Rob Szupak is a semi-retired contractor itching to become a fully retired contractor. For the past three years, the 62-year-old Fairfax resident has been restoring vintage lap steel guitars and tube amplifiers and reselling them, hoping to earn enough of a living to make that his primary source of income.

Szupak's entry into the guitar market just happened to coincide with the biggest economic downturn in decades, a recession that has sent guitar prices plummeting as much as 50 percent in some cases. Szupak is one of the 40 vendors displaying their wares at the Bay Area World Guitar Show, taking place this weekend at the Marin Civic Center Exhibit Hall.

"It's one of those things like sailboats, when the economy goes down, people just

aren't spending money on guitars and amps like they used to," said Szupak, whose company is called Slide Zone. "I've been watching my favorite instruments in the world becoming less valuable over the years."

Vendors throughout the exhibit hall floor said they'd reduced their prices across their inventory. Show organizer Larry Briggs said that although price cuts have hurt vendors, consumer interest remained high, even if fewer attendees were leaving with a purchased guitar in hand. He said he expected more than 1,500 attendees, on par with the same two-day event in Marin a year ago.

"It's all coincided with people seeing the value of their home drop and their 401Ks going out the window," said Briggs, a resident of Tulsa, Oklahoma who

puts on eight guitars shows a year in the U.S., including two in Marin. "People that were making money were spending it on guitars. Now that their nest egg has been taken away in many cases, they're not. But the opportunities to buy are certainly better now."

"People just aren't spending money these days," said Gary Garcia, a Sacramento builder of handmade guitars, including one he made two years ago for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the request of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who

gave it to Blair as a reirement present. "They're more likely to hold onto what they already have, so there's a lot more repair business now."

While the bursting of the real estate bubble certainly impacted the guitar market, many vendors said some guitars had a bubble of their own. High-end electric guitars, particularly vintage models from the 1950s and 1960s, exploded in price earlier this decade, and have subsequently taken the biggest hit. Bob Danielson of Schoenberg Guitars in Tiburon said the boom was sparked in part by a front page Wall Street Journal article 10 years ago that highlighted the value of vintage guitars as an investment.

"All of a sudden all of these novices who weren't players or collectors started buying vintage

guitars--that drove the market to insanity," Danielson said. "You had people calling into dealers saying, 'what's my guitar worth today?' They were treating it like the stock market. That really made it crazy, but it's getting back to normal."

For instance, a 1957 Les Paul Gibson that may have commanded $200,000 a year ago would likely fetch $150,000 today, according to Vintage Guitar magazine's annual price guide.

The other end of the market is vastly improved, Danielson said. Entry-level guitars are cheaper and better quality than ever, and the demand remains high. To respond to that trend, Rich King, whose store, Guitar Maniacs, is based in Tacoma, Washington, took many of his guitars worth $30,000 or greater and sold them, using

that revenue to buy more guitars in the $200 to $2,000 price range. "It's all about how low will people go," he said.

King said the Marin show is typically "softer" than other shows. While he sold 32 guitars at a show in Dallas in April, he hadn't sold one by late afternoon Saturday. Szupak was in equally unfortunate company. He said he remains hopeful that business will pick up. "But I'm hanging onto that optimism with my fingernails right now," he said.

Contact Jim Welte via e-mail at jwelte@marinij.com.