Article: Why are guitars getting more expensive?

[brandtkronholm]

It's an interesting read from Guitar World.

Link: Why are guitars getting more expensive?

My take away from the article is that guitar makers are running businesses, so it is what it is and whatchagonnado?
My bottom line is that you don't need an expensive guitar to have fun and make music.

 

[S. Weiger]

It's an interesting read from Guitar World.

Link: Why are guitars getting more expensive?

My take away from the article is that guitar makers are running businesses, so it is what it is and whatchagonnado?
My bottom line is that you don't need an expensive guitar to have fun and make music.

Define expensive.
To a 12 year old newbie, $200 can be a lot of money, yet it will only buy you a not-so-funny china crap "guitar" I think.
Unless you buy used.. not a road for the novice to go down just yet?

 

[MarcB]

When I started out playing and collecting guitars I was solely a Fender buyer.. and often wondered why Gibson’s were so expensive.. then I bought a large body Gibson Herb Ellis.. and knew it was a great guitar.. but I still bought Fender’s.. then during lockdown I went down the 335 route and then realised why!? and then after buying two more and a new 345.. I then understood completely.. and since then have added a Les Paul, SG and es137 custom.. all of which weren’t cheap.. (well they were in comparison to the market at the time) but it didn’t matter because I then subscribed to the market (and still do). Point being.. once you subscribe to the market.. your pricing point increases.

I am a victim of headstock branding.. but this would be due to the resale value of branded guitars hold.. but I’m also aligned to the notion of the “best guitars are played by my hero’s”. Which then fulfils the ambition of ownership.

I agree that you don’t need an expensive guitar to play .. but when you get hooked, you need to play on branded guitars to validate your art. After which you may go down the lesser branded route due to having your technique and style down.. so you can express yourself on any guitar.. but expressing yourself on a branded guitar will always have its place on the scene including from the audience’s perspective. As you always hear stories about “I saw *insert artist name* playing a Les Paul and I knew that’s what I wanted to do”

*Sidebar in relation to pricing .. I’ve noticed over the last two months used guitars have come down to post covid prices on certain instruments. So there are still bargains and deals to be had and given the cost of living “crisis” I will imagine the stores will be doing big discounts and deals very soon.

Happy playing and hunting ?

 

[DrewB]

Define expensive.
To a 12 year old newbie, $200 can be a lot of money, yet it will only buy you a not-so-funny china crap "guitar" I think.
Unless you buy used.. not a road for the novice to go down just yet?

When I started playing in 1983, $300 bought a mediocre starter guitar, at least based on what I was able to find in stores within 90 minutes of where I lived. That same $300 will buy you an far-superior instrument today. Even the $200 MIC guitar these days is a much better starter than the piece of junk I had. I heard someone say that the cheap starter that may be a little punky in its playability is the best test of a new player's determination to play. There may well be something to that...

 

[Any Name You Wish]

Inflation. In the immortal words of Randy Bachman: "You ain't seen nothing yet." Just in case you have not noticed, our elected officials are borrowing trillions and spending it (deficit spending). They even get the Federal Reserve to buy some of this debt (money printing). That's why guitars cost more, and so do cars, houses, eggs, two-by-fours and just about everything else. To blame it on greedy corporations and big ego affluent buyers is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[DrewB]

Inflation. In the immortal words of Randy Bachman: "You ain't seen nothing yet." Just in case you have not noticed, our elected officials are borrowing trillions and spending it (deficit spending). They even get the Federal Reserve to buy some of this debt (money printing). That's why guitars cost more, and so do cars, houses, eggs, two-by-fours and just about everything else. To blame it on greedy corporations and big ego affluent buyers is absolutely ridiculous.

Maybe not "absolutely ridiculous," but certainly purposefully-ignorant, plain-ol'-ignorant or narrative-compliant that the government's financial irresponsibility isn't a major factor.

"Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan

 

[MarcB]

All money is debt.
All debts are loans.
All debt subtracted to loans equals zero.
Therefore there is no financial crisis just a cycle of inequality economics.

 

[DrewB]

All money is debt.
All debts are loans.
All debt subtracted to loans equals zero.
Therefore there is no financial crisis just a cycle of inequality economics.

Definitely a bit more than a grain of truth there.

 

[jb_abides]

Even though the article covers monetary policy, it is much more focused on supply shock phenomena.

OK, but then stating things are moderating and they are doing well should be presented with a caveat, 'so far.'

We are still going to experience more, as folks don't see the sinusoidal effects of money printing and fiscal irresponsibility yet to come.

 

[MarcB]

sinusoidal effects of money printing and fiscal irresponsibility yet to come.

It’s becoming a very real possibility that the US and UK will become more like Brazil in economic and social terms.. which is unacceptable as we the people work hard and pay taxes.. but the fiscal inequalities will continue to prevail, to keep us poor and much poorer going forward.. and I want a True Historic !!! So I will riot and make my feelings known. Grr.

Bonjour.

 

[LeonC]

When a friend was visiting me here in LA in 2021, after the 1st major wave of the pandemic appeared to be winding down, he wanted to hit all the "good" vintage guitar stores. I told him you gotta see the "vintage room" at the Hollywood Guitar Center -- it's legendary. So we drove up there and you know what? It was completely empty! There were like 3 guitars there and they weren't vintage...some 70s era Ibanezes, IIRC. So we drove to a few vintage shops in Glendale/Burbank area and they were cleaned out too. Norm's wasn't open when we went by. Now...these places were not known for their cheap, reasonably priced guitars...quite the opposite if anything. They told us they got cleaned out during the pandemic and that people weren't yet coming back in to do trades.

So, folks were spending LOTS of money during the pandemic on what vintage stuff was available. We're not talking about people who just got a $600 check feeling like they could now afford a $25K vintage strat. What this told me is that people with a lot of disposable income--probably relatively wealthy older people (who we know are more into guitar music than younger people, generally speaking)--were spending some savings on expensive guitars. And as more relatively-well-off, older people (and there are A LOT of them in the US) continue to retire, this trend will continue, I think.

And for some people who invested in "the right stocks" (here in the US at least), it's been paying off amazingly well in the last year and a half or so. A very focused but robust bull market. So many are feeling fat and happy to spend, apparently.

As for mfgs...my take was that they were, in varying degrees, greatly buffeted by supply chain issues resulting from the pandemic, and while things have improved notably in that regard, we're not done yet as more business in the supply chain are starting to de-globalize.

And then there's the part of the article, in which they predictably (and correctly!) pointed out that guitars are not really expensive compared to past eras when adjusted for inflation.

And of course there's the "because we can" angle. Demand is apparently still surprisingly robust and the big builders can still get away with raising prices.

 

[S. Weiger]

When I started playing in 1983, $300 bought a mediocre starter guitar, at least based on what I was able to find in stores within 90 minutes of where I lived. That same $300 will buy you an instrument far superior instrument today. Even the $200 MIC guitar these days is a much better starter than the piece of junk I had. I heard someone say that the cheap starter that may be a little punky in its playability is the best test of a new player's determination to play. There may well be something to that...

For some perhaps. But I know that many a young/older guitar newbie has tried their luck with a very cheap first time guitar, only to lose interest in learning, because they thought it was their fault only that it sounded shitty.

 

[DutchRay]

Why is food so expensive, why are cars so expensive, why are houses so expensive? Inflation. Many books have been written about it. The price of a major brand guitar is actually the same as in the fifties when corrected for inflation, about one or two months salary.
When I started playing electric at 13, I got a piece of crap Hondo strat copy for about €100,- and believe me, it was a piece of crap. Lately I got an €84 Fazley strat copy for one of my students and I was floored by the serious quality of the guitar, sure I had to do a fret polish and new strings but other than that I would be totally fine if I had to gig with it, where my old Hondo was only useable as baseball bat or firewood.

 

[Bob Womack]

A new Gibson Les Paul Standard cost $450 in 1974. Once you adjust for inflation, your $450 is worth $2,815.17 today. This year a similar Gibson Les Paul Standard 60s costs from $2499.99 to $2999.99 at Sweetwater. Where's the inequity in that? I spent three years as a college student saving every penny to buy a used 1974 Kalamazoo-built Gibson Les Paul Standard for $425. By that time, the new ones were $550. Over that three-year period I chased a twenty-two percent inflation rate. I still have the guitar.

Bob

 

[Any Name You Wish]

When a friend was visiting me here in LA in 2021, after the 1st major wave of the pandemic appeared to be winding down, he wanted to hit all the "good" vintage guitar stores. I told him you gotta see the "vintage room" at the Hollywood Guitar Center -- it's legendary. So we drove up there and you know what? It was completely empty! There were like 3 guitars there and they weren't vintage...some 70s era Ibanezes, IIRC. So we drove to a few vintage shops in Glendale/Burbank area and they were cleaned out too. Norm's wasn't open when we went by. Now...these places were not known for their cheap, reasonably priced guitars...quite the opposite if anything. They told us they got cleaned out during the pandemic and that people weren't yet coming back in to do trades.

So, folks were spending LOTS of money during the pandemic on what vintage stuff was available. We're not talking about people who just got a $600 check feeling like they could now afford a $25K vintage strat. What this told me is that people with a lot of disposable income--probably relatively wealthy older people (who we know are more into guitar music than younger people, generally speaking)--were spending some savings on expensive guitars. And as more relatively-well-off, older people (and there are A LOT of them in the US) continue to retire, this trend will continue, I think.

And for some people who invested in "the right stocks" (here in the US at least), it's been paying off amazingly well in the last year and a half or so. A very focused but robust bull market. So many are feeling fat and happy to spend, apparently.

As for mfgs...my take was that they were, in varying degrees, greatly buffeted by supply chain issues resulting from the pandemic, and while things have improved notably in that regard, we're not done yet as more business in the supply chain are starting to de-globalize.

And then there's the part of the article, in which they predictably (and correctly!) pointed out that guitars are not really expensive compared to past eras when adjusted for inflation.

And of course there's the "because we can" angle. Demand is apparently still surprisingly robust and the big builders can still get away with raising prices.

The Baby Boomer effect is real. Also, many people got far more than a $600 or even a $2,500 check. If you had a business with employees you got a PPP "loan" that never has to be repaid and it was tens of thousands if not a few hundred thousand. The "Helicopter Money" was also real. Double whammy (no pun intended). We are into the steep part of the X squared function now, and most of us don't want to even think about it.

 

[DrewB]

I guess it's time to break this out...

 

[SpencerD]

Every guitar I've bought is what I wanted. Paid the price. Own it.

 

[Bryansamui]

Inflation. In the immortal words of Randy Bachman: "You ain't seen nothing yet." Just in case you have not noticed, our elected officials are borrowing trillions and spending it (deficit spending). They even get the Federal Reserve to buy some of this debt (money printing). That's why guitars cost more, and so do cars, houses, eggs, two-by-fours and just about everything else. To blame it on greedy corporations and big ego affluent buyers is absolutely ridiculous.

In China, the world's largest manufacturers of guitars ,It was on the news this morning they are experiencing DEFLATION . Everything is going Down in price over there. This is due to collapsed property market, weak exports, low consumer demand, stock market downturn.They will start dumping excess product on the world market.

 

[SpencerD]

I don't care how you got here. I'm happy you showed up.

 

[Amp360]

When I was young, I had one or two guitars. Most of my friends had the same.

These days, brand names have been gobbled up, and many companies will put a once iconic name (like Fender, Gretsch, etc.) on any low-end (or high-end) piece of garbage, and internet folks will buy it to make a pretty picture that checks all the boxes for forum posts.

Then you have people willing to pay a premium for fancy things. I imagine people my dad's age probably bought a six-pack of something like Budweiser or Schlitz. Now, people want to pay $40 for some fancy beer that makes them feel good—the same thing with $9 coffees or $200 tennis shoes.

There's a market for fooling people into thinking quality is worth paying for when, often, what you're buying is either unnecessary or not as good as what the regular thing used to be.

For example, in the old days, you went to the music store and bought a Twin Reverb or something. It cost a decent amount of money and was the same one that Elvis was using on television. Today, your choice is to buy the Twin Reverb that kind of looks like the iconic one, find some cork sniffer version that will cost you 10,000, or buy an old one for a jacked-up price because of the two reasons I just listed.

Then, 99.99% of the folks who buy it keep it on two and (maybe) play it at home. It sure looks cute in pictures, though!

Guitar has changed from being something people do for a living or hobby to something people collect, tinker with, complain about, take pictures of, debate, but rarely actually use.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it is how I see it. Also, for all the crap Gibson takes, I'm glad it still is #authentic and made in the USA. I've yet to see any of the issues I read about online. The USA line are great guitars and although I've not played millions of them those custom jobs seem to knock it out of the park.