Chapman Guitars at NAMM

Plectrum

Strat54 said:

And I'm still wondering who buys Patrick Eggle guitars at £3k....but they do. They were the 'poor mans' PRS back in the 90's but they seemed to have re-invented themselves post bankruptcy as a prestige brand priced above PRS and Tom Anderson. I mean swamp as and bog oak with no finish for £3095...really?? 

https://worldguitars.co.uk/shop/patrick-james-eggle-96-hss-swamp-ash-white-with-bog-oak-neck-17636/

So who knows, maybe the U.S players will buy into the whole British built Chapman thing. Good luck.

You seem to be confused between the original Patrick Eggle Guitars (which are still going) and Patrick James Eggle. The man himself left the original company well before it's eventual demise and he has no connection with the old company even though they trade under his name. These days Patrick mainly builds acoustics.

sinbaadi

Certainly not for me and I can see why people think this is ambitious.  Unfortunately Chapman's name feels a bit to guitars as Jim Davidson's is to comedy.  He has massively been over-exposed and his credibility has suffered.  I don't take him seriously anymore and I'm just a casual by-stander.

Maybe these are brilliant, maybe there are enough fans with deep pockets to make this work (cynic in me says that some will buy one just to be noticed by him), but he spent years saying how great his guitars were (which cost 1/10th of what these cost) it's hard to take it seriously.

Philly_Q

skunkwerx said:

Philly_Q said:

I really don't mean this as Chappers bashing, but is there anyone on earth who would see the Chapman name on the headstock as a desirable thing? 

It's not a prestigious brand name and he's not a famous musician, more of a love-him-or-hate-him internet personality.  None of which inspire a £3.5k outlay on one of his guitars.

It seems to me the name is more of a handicap than a help and these guitars will have to be extraordinarily good to overcome it.

Aye. Me. But not for £4k. 

I love guitars, I think the Andertons videos are entertaining, the shop itself pretty good.

Anyone and everyone has a Gibson that looks like every other US made Gibson out there. 
(Not  bashing, because I get the allure to them and wouldnt mind one myself!)

But I also like the idea of having something less well known and seen.
The fact there is a dudes name on it that lives just a few miles away thats made his dream happen, is cool I think. 

Thanks for replying, it's good to hear that the brand may actually have some appeal.

Strat54 said:

And I'm still wondering who buys Patrick Eggle guitars at £3k....but they do. They were the 'poor mans' PRS back in the 90's but they seemed to have re-invented themselves post bankruptcy as a prestige brand priced above PRS and Tom Anderson. I mean swamp as and bog oak with no finish for £3095...really?? 

https://worldguitars.co.uk/shop/patrick-james-eggle-96-hss-swamp-ash-white-with-bog-oak-neck-17636/

So who knows, maybe the U.S players will buy into the whole British built Chapman thing. Good luck.

Yes and no.  Poor man's PRS yes, I suppose they were, or perhaps a home-grown answer to PRS.  But for a few years Patrick Eggle (the company) was quite a success story, built on the quality of the guitars, not the name of the owner.  Quality-wise I think they sold themselves short by using cheap pickups, but there wasn't much else wrong with them.  The business failed for all sorts of reasons - all those changes of ownership, the joint venture with Blade, I can't remember it all.  Perhaps they were simply too ambitious.  It seemed to me the guitars were never as easily available as they should have been, given they were built in the UK.

But anyway, Patrick James Eggle - as opposed to Patrick Eggle the company, which isn't him any more - has done very well to rebuild his reputation (in a way, like Chapman, he's had to overcome some negative associations).  Eggle and a few other UK builders like Blackmachine, Feline and Martyn Booth have succeeded - albeit with a very small customer base - entirely on reputation due to the quality of their products.  Their customers know who built their guitars.  None of them are trying to sell high-end guitars (of slightly mysterious origin) based on a connection with an internet "celebrity".

So good luck to Chapman, but if they succeed it has to be based on quality not name.

carlos

I don't think anybody here is Chapman-bashing for its own sake. We're talking about the business idea in itself which seems unsound and unsustainable. I hope he does well with this idea, as we need more guitar players and more business in the industry. I think they're too expensive for what they are, and at that price point I could commission 2 Vigiers to my spec from the factory (let's say a floyd superstrat and a fixed bridge single cut). That's almost 40 years of experience making top quality guitars and I know they'll retain their value well. For a £4,500 guitar I expect them to be from something better than a cheap-ish new brand.

Three-ColourSunburst

prlgmnr said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Apart from the issue of price and so on, one thing that puzzles me is just why should people buy into Chapman as a brand

Just simple guitarists...people of the internet...the common clay of Youtube....you know....

Than answers the 'who?'. I was asking 'why' such people would buy into Chapman as a brand.

Strangefan

I think these days I would rather buy a Chapman than a Gibson, the big G are nothing like they used to be, I think Henry J is the worst thing about the company and is so far removed for the good parts of Gibson these days,... Chappers is a bell but he's certainly not actively running the company into the ground like HJ. 

The UK aspect for me is neither here nor there, I would be happier if they were Japanese at a more reasonable price. 

If you want quality MIJ has always been my go to country before Korea upped their game. 

dindude

Plectrum said:

Strat54 said:

And I'm still wondering who buys Patrick Eggle guitars at £3k....but they do. They were the 'poor mans' PRS back in the 90's but they seemed to have re-invented themselves post bankruptcy as a prestige brand priced above PRS and Tom Anderson. I mean swamp as and bog oak with no finish for £3095...really?? 

https://worldguitars.co.uk/shop/patrick-james-eggle-96-hss-swamp-ash-white-with-bog-oak-neck-17636/

So who knows, maybe the U.S players will buy into the whole British built Chapman thing. Good luck.

You seem to be confused between the original Patrick Eggle Guitars (which are still going) and Patrick James Eggle. The man himself left the original company well before it's eventual demise and he has no connection with the old company even though they trade under his name. These days Patrick mainly builds acoustics.

Patrick’s up there with the best IMO, and I believe he’s now stopped making acoustics to focus on electrics once again.

Niallseroreilly

I wonder how much extra you could charge if a guitar was made in space?

antifash

Niallseroreilly said:

I wonder how much extra you could charge if a guitar was made in space?

Space X axe? £2.3tn to you, mate. No case I’m afraid. Collection only. 

RMJ

Maybe the Luthier comes home with you for that price?

Philly_Q

Niallseroreilly said:

I wonder how much extra you could charge if a guitar was made in space?

It would be hard work in zero gravity.  Imagine the paint spraying...

EricTheWeary

I suppose if I was spending £4K on a guitar I’d be looking for bragging rites, exclusivity, a hand in the specs - those kind of things. None of which really offered by these.

I’ve no idea wether it’s a smart business move or not, I guess he has an idea of his market. As they are going to be made in small batches if it all goes tits up I guess he won’t lose much. 

GoldenEraGuitars

axisus said:

Ho hum, another bash Chapman thread, how tiresome. 

I don’t see any bashing, tbh. At £3500 people are entitled to ask questions. It’s not pocket change.

Hes going from Korean mass manufacturing where the most expensive model is about £1100(?) to UK handmade at triple the cost. That’s going to open up the floor to questions.

So... how many of his young and dedicated following will put up that sort of money? How many players over the age of 30 will go for one (given that they should have more knowledge of the market and possibly more income)? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t *care* as such but it’s a strange move.

At £3500 you could get..

Fender CS
Gibson CS
Nik Huber
Feline
Collings
PRS Custom
Suhr


What would be quite interesting to know is if they are going to have to start selling their 15 per month quota to trade customers in order to shift them?

Then again, maybe this is all a load of crap and they’ll do really well? Too early to say I guess

steer

lonestar said:

axisus said:

Ho hum, another bash Chapman thread, how tiresome. 

I don’t see any bashing, tbh. At £3500 people are entitled to ask questions. It’s not pocket change.

Hes going from Korean mass manufacturing where the most expensive model is about £1100(?) to UK handmade at triple the cost. That’s going to open up the floor to questions.

So... how many of his young and dedicated following will put up that sort of money? How many players over the age of 30 will go for one (given that they should have more knowledge of the market and possibly more income)? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t *care* as such but it’s a strange move.

At £3500 you could get..

Fender CS
Gibson CS
Nik Huber
Feline
Collings
PRS Custom
Suhr


What would be quite interesting to know is if they are going to have to start selling their 15 per month quota to trade customers in order to shift them?

Then again, maybe this is all a load of crap and they’ll do really well? Too early to say I guess

OK - so other comapnies make guitars at a same price. Thanks for pointing that out. Where are the threads questioning these other companies buisness methods and the critique of them?

Yet again a Chapan thread, where not one single person has seemingly even seen one of these guitars in the flesh, let alone played one...

sted

I don't get the USP for them, they are basically re-badged luthier built guitars based on other peoples designs (strats, tele's, LP's and explorers) They are basically the guitar equivalent of remould tyres.

RMJ

sted said: hi

I don't get the USP for them, they are basically re-badged luthier built guitars based on other peoples designs (strats, tele's, LP's and explorers) They are basically the guitar equivalent of remould tyres.

Don't piss about. You know you're having one. Signature model probably. Reckon a gaudy ML2 would suit you down to the ground

Whitecat

Plectrum said:

Strat54 said:

And I'm still wondering who buys Patrick Eggle guitars at £3k....but they do. They were the 'poor mans' PRS back in the 90's but they seemed to have re-invented themselves post bankruptcy as a prestige brand priced above PRS and Tom Anderson. I mean swamp as and bog oak with no finish for £3095...really?? 

https://worldguitars.co.uk/shop/patrick-james-eggle-96-hss-swamp-ash-white-with-bog-oak-neck-17636/

So who knows, maybe the U.S players will buy into the whole British built Chapman thing. Good luck.

You seem to be confused between the original Patrick Eggle Guitars (which are still going) and Patrick James Eggle. The man himself left the original company well before it's eventual demise and he has no connection with the old company even though they trade under his name. These days Patrick mainly builds acoustics.

He’s building electrics too - the one linked above is indeed a Patrick James Eggle boutique build made by the man himself, not a Patrick Eggle Guitar. 

notanon

sinbaadi said:

Certainly not for me and I can see why people think this is ambitious.  Unfortunately Chapman's name feels a bit to guitars as Jim Davidson's is to comedy.  He has massively been over-exposed and his credibility has suffered.  I don't take him seriously anymore and I'm just a casual by-stander.

Maybe these are brilliant, maybe there are enough fans with deep pockets to make this work (cynic in me says that some will buy one just to be noticed by him), but he spent years saying how great his guitars were (which cost 1/10th of what these cost) it's hard to take it seriously.

@sinbaadi ;;
+1 for this post. I wish Rob well and hope he turns this around. In my experience the brand has not been the best but that was just early days maybe. It has to be said (and no reflection on Rob) I was vilified on CG forum for questioning anything about CG guitar quality - enough said. I'll reiterate that Rob had nothing to do with this but the forum was in his name and on his domain - Bad taste meet mouth. Message to Rob: monitor your own forum or at least delegate to people who are capable of protecting your brand, hopefully things have changed, it was terrible in my humble opinion.

Of course money affords the producer time to create and focus on what makes a product superb so maybe the latest venture by Chapman Guitars  (CG) will now work. All guitarists yearn for a 'perfect guitar' - of course perfection is pretty much a subjective call but a worthy aspiration for producers. For the £1K budget not sure CG can call the shots compared to the big names such as Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Gretsch with respect to quality assurance. The big guys can say can don't you dare mess up or next year we go elsewhere and that equals £Ms if not £Bs - true incentive for QA. 

For the 3K - 4K mark different ball game, a hard market indeed! Jaden Rose is now around £2.3K A brand new Gretsch G6120T Players Edition Nashville with String-Thru Bigsby £2.5K. As people on TFB know there are lots of other contenders in the £2.5K market. CG are looking to extend the dollars even further 3.5K to 4K!

If CG have something special then AFAIK your business will gain the respect and be sought after. Time will tell, hopefully people will have to eat humble pie implying that the product is more than good, I look forward to it. For me that will have to be second hand market unfortunately.

A reason that small batches have been chosen - good wise move! As has been pointed out here - An alternative Strat, an alternative Tele, LP, . . .  Others have done well, we shall see.

Plectrum

Whitecat said:

Plectrum said:

Strat54 said:

And I'm still wondering who buys Patrick Eggle guitars at £3k....but they do. They were the 'poor mans' PRS back in the 90's but they seemed to have re-invented themselves post bankruptcy as a prestige brand priced above PRS and Tom Anderson. I mean swamp as and bog oak with no finish for £3095...really?? 

https://worldguitars.co.uk/shop/patrick-james-eggle-96-hss-swamp-ash-white-with-bog-oak-neck-17636/

So who knows, maybe the U.S players will buy into the whole British built Chapman thing. Good luck.

You seem to be confused between the original Patrick Eggle Guitars (which are still going) and Patrick James Eggle. The man himself left the original company well before it's eventual demise and he has no connection with the old company even though they trade under his name. These days Patrick mainly builds acoustics.

He’s building electrics too - the one linked above is a Patrick James Eggle boutique build, not a Patrick Eggle Guitar. 

I'm well aware of both those facts

WezV

Whitecat said:

WezV said:

It would be really nice if a uk brand could get those prices and survive.  I would happily work for them if they could

Not really a “brand” but a luthier - Rob Williams charges near that and deserves it. 

https://robwilliamsguitars.co.uk/

Yup, quite a few individuals can.  PJE is another example as shown above.  

The name of a well respected luthier adds value.... but it’s not a “brand” the way Chapman guitars are.  You cannot add that value with the phrase “uk built” without confirming who is building them.

15 a month would be ambitious for any uk builder.

i wish them well.  I really do.