but it wasn't until 76 that the company became officially
known as "Taylor Guitars", as the westland music company name was kept for the first couple of years -
around that time, the standard wood on the 800 series went from brazilian to east indian rosewood

as a steel string guitar company, martin had a nearly 60 year head-start on steel strings, but
around 20 years or so after Taylor's inception, Taylor carved out a market for themselves in the
area of the acoustic cutaway electric steel string guitar, something martin took notice of & in 2010
released the performing artist series of acoustic cutaway electrics, probably right around the same
time that Taylor began selling a higher volume of guitars over the course of a fiscal year than martin

pitting a westland music company Taylor 810 brazilian rosewood  "against" a 1930's martin d28 is probably
the type of "pre-whatever" comparison the first quote may have taken from the "sound-bite" article edit -
Bob does seem to be pretty proud of the GS mini, though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moyc-Tgc5gQ#t=2319

[brianL]

I have a 1980 710.

I bought it used in 1986 from Gryphon guitars in Palo Alto, CA (amazing guitar shop)

In my price range at the time they had 2 nice instruments: a late 70's D-18 and the Taylor. It took about 45 minutes sitting in one of their rooms they use for classes and going back and forth until deciding on the Taylor. Hard choice because the D-18 was really well set-up and sounded great but there was something more "playable" about the Taylor. Unfortunately a few years later my 2-year (He's now 25) pushed it off a couch where it hit a coffee table resulting in the blemishes you see on the top which are slight gouges that go through the finish. Cosmetic damage only but probably affect the value quite a bit.

$