Price Increases and more to come

chris78

hyperben said:

A lot of people use vintage guitars as investments. Those people may or may not be players of course, but I suspect most are. What makes you think a vintage guitar would be unreliable? Have you had issues with them in the past? I’m quite keen to know as I’m looking to buy into more vintage gear so I don’t want to end up with issues.

I get some people see them as investments. Maybe they can be, unless the price bursts. I wonder if the baby boomer generation with decent pensions are the ones who fuel this? They wanted a 62 Strat, for example, and have the funds to pay daft money.

My experience and it's not massive:
I've wanted to refret every vintage guitar I've had. They were low to start with (I hate vintage frets) and they've worn over time. 
Pots can be crackly - easy fix of course, but a broken one doesn't help the value and any soldering work doesn't help the value either.
I've had a refinished tele where the refin was pretty shit by today's standards.
Pickups can wear out of course and need a rewind, thus killing the value.
Frankly the chances of getting one that is actually as advertised are between slim and fuck all. I'm sure if Fender made 2,000 62 Strats, there are currently 5,000 out there!

I'd much rather a quality new instrument without those issues and put into that context, a masterbuilt Fender (which I don't think are any better than "normal" CS in my experience) doesn't seem quite as daft, especially a second hand one, which can equally appreciate in price.

HandwrittenHero

chris78 said:

hyperben said:

A lot of people use vintage guitars as investments. Those people may or may not be players of course, but I suspect most are. What makes you think a vintage guitar would be unreliable? Have you had issues with them in the past? I’m quite keen to know as I’m looking to buy into more vintage gear so I don’t want to end up with issues.

I get some people see them as investments. Maybe they can be, unless the price bursts. I wonder if the baby boomer generation with decent pensions are the ones who fuel this? They wanted a 62 Strat, for example, and have the funds to pay daft money.

My experience and it's not massive:
I've wanted to refret every vintage guitar I've had. They were low to start with (I hate vintage frets) and they've worn over time. 
Pots can be crackly - easy fix of course, but a broken one doesn't help the value and any soldering work doesn't help the value either.
I've had a refinished tele where the refin was pretty shit by today's standards.
Pickups can wear out of course and need a rewind, thus killing the value.
Frankly the chances of getting one that is actually as advertised are between slim and fuck all. I'm sure if Fender made 2,000 62 Strats, there are currently 5,000 out there!

I'd much rather a quality new instrument without those issues and put into that context, a masterbuilt Fender (which I don't think are any better than "normal" CS in my experience) doesn't seem quite as daft, especially a second hand one, which can equally appreciate in price.

Similar view. I did enjoy my brief dip into vintage to scratch an itch, but didn't necessarily wind up thinking it was a case of magic mojo but just a nice guitar that was old. There was stuff I did think I'd probably change with it if I wanted to enjoy it more, but couldn't really make peace with what it would likely mean to the value of it so I moved it on.

Agree on newer instruments. I know it's expected to fire shots at Gibson particularly (and not arguing they don't deserve a lot of it either) but when push comes to shove I've had some good modern day instruments out of them. I love my R9 and my SG from their custom shop and also really rated a 2016 Les Paul Traditional I sold to @rlw a while back. Equally on the Fender side I've had good guitars and as much as anything any time there has been a question for me on a modern built one it's been answered more than well enough with a good set up or adaptation.

hyperben

Thanks @chris78 and @HandwrittenHero for your views 

bgmartinsbridge

My main concern with vintage is that the big vintage dealers are now buying off ebay and just spinning guitars at massive increases.

Appreciate you're getting a warranty and someone telling you what parts are original or not. But seems a lot of money to pay for not knowing if something is original or not. 

jeztone2

I’d only buy vintage if I both fell in love with a particular instrument, and it also had concrete provenance. A girl I work with’s father has a 63 Strat he bought from new. So he has all the documentation,
photographs of him playing gigs with it across several decades, and receipts for little bits of work done.

Unless it’s that level of disclosure. I wouldn’t trust any dealer. It’s too easy to fake stuff. Particularly Fenders. 

Strat54

@hyperben The Songbirds collection belonged to an investor W. Thorpe Mckenzie, every single guitar. He owned over thirty Fender Broadcasters alone.  The collection was worth circa £250m. I do however have a lot of friends who are keen players and collectors and own fantastic vintage examples, they are all under 45. They work incredibly hard and are rewarded accordingly. Their love for old guitars is immense. I know less baby boomers that collect. 

Dominic

I have to laugh about the Timber price increases as justification - yes wood prices have gone up immensely especially for the construction industry but I want to build a guitar not an Agricultural barn.
That bit of raw Alder that gets milled down and put through a thicknesser to make a Strat Body starts the journey at the cost of about £70 as a seasoned and selected section free of Timber shake and fault lines,stones, serious imperfection.
Lets say it has Doubled in price to £140 (a huge 100 % )........how does this translate to a £1800 Fender Custom Shop increase ?
Of course,labour,logistics etc have increased post Covid/ Brexit etc but it comes from the USA ....a £350 increase maybe but almost £2k ?????

Whitecat

Dominic said:

I have to laugh about the Timber price increases as justification - yes wood prices have gone up immensely especially for the construction industry but I want to build a guitar not an Agricultural barn.
That bit of raw Alder that gets milled down and put through a thicknesser to make a Strat Body starts the journey at the cost of about £70 as a seasoned and selected section free of Timber shake and fault lines,stones, serious imperfection.
Lets say it has Doubled in price to £140 (a huge 100 % )........how does this translate to a £1800 Fender Custom Shop increase ?
Of course,labour,logistics etc have increased post Covid/ Brexit etc but it comes from the USA ....a £350 increase maybe but almost £2k ?????

Any increase in the cost of materials alone will be multiplied by about 5, on average, by the time it hits the wall peg at the dealer. Everything else is on top of that. So if an alder blank doubled in price from £70 to £140, you’d be looking at about £350 extra on the price plus VAT just for that alone. Now add in the rest of the price increases on the rest of the woods, all the other stuff, and of course a “because we can” margin increase as well…

Devil#20

Most of us have got way too many guitars and don't need that many. I've got 20+ and all bar 3 or 4 of them are keepers. However, I really have no need to buy any more, even though I can justify certain guitars in my own messed up head. Those 3 or 4 will no doubt be one out and one in guitars. I really shouldn't be doing this but most of us are the same I think. We are all sitting on a small fortune, and more so, with these ridiculous price increases.  

TINMAN82

Devil#20 said:

Most of us have got way too many guitars and don't need that many. I've got 20+ and all bar 3 or 4 of them are keepers. However, I really have no need to buy any more, even though I can justify certain guitars in my own messed up head. Those 3 or 4 will no doubt be one out and one in guitars. I really shouldn't be doing this but most of us are the same I think. We are all sitting on a small fortune, and more so, with these ridiculous price increases.  

True. Not least due to all the wood being used up by the constant production of the latest new guitar lines. Totally unecessary, particularly given many of them end up as ornaments.

Devil#20

The thing is with vintage instruments is provenance. It's important that you don't just buy a proven guitar but also that you keep that going and keep a full history of what work you've had done to it with receipts since purchase and what work you've done yourself with before and after pics if relevant. It's the same as buying vintage anything whether that be a car or motorbike or whatever.