Trash or Treasure: Vox Rio Grande V278

Hi Jeff,

When it comes to Vox, AC30s and the Beatles likely come to mind first. But since the company was founded in 1957, they’ve also offered a wide range of electric guitars, acoustic guitars, organs, and effects in addition to their famous amplifiers. I suspect $150 was a pretty fair price to pay for this guitar in the early 1990s, but the question is if the guitar has increased or decreased in value.

Vox’s first electric guitars were designed in 1960 and introduced in 1961. Built in England, these first models—called the Stroller and Clubman—were based on Fender designs. Interestingly, Fender guitars were unavailable in England during the early ’60s, so these first Vox models were designed to fill a void. The pentagon-shaped Phantom series followed in 1962, and became Vox’s best-known and most-collectible guitars. Other models followed in 1963.

A few things happened to the expanding company in 1964. First, Vox outsourced production of their guitars to an Italian manufacturer called Eko. Then, in order to raise capital for his company, Vox founder and owner Tom Jennings sold a controlling interest of Vox to U.K.-based Royston Industries. A year later, the Thomas Organ Company of California began importing a line of Vox-branded acoustic guitars built by Eko into the U.S. For those of you familiar with Eko guitars, the similarities are striking. As far as I can tell, no acoustics were offered in England.

Vox’s acoustic models included the dreadnought Country Western V238 (a rebranded Eko Ranger 6), the Folk XII V239 (essentially a 12-string version of the Country Western and a rebranded Eko Ranger 12), the entry-level folk-style Serenader V220, the 12-string Shenandoah V279, and your guitar—the Rio Grande V278.

The Rio Grande is essentially a more ornate version of the Country Western and also a quasi-signature model for the late Nashville-based country artist Eddy Arnold. Your Rio Grande features a solid-spruce top, mahogany back and sides, a set mahogany neck (as opposed to the bolt-on neck of the Country Western), a rosewood fretboard with large pearl-block inlays, a pearl vine-themed headstock inlay, and a three-point pickguard with both Eddy Arnold’s signature and the model-name “Rio Grande” adorning it.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any reliable serial-number lists for Vox guitars and the numbers used by Eko seem like they were assigned completely at random. We do know that Vox acoustic guitars were built from late 1965/early 1966 until they were all discontinued in 1969—when both U.S. and European guitar manufacturers were feeling the pressure brought on by cheaper offerings from manufacturers in Asia.

Vox restructured their line with a series of Japanese-produced solidbody guitars, but they didn’t offer acoustic guitars again. Vox reissued their Phantom guitars in the late 1990s and would also produce the original-design Virage series that launched in 2007. Vox continues to produce a full line of guitar amplifiers, but currently only has one guitar in their line-up, called the Starstream. They are, however, currently producing ukuleles.

Today, a Vox Rio Grande is worth between $600 and $750 in excellent condition. If you paid $150 for this in the early 1990s (let’s say, 25 years ago), that $150 guitar should be worth $266 today just based on inflation. So if you decide to sell it now, the guitar is worth about three times more than when you bought it. If you decide to hang onto it, only time will tell if it increases or decreases in value. I don’t have a crystal ball, but as far as Vox acoustics go, this model is definitely the treasure of them all!