I'm surprised that "vintage" WA goes all the way to 1991. I would cap it in the mid 70s at the latest.

I think Vintage refers to the time before Wishbone Ash became one original member plus three hired hands. I also think that the band did release some great albums after the mid 70s. No Smoke Without Fire, Just Testing and Here To Hear are all favourites of mine along with earlier albums like Argus and There's The Rub.

However as I already own CDs of 13 of the 16 studio albums and one of the live albums, and I have no desire to own signed posters or a 7" flexidisc which I can't play as I don't have a record deck, I'm going to pass. If they fail to shift all 2500 boxes it would be good if they'd sell the contents separately. I might be interested in one or two of the new live recordings on their own.

You can see the tracklist of all the CDs here

https://burningshed.com/store/madfish/wishbone-ash_the-vintage-years_boxset

A few things that strike me:

The set includes 10 live versions of Blowin' Free, 9 Kings will Come and 7 Phoenixes, amongst other duplicated tracks. A little bit of overkill, methinks.

There are two recordings from the 1973 tour but all the songs on the second one are also on the first one. Considering that WA were never known for improvisation, what is the point of the second show?

Same with the Front Page News tour. You could get rid of the Marquee Club CD and you'd only be missing Phoenix - and as stated above there are another 6  live versions of the song in the set.

I wonder how many of these "new" live recordings were previously released on the Tracks CDs. A fair few, I would guess.

For completion, I would have included a gig with Trevor Bolder and one with Spam Spence, plus something from the reunion era too. Was nothing available?

Finally, most of the bonus tracks were available on the previous CD releases, or on First Light and Lost Pearls. There are a few from the 80s lineups which appear to be new, but to be honest I wouldn't want to hear any out takes from Raw To The Bone because the tracks that did make the album were awful anyway.

Sorry, but this feels like a ripoff to me. And I say that as a big fan.

Hmm now even I'm starting to get second thoughts about this. And I already cancelled hulu and napster to make some more room in my budget to save a little each month until April. Idk I'm very much on the fence at this point. Wishbone Ash is my favorite band. I mean I love Genesis, Frank Zappa, Yes, Gentle Giant, etc.. but if a stranger comes up to me and asks, "who is your favorite band?" My answer will be, "Wishbone Ash." 

I don't know. I feel like I should get it, but I don't want to feel like I got ripped off. 

Bluntly, this is sh*t value compared to many of the other big box sets coming out. I'd call it greedy.

I'd be pretty surprised if it sells out fast, given the high price and the fact that many hardcore Ash fans will be dubious about parting with that kind of money to get little new apart from some live recordings which, as has been pointed out, are pretty repetitious. So if I were you I'd wait and see what happens to the price after it is released. May well be you'll find it at a substantially better price on Amazon, eBay or Discogs. If not you'll probably still have chance to pick it up at full ticket.

They are saving all that for the sequel box, presumably to be called "Ash Ordinaire: The Non-Vintage Years".  With any luck they can make that one up to a full 30 CDs by including a dozen or so remix CDs of Trance Visionary by happening contemporary producers.

Yeah, you could well be right. If I did see it on Amazon or somewhere much cheaper I'd really kick myself. It's a big gamble but I think that is probably the smart move, wait. Thanks a lot!