Why are some guitar tops painted and some guitar tops plain? Why do some builders use polyurethane paints and some guitar builders use nitrocellulose paints? Is the reissue bug just a fad or craze ?Are older guitars really better? In the later issues of The Vintage Guitar News and Views I said to ask questions and boy have I been hammered ! It has been a phenomenal response from you the readers and I thank all of you for your questions.So as to some of the questions you the readers have asked ,let me try to give what I believe are reasonable answers.
 Why are some guitar tops painted and some not ? I believe it has nothing to do with tone or sound (duh) it is about the aesthetics  of color for the buying public as well as a way for builders to hide imperfections in the wood and to be able to splice several pieces of wood together to complete a top. I know ,your top should be 1 or 2 pieces of wood joined at the center seam but even as far back as the 50's companies have had to use all the wood they could for their products ,they never imagined that we would be all freaky about this sort of thing 50 years later.It just make plain good business sense to utilize all the woods available and to hide these seemingly imperfections with paint. Personally I covet the mismatched, wood grained, mineral stained, unflamed tops myself.
Now "pretty" wood such as flame, fiddleback,curly,bearclaw and the like are perceived to be more pleasant to look at and (now at least) they are not covered up with paint. At one time though some of the prettiest tops I have seen were "uncovered" during a restoration or conversion and rescued from under the painted tops that were hiding them.
But these types of tops can now command a higher price tag and are displayed behind a clear ot more transparent finish rather than hidden away never to be seen. All at the same time by creating a larger buying market and even so much as creating smaller "divisions" among the market base of clients .I will leave that subject alone for now and leave it to many a articulate or even imbibed discussion amongst yourselves.
Poly finish or Nitro?  To me the best ,well one of the best smells there are is when you pop open a guitar case and the smell of nitro permeates the room. That unmistakable smell is what makes this question kinda hard, you see nitro never really cures fully and is in a constant state of evaporation from the moment it is applied to the day it returns to sawdust with that old guitar.
I like nitro on all my acoustics as I do believe it does, as time passes contribute to the opening up of the tonal qualities as many people subscribe to. On electric guitars I think the switch to a poly finish was as mentioned by others before me a decision to make the finish on the guitar harder and last longer without fade, a protectant and a cost cutting decision for the production plants as poly dries faster and more guitars can be made to sell.As far as sound qualities on the electric guitars? Well there have been a whole lot of sweet sounds and great players that played those poly coated beauties now haven't there? Some poly coats seemed to fare better than others and the reissues from overseas tend to age and pock just a little differently than their American counterparts. Why? I do not know, they just "relic" differently.
Which brings up the next topic,the relic craze. Nostalgia? The bygone days of youth when you first started playing ? From the mildly and elegantly understated aged guitars that are made by master builders and custom shops which are limited in run and will possibly retain and gain in value to the obviously overdone relics that  look "cookie cutter made" all intended to stir these emotions in the consumers.
Truthfully, do some play better or sound better than others? You bet they do. Limited runs and custom reliced guitars are more hand crafted and have more attention to detail even when it comes to aging the parts and pieces that make of our lovely ladies. Where the mass produced guitars all look the same and are more budget priced, they seem to just use the standard parts and pieces,  and if one plays better or sounds better ,lucky you.
Which brings us to the next subject. Are old guitars better? Hmmm ,gotta pick my words carefully here.Well some of the appointments look better, I mean I'll take cloth covered wiring and paper caps over plastic any day, but today's wiring is probably better made and the shielding is superior but then again isn't  it the quirks that make guitars so lovable? Pickups are next, I mean a good pickup will make any guitar sound better and a bad pickup will make  good guitar sound lousy and I am sticking to that statement.I prefer older alnico magnets to todays blends and ceramics ,nope ain't gonna do it.  Appointments? well the old parts do seem to get real brittle and crumble to dust and often need replacing, personally I prefer steel tuning keys over others and multi-ply covers and guards over the older single plys ,but that is just my preference.
Which brings us to the bare bones of any guitar,the wood used. I do think older wood is better, and older guitars are made of superior wood in my opinion, not that the wood is actually better but more the process of air drying for years wood that gets cut and air dries for years more stored on racks and shelves then is made into various parts of a guitar and again sits until orders are placed or new models are designed and then the wood was hand caressed into works of art, that's what I mean by old wood. Todays guitars are being shaped as the axemen strip the branches from the trunks of the trees, green wood being forced kiln dried and mass produced to be shaped and shipped to the consumer. I cringe every time I see a "modern " guitar assembly plant in operation on tour videos, I understand the economics and the tighter tolerances touted, but it just ain't the same as far as I can tell. The marriage of certain parts and pieces seem to be another quandary to amuse all of us guitar nuts.Think about it , most of the guys we idolize play guitars that are made from several different guitar, which dispels the myth of certain era guitars being better than others now doesn't it? Take "Blackie" and Duane's Burst , parts guitars........We all know that certain points have counterpoints and in the guitar world the greatness lies in the diversity, we as guitar lovers want to spend our money on something we can hold,touch,feel,smell,play and admire for  all our own reasons and that makes us all part of this huge family no matter what we think individually about certain brands,makes,parts or pieces,diversity is the key because if all guitars are eventually created equal then we would all own the same guitar and it would be like every other guitar on the planet, well except for the color..........Till next month may all your days be memorable ,all your friends stay true and all your riffs be killer, Greg at Greg's Guitars.