the price of equipment has gotten incredible.

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dr.underhill

dr.underhill

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there's probably been rants of this sort before, but i'll put in my 2 cents. in the first place i'm an old motherfucker. turn 60 in just a few weeks. got my first qcoustic in 63 and my first electric (a danelectro DC and an AT&T 5watt tube combo) in 64. being about the time the beatles first got real notice here in the states it predates the big boom in guitar/amps by a few months- the folk scene was on the decline about this time. anyway there were a fraction of the choices back then. gibson, fender, epiphone, ricks were about the only serious brands and the entry level equipment was about $100-150. even the upper level stuff was in the $300 or so range. wages were low- my first real job paid $1.35hr. but if you were serious and saved you could pick up clean used equipment pretty cheap. i got a guild starfire IV in 66 for an even hundred+ a pro reverb for another seventy-five- both plenty decent. when i got married the first time in 75 i bought a 68 tele blonde with a rosewood board for $150 with the original case from a dealer i wound up working for in 78.
at that time i remember a glut of jazz guitars in our area. i know i sold about a dozen es-175s (2 of them blondes) and the most we got then was $275-300. les pauls maybe $450-500. strats new were around $300. i don't remember offhand what i was making an hour, probably $4 bucks or so.
i did a little buying/selling thru the 80s, early 90s but not a lot. then about 92 or 93 i had heard about the southwest show in dallas and decided i would go and pick up a reissue 335. i took an even thousand and thought i could pick and choose. i didn't get far before reality settled in. 83 dot 335s were bringing $2800 to 3000. i could not believe how much prices had gone up. i got a subscription to vintage guitar about then and caught up pretty fast as to what was happening price wise. the first thing i noted was speculation was driving the prices of vintage stuff way outside the range of all but smallest number of musicians. people were investing and to a large degree the players were being left out. i guess the worst i saw was a few years ago where a PAF with ring and about 6" of pigtail brought better than $20,000 on ebay. it blew what little mind i had left.
the vintage market has eased off (some) but new guitars- bolt ons even- going for $1500 to 2000 a pop is no big news. amp prices has gone thru the roof as well (at least there's tons of tube stuff now- i can remember fender releasing their first solid state stuff back in the 60s and having people say tube amps were a thing of the past).
i know other items that have appreciated on similar levels- houses, cars. but with the number of manufactors/dealers-online and off
the sheer number of guitars for the number of players- even people new to the instrument- makes me wonder about market saturation. lets face it a decent guitar maintained can last generations so it isn't a case of replacing a "worn out" guitar driving the market. i just wonder where it all will end. new us strats for $3 grand and up and class a combos in the 5 to 15watt range for them same or more. i'm just glad to have what i've got. money is still pretty tight at my house and the chances of me being able to go out and drop the bills required to pick up an armada and a carol ann combo are looking pretty slim.
my hats off to you guys that have made the committment to laying in the equipment you have listed in your posts. that's some dedication.
anyway thanks for letting an old fart put in his piece. i know it probably sounds kinda lame. but, remember when i got started pre-CBS didn't mean a thing, cause it was in the future.
 
From my perspective, who got into guitars late 80s/early 90s, the situation is different. To me things have become far more varied and affordable, choices are much more varied and information is far more transparent (internet).

But I'm in Germany, so all the fine US gear was already super expensive at that time.

However, if you're looking for a late 60s Marshall or a late 50s Gibson, yes, these were easier to get back then I suppose.
 
There are tons of affordable choices now, though they're not made in the US, UK, or even Japan anymore. But unless you're dead set on a specific thing, you can find something out there that will be adequate for a given situation in most price ranges. I at least respect that if you want something built in the US, you can at least find guitar gear made here. You have to be prepared to pay more for it, but that's just the way it is.
 
...and the price of gas, sodas, candy bars, jeans, houses, cars, etc...
 
Housing, vehicles, and just the general cost of living are the ones that blow my mind, especially considering what a single-income family of 3+ used to be able to actually acquire on an average income decades ago.
 
Fantastic thread. The market here in Australia is quite different. Selection is limited and prices astronomical (even used gear) with a 15% import tax on anything over $1000.

For example a Mesa rectifier is at least $3500 or $2000 used... :thumbsdown:
 
Vivian Campbell said in a recent interview that he got $100 a week in Dio back in 1983. I went and checked how much that is in current currency and one of the calculators claim that it had the same buying power as $235 today has.

Not going to comment on VC's truthfulness or anything like that, just a side note on inflation and prices in general :).
 
Michi":2nzlykab said:
Vivian Campbell said in a recent interview that he got $100 a week in Dio back in 1983. I went and checked how much that is in current currency and one of the calculators claim that it had the same buying power as $235 today has.

Not going to comment on VC's truthfulness or anything like that, just a side note on inflation and prices in general :).
Click to expand...


I believe it. Think about what a pro football player made in "83 - $90,000.00. Which by your increase would be $211,500.00 in today's dollars. But today the average is over a million - not $200,000K. 5x what an '83 player made in adjusted dollars. The gap just keeps widening. Without getting super political - the poor are about the same, the middle class is losing ground, and the rich just keep getting richer. ;)
 
You make some great points grandpa (kidding!).
There does seem to be a glut of guitars in the used market since your younger days, my reasoning:
1) mass-manufacturing
2) the art of luthiery (spelling?!) is gaining more momentum, again leading to more choice (and i'm not just talking about small time skeversson/mayones/RAN luthiers, look at Carvin and agile for example)
3) the internet (biggest reason in my opinion); it's easier than ever to purchase/access guitars, learn how to play, learn how to fix and learn how to build guitars.

I'm solidly of the mindset (which gets a lot of flack ) that, at least at current currency levels, that no guitar on earth is more than 3K. simple as that. it's just a bit of hardware, wood and TLC at the end of the day.
50k for a dumble?!! 250K for a hendrix strat?!! collectors have always/will always pay over market for their stuff (be it guitars, cars, or guns).
8K for a "family reserve" guitar....forget that, i'll buy a used custom shop ESP/Jackson/Fender for 2K tops, a used diezel herbert for 2.5K, and buy 3.5K worth of stock!!
 
It is called inflation and the cost of making goods in the US.
 
good deals to be found in the used market. People selling their used gear are taking a beating on their stuff.
 
Meh, expensive is a relative term.

Inflation also plays a part when comparing prices based on past decades.
 
Yesterday, I was looking at buying new towels. I havent bought new ones in about 8 years, and the ones we have been using are pretty stinky. I went in with low expectations, I guess...figured I could get a set of 4 bath sheets for about 30-40 bucks. WRAWNG!!! Try double that. WTF. My buddy told me to go to marshalls or ross, so I did. Still...set of 4 bath sheets was 60 dollars. I ended up just buying 4 regular bath towels for 32 dollars...didnt wanna drop more on fucking towels. They're towels...wtf man. I have to get my starter replaced in my car, so the less the better...but I dont like towels because theyre too small. I wanted bath sheets. Oh well. But yeah. I agree with you. I was shocked at how much fucking TOWELS cost. Im going to be looking at houses later this year, and Im scared haha.

And gear has been no exception to this. Ive always bought budget stuff...being in college, then out of college having a low paying govt job, and now having a great job, but having a family where Im the sole income for 3 people. Its tough. I feel like I need to make twice what I make in order to be able to actually save money. It never seems like enough. Luckily, I actually like budget gear, though...so stuff like Peavey and Carvin and LTD works for me. Biggest gear purchase I've made was my LTD Elite Horizon III for 1250. I have a hard time thinking about dropping 2k for a Mark V, but man...I want one. Either live without, or suck it up and pay the price for it...but yeah...its retarded how expensive some things are.

I was watching a TV show that took place in the 80s...got curious and started looking at salaries in the 80s. Average US salary was something around 12k a year...and that was the equivalent of about 40k today....but you could do A LOT more with 12k in the 80s than you can with 40k today. My last job, my salary was 40k, and I lived by myself for 2 years while working there. Had 0 money saved. Ridiculous. People owned houses on their 12k salaries in the 80s.
 
lots of interesting takes on this. i was mainly speaking about what had transpired price-wise on the brands/models that were availible back 50yrs ago. i indeed agree on the unbelievably wide range of equipment out there now. i know a majority are imported from asia, but as several stated the overall quality has improved a ton. i remember some of the first MIJ stuff as being only so-so in the beginning,but it did not take long at all before the quality improved tremendously. let's not forget the original designs were relentlessly copied from strats,le pauls, etc. etc. resulting in the now legendary "pre-lawsuit" models. so after several years of honing their skills making copies the transition to their own designs displayed some excellent designs and a committment to quality control that could/should have been emulated by several US makers (won't mention any names-don't have to).
and while i agree the increases in prices have affected many different areas of commodities- when i think about being able to buy a pre-cbs fender for maybe a hundred dollars over what was new prices and then to have seen stock color late 50 early 60s strats going for 50, 60 thousand dollars it blows my mind. a $400 guitar in 65 going for $60,000 in 2002 is on a level that still just makes me shake my head in disbelief. when you consider exotic cars ,take for example a 1965 Jag XKE with a sticker price new of around $5800- working the same precentages of appreciation- that would put it at roughly $839,000.oo- and you can find a super clean 65 XKE today for under $100,000. on something like a house just say Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water" which when completed in the mid 30s cost $75,000 (just the house+$8,000 in his fees) which when adjusted to current inflation/etc. would cost $2.4 million to build in 2012- if you use the same increases as that strat i referred to- would run $11,250,000.00.
my point is that maybe without the exception of some art i can't think of anything that comes close to those appreciated vintage guitar prices up into late 2000's.
i'm just glad, as i stated earlier, for the range of equipment out there now. i just couldn't pay what the going prices are on upper end amps/instruments , vintage for sure, but even currently manufactored stuff as well.
 
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