in short these guys are douche bags. nice vintage stuff and cool selection but overpriced, and dont bother going in to just look around because you will get ran off. i was in there checking out some of their stuff and one of the guys says to the other loud and obnoxiously, dont you just love when people come in here like its a museum, i guess they dont know the museums down the street.being the only person in there i got the picture and left and they lost a customer. also i had a friend that purchased a guitar from them asking before he bought it if they took returns the answer being yes. low and behold he went to return it and they said all sales were final. nice. i also heard a story of them doing work on this guys 60s gibson explorer and f@@king it all up and returning it to him basically telling him to f**k off when he confronted them about it. if your a vintage junky go take a look but take heed to my warnings, these guys are twats.

Obviously oriented toward the high-end consumer and not toward the everyday player, IVG has some nice museum pieces, but my advice is don't even bother to go in there unless you're ready to drop a lot of money. That, by the way, is going to be inevitable, becuase IVG's goods are massively overpriced, entirely aside from the vintage guitars.

You may be able to get the attention of the sales people once you whip out your gold mastercard, but that's the only way you'll get their attention. They can be flatly snobby if you're not in there to drop a big wad of cash, and even if you do manage to get their attention, that attention shifts rapidly to whoever flashes their gold card first.

Overall, this is not one of my favorite places. I bought a vintage guitar from IVG which turned out to be a forgery, and their level of sympathy and interest post-sale was zero. In short, I was burned pretty good by these people.

Not that they don't have some decent stuff, but be prepared to pay two to three times what you should for it, and double check any claims they might make about the vintage instruments they sell.

There are other music stores in New Orleans that are not as upscale as IVG, but who offer better deals and more personal (and likable) service. If you're a rich dilettante collector who likes to pay too much for instruments you can keep in a glass case, and like to talk about guitars more than play them, IVG is your kind of place. If you're a musician, stay far away.

PROS: they do have some pretty guitars
CONS: Snobby sales staff, overpriced, questionable provenance on some vintage

This is a great Guitar Store located right on historic Magazine. they carry a grand selection of Vintage high quality guitars at affordable prices. The staff know their guitars and can help you decide what right for you.