[jasode]

A lot of people are predicting an "ebay guitar apocalypse" as the mass effect of guitar owners start passing away. Because "nobody plays them anymore", the inheritors of dad's property will just put the guitar collection on ebay or donate them.

Your dad's fancy Paul Reed Smith guitar that cost $3000 will only be worth a fraction of that when a million other used PRS guitars flood the market.

It's an interesting prediction.

[stcredzero]

Because "nobody plays them anymore", the inheritors of dad's property will just put the guitar collection on ebay or donate them.

You already have this in instrument markets for traditional music. Trad musicians are minorities in the general culture, but their market demand for once-mainstream mass produced instruments of yesteryear can still support prices. (Paolo Soprani B,C button accordion, anyone?) Sure, you still have the occasional find, where someone sells something for 1/10th the price they could have gotten out of ignorance.

I wonder if everyone is going to be satisfied with making music on a laptop? I also wonder if playing a guitar is ever going to stop getting people laid? If you have both of these conditions, then guitars might go the way of the Flageolett. Historically, "outdated" instruments flooding markets at bargain prices have tended to give rise to new musical opportunities in underprivileged communities. Occasionally, they give rise to new genres.

[elihu]

I think that eBay is already affecting price in a different way: buyers and sellers tend to use eBay price to figure out what a guitar is worth before buying and selling in person. Since used guitars are a risky purchase (there could be a lot of things wrong that don't show up in pictures), the eBay price is artificially depressed. However, since the eBay price is seen as the "fair market price", it deflates the price everywhere.

This could go the other way, as well: if sellers refuse to sell a certain kind of guitar on eBay, the price could become inflated.