Vintage Gear America

Vintage Gear America

"Nothing but the best and later for the rest" John Lee Hooker

  • Appraisal
  • Consignment
  • Recording
What's New

BUY SELL TRADE We accept all major credit cards, layaway welcome, trade-ins welcome, appraisals upon request. Expert witness and authentication services available upon request. All of the instruments on this site have been authenticated by an expert, as it is our ambition to offer only very clean all original instruments. We encourage our buyers to invest in collectors grade vintage instruments as the investment yield is proportionally higher than that of average or poor examples. Feel free to call and discuss any instrument you may be interested in purchasing, we do negotiate. We also offer vintage guitar brokerage and third party authentication upon request for instruments not owned by us. Vintage Gear America (661) 430-3888

Vintage Gear America is owned by John Nelson a native Californian and professional guitarist known primarily for having played lead guitar for John Lee Hooker and Eddie Money. John’s relentless interest in vintage gear eventually developed into his post-musical career of buying and selling high-end vintage guitars. Having grown up in a musical environment with a guitar maker father, John’s insatiable interest in vintage instruments and related information eventually developed into a high level of expertise. For many years John bought and sold only the finest high end guitars and rarest of vintage gear, eventually he opened several retail musical instrument stores in Hollywood, the most noteworthy and unique being Vintage Gear Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. The first of its kind Vintage Gear Hollywood was the cutting edge of what became the “vintage gear” market, a business model and vernacular that is now in use and considered industry standard. Since closing its brick and mortar doors a few years ago Vintage Gear Hollywood has evolved into Vintage Gear America an online version of this unique store is now open for business, welcome to Vintage Gear America. John Nelson

Vintage Gear America
John Russell Nelson
661 430 3888
Online Only
6:38 PM
Vintage Gear America online sales only, please email or call anytime, may take up to 24 hours to respond vintagegear@qnet.com (661) 430-3888

We accept Visa, Bank wire transfer, cashiers check, bank check, personal check or cash. No credit cards, if you need to use a credit card or even finance an item this can be done through Reverb.com.

We ship USPS Priority and Fed Ex Ground next business day, all instruments are carefully packed utilizing new shipping materials, all instruments are insured by Heritage Insurance. All parcels are flat rate shipped and are the same price for all buyers in the domestic USA, international shipping is also flat rate for anywhere in the world. The price is based on the cost of new shipping materials, boxes, bubble wrap, tape and labor and has nothing to do with where you are or your ability to pick it up in person. It is not in our business model to offer in person demonstrations of instruments or in person pickup, both of these things take an employee and extra time. If you have a limit as to what you want to spend on shipping please factor this into you instrument offer as we accept reasonable offers on most items. If an item doesn’t allow a lower offer it’s because it’s already been discounted and already at its lowest price. We recommend that you don’t chose an instrument based on shipping cost alone as there are more important issues all of which we have well covered. I might point out that all of our guitars come with professional detailing and set up, this has real value and keeps one from getting inferior work from an unqualified retail establishment. Thanks for your understanding. John Russell Nelson owner VGA Vintage Gear America

We offer a 48-hour approval period on most items, a restocking fee of 10% may be assed depending on the instrument and the situation, buyer pays return postage.