My experience has been that the original rubber material on your average guitar stand will dry rot after only a few years.  In addition to leaving bare metal for you to ship your guitar's finish on, this decaying substance can (and probably will!) stain any unfinished wood on the guitar, especially the neck.  The back of the neck on my black Strat is permanently marked because of this.

Worse yet, vinyl and rubber will slowly release solvent that will etch into the finish on any part they touch for an extended period.  Thankfully, my Strat survived a relatively limited exposure to this material before I removed it entirely, but your vintage '57 flame top Gibson Les Paul may not fare so well.

Before... Notice how crummy the rubber has gotten on this stand.  A lot of good this does your guitar!  (This is my friend Allen's stand.) Fortunately, there's something you can do about it!

After... I replaced all that cheap rubbery stuff on my guitar stands with this sturdier material. This is basic plumber's tubing, and it can be found in various sizes in just about any major hardware store. My recommendation is to go with a size that is about 1.5x the diameter of the bare metal.  This will still be a tight squeeze, but it will stay in place and still provide enough cushion to protect your guitar. It takes only about five minutes per stand.

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