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And probably shrinking, in terms of the number of players - even though the average number of guitars and amps each player now owns is reaching ludicrous proportions.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I have come in from the world of electronic keys where the second hand expectation for an instrument is very low, Ok so 30 years on some quirky stuff is worth money, and I take on board the earlier comment about guitars lack built in obsolescence so a quality old instrument is still valid, but I recon the expectation of value for old guitars is in another world.
The problem is that the expansion of the market by people accumulating more guitars has ground to a halt. I'm thinking more about whether I could shift one or two guitars than if I can add extra ones. The last one I bought was a CS Tele but I shifted my CIJ Tele so the numbers haven't grown.
There are more guitars out there now as well. As mentioned above Fender, PRS and Gibson are probably producing over 100k USA guitars in a year. You do that for 20 years and you have 2 million more high end guitars out there. It's got to saturate the market.
However, I'd say that the housing market in NI totally tanked, so it can happen, too (and NI wasn't the only place where it tanked, either). Admittedly ours was sort of tied in with ROI's as well which probably didn't help (and also had larger gains during the boom than most places).
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
The counter argument to that is my experience in 2009 -10 (assuming you accept eBay was mainstream back then, which I certainly do). I sold off my entire guitar collection, and every guitar fetched more than I originally paid - some of which were only a few months old. Moreover, many sold within days and all via Gumtree with the exception of three oddballs that I sold over on MR.
I couldn't dream of attaining the prices for my current USA strats that I received back then, in fact I doubt I would get 70% of the price . That experience is a stark reminder of how things have changed, and my motivation to post this thread.
I mean at the height of the boom a USA standard strat or tele was around £600 (IIRC). Now it's over £1000. An Ibanez RG1570 was £400 then, now almost double that. Etc. Factor inflation into that and it still doesn't account for that entire change. Factor in dodgy wage growth instead of inflation and it's even worse.
(You might be technically right with the "real terms" thing, since that accounts for inflation rather than wages )
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
IIRC the pound never actually hit parity with the Euro, but it got darn close at one point.
The oddest bit is relic guitars (as in, stock relic) are worth more than played in, genuine wear guitars of equivalent spec (example - fender custom shop). It still doesn't quite fit for me.