A while back, i posted a couple of brief pieces on sevenstring.org that looked at the high-level economics of running a small guitar business. I still get occasional requests for a link back to the original posts, so i thought i’d extract it, update it and post it here, so there’s a more permanent (and easily-found) record of it. This is the first of two parts.
Why guitars cost what they do.
I’ve noticed in the last few years that there has been increasing demand for “custom shop” instruments. It’s one of those things that ebbs and flows over time, and the current economic situation notwithstanding, we seem to be on one of those upward swings where guitarists reach a certain level in their playing, and they’re no longer satisfied with “off-the-shelf” instruments, and start looking for something unique, something different, or something that just suits them better.
Along with this trend, i’ve also noticed (in general terms) that the average age and pocketbook depth of people seeking boutique or custom-shop instruments seems to be inversely proportional to the demand. I can’t count the number of threads on guitar discussion forums i’ve seen where a young player thinks he or she can get a guitar built to their spec for $1000 or less. A worrying trend is that there have actually been a few luthiers who will take them up on it.
Yet when you stop and look at what the true costs of building guitars as a small independent builder, you get a very different picture. No matter how you frame it, penny-pinching, perpetually broke musicians often don’t seem to understand why their dream custom guitar from a small builder should actually cost much, much more than the $1000 they’re willing to shell out. They can’t comprehend why the price list at a big-name custom shop like Jackson starts at around $3500. Click past the break to read more… Read more
