Replacement tuner buttons on vintage tuners

[Tim Thelen]

Does anyone know what effect on value replacing the rotting buttons on vintage tuners is? More often than not we try to persuade customers to let us install new exact replacement tuners so the instrument is playable and have them keep the original tuners in the event they want to sell.

I've been told by some dealers that replacing buttons doesn't hurt value but I have my doubts. Any thoughts or experiences?

[Russell Vance]

Depends on the integrity of your vintage dealer......for most of them I would advise the customer to not change a thing because of how dealers. esp vintage dealers view these things.

If they are buying from you, any change, even going to switchtips and output jacks is a catastrophe and the instrument is "totally devalued"...whereas when selling to you, this stuff is not so important.

The guitar business is one of the few areas where this myth of originality extends to making an instrument useless by not replacing expendables such as frets, pots and jacks etc in the name of originality. Thereby causing the instrumet to become unplayable and taking the instrument away from its original task of making music - whereby it becomes an expensive unplayed ornament. Even the vintage car market allows and requires old tires and wiper blades and mechanical parts to be replaced without penalty (generally speaking).

However, I must add this is personal opinion - I just don't get our position on this. Rusty.

[Jim Bancroft]

Replacing button on original tuners is the only way to go, instead of replacing the complete tuner. It won't reduce the value at all. An instrument has to playable, yet you want to keep it as original as possible. The only reason I would replace the complete tuner is if they were not repairable.

Tuner buttons are not hard to replace. Try and get as authentic replacement buttons as possible.
Here is an excellent source for vintage buttons. they are located in Germany.
www.antique-acoustics.de

Stew Mac also has tuner buttons but I prefer the ones from Germany. they seem to match the look of old tuner buttons better.

Jim