Custom Shop Pricing

chris78

Is it me or have prices gone up significantly again this year?
I had Peach get a quote for a special build for me. Team built, nos at £5,199. Other than a spalted maple top and Blackwood fingerboard, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Peach are stocking team built guitars up to £4,500 with several over £4K.

Ive just been on the Coda website and they gave 3 masterbuilts coming in at around £7,500. Beautiful looking guitars, but.....

If these are the new prices, it checks me out of buying anything new from the custom shop. It wasn’t that long ago a team built was just above £2k.

RaymondLin

They got to pay for that £4.5million fine somehow.

crunchman

Those are ridiculous prices.

Before all remoaners blame it on Brexit, the pound is simlar to what it was 3 and half years ago.  How much have Fender prices gone up in 3 and half years?  They are taking the mickey.

Whitecat

crunchman said:

Those are ridiculous prices.

Before all remoaners blame it on Brexit, the pound is simlar to what it was 3 and half years ago.  How much have Fender prices gone up in 3 and half years?  They are taking the mickey.

But it's *way* lower than it was 5 or 6 years ago, so you can't discount that completely. That said, yeah, the other part is that Fender do appear to be raising their prices disproportionately to inflation...

Regarding the original question I would imagine that the unusual top wood and fretboard wood are the issue with yours... it is "out of the ordinary" for them to do those on team-built instruments - if you look at the Artisan lineup where you'd normally find those alternative woods they are significantly more expensive than the regular reissues.

I keep thinking that Fender CS prices are gonna hit a ceiling but it's not really showing yet...

Schmo

Well, if folk are daft enough to keep paying those prices hell mend them ! Plenty of choices around way cheaper than that, or get 2 for the price of one...

Jackobean

One does wonder how sustainable this whole situation can be. Gibson may have increased their prices once more, but also appear to have cut back production accordingly, whereas most of the big dealers have a glut of CS Fenders sitting there.

guitars4you

I pulled the plug on my Custom Shop dealership agreement for new deliveries/orders for 2020 - As you know I'm slowing calling it a day - But I did know that another price increase was on the way, which is another increase on 2018 and 2019 price increases

The spalted maple top and blackwood fingerboard would add a decent 'wad' to the basic price - But I've seen more regular vintage formats now pushing 4K and some beyond

Agree about above comments in that don't blame it on Brexit - Thomann's prices are pretty much in-line with the UK - Plus don't talk about the big guys getting a better price, as with only a few exceptions it is only the big boys who stock/sell C/Shop these days

It will push up the price of used CS models and already it is hard to find any under 2K with good examples already £2500 in the private ads - There will continue to be a strong market for used examples with new stock at 4K plus 

terada

£7500 for a bolt on designed to be quickly and easily manufactured by factory workers. 

I’d love to know what Leo would think of this all. 

RaymondLin

terada said:

£7500 for a bolt on designed to be quickly and easily manufactured by factory workers. 

I’d love to know what Leo would think of this all. 

Don't forget the stencil relic job.

guitars4you

terada said:

£7500 for a bolt on designed to be quickly and easily manufactured by factory workers. 

I’d love to know what Leo would think of this all. 

Agree with the question/thought pattern - And yes many 'spin offs' can build top quality boutique models for less - Suhr, Anderson etc etc

Around 1962 a Strat in the UK was £140 - Today, via an inflation calculator, that puts it at 3K ish - Up to about 2 years ago, that was the price of a new Custom Shop 62 replica - Which is effectively the same guitar - Certainly the same grade

For a few years I've often passed comment that you can still buy a 62 Strat today for less than it was in 1962 - ie a CS model - And certainly for less than an original vintage model that now will fetch in excess of 15-25K - Most of the time the CS model has been less than £140 converted on an inflation calculator - In the last 2 years it has gone beyond that 

Strat54

They seem expensive but when you look back in time maybe not so. In 1993 I dropped £2200 of hard earned cash on Chandler's counter for a newly released Danny Gatton Tele...that's 27 years ago. Even the first relics in 1996 were £1995.
However I have an invoice for a new masterbuilt Tele from 1995 that was only £2300 and now the same guitar would be £7k. 
So masterbuilts have spiralled out of control and now these supposedly masterbuilders do much less work to the guitars than the original team in the 90's did. You pay £7300 for one and its still painted by the same one guy who paints ALL the Custom Shop guitars at Fender. The body and neck are still cut by the same CNC machine, you're just paying for some assembly and a supposedly bespoke spec.Not sure who is buying these guitars now.....but they seem to sell pretty well. 

chris78

Interesting @Strat54 as Fender wanted to push me down the masterbuilt route with my spec and it sounds like they priced a team built accordingly.
The trouble Fender will have though is that £7-8k takes it into players grade vintage territory. I’ve not got a great record with vintage guitars, but if I drop £7-8k on a masterbuilt and then move it on, I’ll get maybe £4K and that’s if I’m lucky. If I drop £7-8k on a player grade vintage, I get £7-8k back, maybe more if the market appreciates. 

Strat54

Its a difficult choice @chris78 I'd avoid the masterbuilt route because thats where the most depreciation would lie on resale. I'm thinking you'd lose 50% after a short while unless you dropped lucky on a private sale. Your spec might not be to everyone's taste either. For some reason NOS finished guitars aren't so popular right now. There's also the terrible wait too for the decent builders. They have them doing so many dealer tours around the globe that they are anywhere up to 4 years back ordered now for Cruz, Wilson and Krause. You'd probably have to go with one of the new guys. 
The vintage market is on the up right now, I'm good friends with some of the major players in that field, collectors too and the only way is UP right now. I've seen the good stuff appreciate $10k+ over the last year. Things have gone crazy and there's an insatiable demand. Even the player grade vintage are appreciating rapidly too. Not so long ago a refin blackguard Tele was £9k....now its £15k. The only problem is the vintage trade is not always as it seems. I could point you towards one original custom colour Strat on Reverb right now that is a refin despite its COA from a now defunct UK dealer. Not the seller's fault, but the dealers.....Say no more....can't name them here obviously. Food for thought.

bully

guitars4you said:

terada said:

£7500 for a bolt on designed to be quickly and easily manufactured by factory workers. 

I’d love to know what Leo would think of this all. 

Agree with the question/thought pattern - And yes many 'spin offs' can build top quality boutique models for less - Suhr, Anderson etc etc

Around 1962 a Strat in the UK was £140 - Today, via an inflation calculator, that puts it at 3K ish - Up to about 2 years ago, that was the price of a new Custom Shop 62 replica - Which is effectively the same guitar - Certainly the same grade

For a few years I've often passed comment that you can still buy a 62 Strat today for less than it was in 1962 - ie a CS model - And certainly for less than an original vintage model that now will fetch in excess of 15-25K - Most of the time the CS model has been less than £140 converted on an inflation calculator - In the last 2 years it has gone beyond that 

Great bit of info there, question I've thought of but not followed through (or rather too lazy to follow through). Gives a bit of perspective.

soma1975

I think  once we are in £7k territory it would need to be vintage or like used on an album I liked or something. 

tone1

At £7k I ain’t even looking 

artiebear

It does seem a bit crazy. My 3 CS guitars were all under 2k, which all being acquired some years ago seems an ok deal. they are all superb examples which do the job very well. Having said that I have a 91 strat plus and a 93 tele which, if compared in terms of performance against my CS Fenders, are pound for pound ridiculously good.value. 
In terms off the current Fender ( and the other big two ) marketing strategies, it is clear that once the envelope has been pushed and eagerly accepted, the next step is is to increase the offer and watch it being accepted. It is, in the end, the corporate dream to have a single product that can be incrementally resold to a customer base chasing the impossible dream.

richardhomer

I have a 2006 56 Relic which I paid £1500 a few years ago. It’s a really lovely Strat - two-tone sunburst, big (but comfortable) one piece maple neck - and sounds fantastic.

The price of the new stuff is getting silly. I assume Fender’s judgement is selling fewer - at higher margins - is good business. They’re probably right. 

artiebear

richardhomer said:

I have a 2006 56 Relic which I paid £1500 a few years ago. It’s a really lovely Strat - two-tone sunburst, big (but comfortable neck) one piece maple neck - and sounds fantastic.

The price of the new stuff is getting silly. I assume Fender’s judgement is selling fewer - at higher margins - is good business. They’re probably right. 

Richard, you make a great point in your post. CS should mean exclusive (at a price without being silly). It should not mean tier upon tier of stuff which is, essentially,  production line made and sold with a scrap of paper to to say that "this guitar is bloody expensive, so there ". Sadly, like Gibson they are producing dead forests of the stuff hoping that each purchaser thinks they have paid for something exclusive. 

BloodEagle

£4k + on something as run of the mill and easy to put together as a tele or strat is a massive pisstake. WTF does 'team built' mean? I assume that all big company production guitars are 'team built' in one way or another arent they? Excuse my french but paying that for so much marketing bullshit is fucking ludicrous

Dominic

^ Exactly this .........just ridiculous
You can get a very decent 5 year old car for £7k
Team built .....gotta laugh........"factory built "......."department built " ......." technician built " ............MEH !