Kawai Guitar Values
I get a lot - LOT - of emails asking me about the value of old Kawai guitars.
Whilst it always interesting to hear from other Kawai owners around the world (so please don't stop contacting me with photos and stories of your Kawai guitars), it is virtually impossible to offer any valuation advice without a lot more detail than most people are able to provide.
What is the real condition of the guitar? What damage is not clearly shown on the photos? How does the guitar sound? How does it play? What condition are the frets in? What sort of history does it have?
But all those questions are less important than this next one ... "Do you know someone who wants to buy it?". If you don't have a seller lined up, finding someone to buy a guitar from a brand that few recognise can be difficult. You just take your chances on the on-line auction sites.
Although there's a lot of interest, and collector value, associated with "vintage" guitars at the moment (who knows how long that particular bubble will last), and Kawai guitars certainly qualify as vintage guitars, there aren't really enough of them around to be generally collectible.
I've never come across a guitar enthusiast who has focused solely on the Kawai brand. They may have Kawai guitars as part of a larger collection - perhaps a collection of 1960s MiJ guitars - but they tend not to be the main focus of the collection. I know of people who collect models from the Yamaha SG range from the early 80s. There are plenty of those guitars still around, they get bought and sold on eBay virtually every day, so there's an established typical price level established by supply, demand, and lots of completed transactions.
The situation is not the same for Kawai guitars. They are too rare to have an established market, so each guitar is only worth as much as someone else wants to pay for it. I've bought some from people who just wanted to get rid of "that strange guitar over there", I've bought others via popular online auction sites for <US$150/£100 because there's been no other interest. I've bought others for 4 or 5 times that sort of price.
Music shops won't generally give a trade-in value because they've no idea if they'll ever manage to sell it on.
If you're valuing it for insurance purposes you could almost put whatever value you like on it - subject to the insurer agreeing of course - because it's highly unlikely that you'd ever manage to find a direct replacement available to buy to replace a old Kawai that got lost, damaged, or stolen.
As you'll see from looking through this site, I've amassed a number of these old guitars and am always interested in seeing others, and hearing from people who have one to sell.