Overpriced Guitars

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Expensive vs Overpriced

Expensive Guitars: An expensive guitar would be like a JET or a Centurion or maybe an Abstract.  These are guitars that cost a lot of money. You must understand that they are worth every penny,  because they are totally hand made by a talented Luthier from start to finish.

There are new engineering ideas incorporated,  extremely high end tone woods, all the finest components available & no expense is spared to make sure these are the finest guitars available on the planet. The Luthiers, that build all of the guitars that we choose to call expensive guitars, are driven by the goal of absolute perfection.  (click here)

Overpriced Guitars: Are simply overpriced guitars. Most come from the large mega corporations that mass produce guitars, they are known to flourish by  putting out limited editions or historic reissues of an older model guitar. They will then sell these average quality,  average looking, questionable quality guitars for incredibly high prices.  The most amazing thing is that the more they charge, the more value the public perceives they are receiving & consequently more are sold. Here at Ed Roman's, we will never give up trying to re educate the brainwashed public. Lately it seems we are making a lot of progress.

In all actuality, the usual basic overpriced guitar will incorporate worthless plastic inlays, cheap rosewood fingerboards, all plywood construction, loose neck joints, cheap hardware, fair workmanship, and no new positive enhancements that could possibly make the guitar worth even 1/5th of what it is selling for.  These companies rely solely on the false perception that their advertising represents, without paying celebrities huge sums of money,  these companies would all drop & die.

Some companies are better than others. Fender for example will charge more for their anniversary models & artist series guitars. In most cases however there are some definite improvements and they are not charging an arm and a leg more as say for example some other companies do.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a Japanese or Korean Guitar. In fact some of them are excellent.  I take issue that some of these companies like ESP for example actually have Japanese and or Korean guitars that list in the $4,200.00 range.  That is simply insanity. The guitar should sell for somewhere around $800.00 !  That would allow the company to make a fair markup and be able to function well. These guitars are priced very high and they don't even offer ebony fretboards.

Another sure fire way to spot a rip-off is to look at the tremolo system. Don't accept anything with a soft metal bridge plate,  stay away from imported Floyd Rose trems, Be careful of cheapo rosewood fingerboards.

Frontloading Cache Value: Never buy a guitar from any company that is charging up front for possible extra value later. Unless they are only charging a small token amount more like Fender & Dean do.  Some un named companies will rip you off for almost 10 times the value when they release their anniversary models. The dealers who purchase these guitars lose their shirts.  I have bought over 20 of them at way below dealer cost. Many dealers were stuck with product that no one would buy. Luckily for the consumer some of these particular campaigns fail miserably but some companies overpriced Historic Reissues continue to be a huge source of revenue for them.

If you stop & think about it sensibly for a period of just two minutes, You might then realize, that these reissue guitars are designed solely for the purpose of appealing to a counterfeiter, who may be planning on distressing it to give it the appearance of being original. The appeal lies in the fact that the guitar could then be sold to another unsuspecting consumer as an older original model. Consumers have been known to spend insane amounts of money, trying to join the exclusive club of people, who truly own the original vintage guitars. These people are usually long on money & short on brains.  Personally,  I am not into joining any of those little cliques, I would rather invest my money in guitars where the workmanship, quality & designs separate them from the rest of the pack.

Ed Roman

July 2006

 

 

On this page I  have assembled a couple of pertinent articles, you may find interest in.  I realize the above article will probably piss off more than just a few people. I also assume these are people who either have real, or think, they have real vintage guitars, I am sure I will piss off the counterfeiters & manufacturers that knowingly take part in  these scams.  I welcome your comments and letters, I will print any and all of them. If you disagree with me please try to refrain from calling me names and stick to the issues at hand. I present these articles in the spirit of educating the customers and I mean no direct insult to the people who may or may not have already spent a ton of money on what they thought was a real vintage guitar.

Read On & Please Send In Those Comments !!!!!

 

 
These Photos From The PRS Factory
You are looking at a CNC Machine

Computer Numerically Controlled

 

All of the delicate cutting operations are done by $85,000.00 machine. All of the shaping, sanding, binding & fitting is robotically accomplished. There are no human hands, no human eyes to line up the wood perfectly so that imperfections in the wood fall into locations that won't be seen later. There is nothing illegal about building a guitar with a machine.  

I feel, it's totally unethical & immoral to charge the extremely high handmade prices. just because you made your original reputation by building handmade guitars.

Most every large company is guilty of this, I can think of very few large companies who still actually handbuild their guitars.

BC Rich USA,  Jackson Custom Shop, & maybe the PRS private stock guitars are semi hand built. These are all I can think of off the top of my head.  I repeat, There is nothing wrong with CNC made guitars except that they are usually overpriced and under built. They generally lack a certain vibe, soul or character that can only be achieved from a hand built guitar. Not everyone can necessarily benefit from these detailed characteristics, So that's why a custom made hand built guitar isn't for everyone.  I always recommend a mid priced machine made Fender, Jackson, Dean, OLP, Hamer, or  Ibanez for a beginner or for the working musician who needs a good guitar.  A custom made guitar is not for everyone. When and if, you finally decide to get a custom made instrument, you cross the threshold between good & great. Today a machine made guitar is considered a tool and a handmade one is potentially an heirloom or an investment guitar.

The worst offenders that I can think of is ESP, Lakland, Gibson & Taylor.  Many people assume that these companies are hand building.  These guitars are totally machine made in Asia and priced incredibly high. The Lakland company offer a USA made and an Asian made models, Both are so unbelievably overpriced that It should be a crime. Certain very well known brands of guitars are well known for being overpriced by everyone but I feel that their machine made guitars are overpriced so much that even if they were handmade they are still incredibly overpriced.  In the case of Taylor, they are also machine made and if you pay attention to their ridiculous image based advertising campaign you might think they were handmade.   NOT!!!!!!

PRS on the other hand has publicly stated that they are %100 machine made. (Kudos For Honesty) Up until a couple of years ago they actually used to be proud of it, They even boasted about it. Today the consumer isn't as stupid as they used to be, thanks to people who print these little exposé's on their websites. Today PRS doesn't call too much attention to it and in their last catalog they show numerous photos of craftsmen actually carving guitars. I presume those guitars are their private stock models, I know they are not the models you will see when you walk into a big box store or corporate superstore.

Tom Anderson says he builds three guitars a day, that may be 100% true. Or is this just a clever way to possibly make the consumer think they are handmade. Because Tom has CNC machinery and if he wanted to he could produce many more guitars a day.

This whole article was prompted by a customer who attempted to trade in a plain black blah looking Sadowsky NYC Bass earlier today. 
I offered the customer what I considered to be a very generous trade in, I actually offered him way too much by my standard, $2,000.00 because I had heard that these basses were pretty good. (In fact they are quite good the same as many of the guitars listed above)

When he told me he wanted $3,500.00 for the bass I was appalled. This instrument is made from parts & constructed almost exactly like a Fender. The customer went on to tell me that the electronics were amazing. I played the bass, I had to agree the electronics were great. However I know that once an electronic circuit is designed you can copy it exactly for less than $10.00 each. I also like the way the bass played & felt. I just could not wrap myself around the price.

I did about 15 minutes of research and I was able to determine who builds the bodies, necks, bridge, tuners & pickups.  My own production made machine made low end "Lowrider model bass can be bought brand new for about $2,500.00 cheaper. Coincidentally the components are all exactly the same, (With exception of his proprietary electronic circuit)

Now I'm not claiming my bass is better, I'm not claiming anything. I'm just trying to make a point about overpricing.... (You No Longer Get What You Pay For !!! & That's A Cold Hard Fact)

We have in our inventory  at least 2 Fender Basses with Sadowsky's $250.00 electronics built in should we charge $250.00 more or should we charge $2,500.00 more  (Think about it)

Ed Roman

 

 More Deprogramming From Ed Roman
Please read what I have written below with an open mind 

There Are 2 Major Cliché's That Are No Longer True In The Guitar Business !!!

 

1,  You Get What You Pay For!!!!

It's painfully obvious to me or to anyone who is not intellectually challenged, today many large corporations, use this tired old cliché to their financial advantage. They are constantly pricing guitars at extremely high prices, so that consumers will think they are actually handmade well built instruments.

I first learned this fact back in 1991, I was employed by Gibson Guitars. The president of Gibson, Henry Juszkiewicz made this statement to me. "The higher the price the better the guitar" "or at least that will be the customers perception". 

This may have backfired a little on him, due to the fact that this artificial perception, that a production made guitar has to be so expensive, has made it possible for custom builders like, Myself, JET, Gledura, Jaros, Benedetto, McPherson, Dingwall, & Alembic to flourish. Simply because most intelligent people, would rather have a custom guitar. Especially if they could buy it for the same price or less than a machine made production instrument.

2,  It's Just Too Good To Be True!!!!

That's another Bulls&%t Cliché, The Man & all the large corporations want to instill in your mind.  (Don't you believe that for even one second !!!!!!!!)

A tribe isn't a tribe unless it has one Chief & many Indians. 

The Chief is nothing without Indians!!

The question you must ask yourself your whole life is "Am I A Chief,  Or Am I An Indian"

The Indian will believe the old "It's too good to be true" adage and go back to smoking his peace pipe. The Chief will just go for it  There lies the inherent difference.

Some people play original music, They are known as innovators, Some people play only cover tunes, In Vegas they are known as Lounge Bands.

Now that doesn't make these people bad people, But it doesn't make them Chief's either !!!!

Ed Roman

06/17/05

 

Monkey See Monkey Do

The monkey will play the same guitar as all the other monkeys will. 

 

 

 

This is a Gibson 100th Anniversary Explorer The Retail List Price is $10.000.00 as of 1994
That was truly an overpriced guitar!!!

This guitar is in reality  a $1,200.00  that should have sold for $849.00 at the absolute highest
  Gibson has preloaded a huge cache to it's price.

 

guitars