£8500 for a telecaster? REALLY?

SlopeSoarer · February 26

The reason they are so expensive is because as part of the service you can take them with you at the end...

Image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53553967284_20d7e4ca01_b.jpg

Image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53553827283_74fbb446a9_b.jpg

Plenty of AI mistakes in both pics!

Sporky · February 26

guitars4you said:

Going to try and keep this as simple as possible - I'm going to quickly compare the price of this Masterbuilt model v a similar grade of UK luthier built guitar, on more of a like v like basis

When you say "UK luthier built", do you mean that the luthier actually built it - made the neck and the body - or that the UK luthier picked a neck and body off a production line?

Because there's a difference between "made it from bits of wood and components by one person who's good at every stage", and "assembled a body and neck that other people made".

impmann · February 26

...but if it was a Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul, its no problem because there's more skill involved in pressing the button the CNC machine there...

<rolls eyes>

TeleMaster · February 26

The maddest Tele for sale was that one GuitarGuitar had for sale that was £15k or so, the Joe Strummer Tele. Who thought that was a good idea? Who thought that this kind of guitar and price made any sense when considering whose name you're putting on it? Because whoever it was, they're stupid.

guitars4you · February 26

Sporky said:

guitars4you said:

Going to try and keep this as simple as possible - I'm going to quickly compare the price of this Masterbuilt model v a similar grade of UK luthier built guitar, on more of a like v like basis

When you say "UK luthier built", do you mean that the luthier actually built it - made the neck and the body - or that the UK luthier picked a neck and body off a production line?

Because there's a difference between "made it from bits of wood and components by one person who's good at every stage", and "assembled a body and neck that other people made".

Valid points and both taken and I suppose both - Often been a point of contention within such luthiers (and to customers) in that do they build from 'raw woods' etc or buy in and assemble accordingly - I'm not saying one is better than the other, when you play the end result, but I do believe the process should be listed within the spec, accordingly - But for comparison to the Fender model, both of your 'format's above' follow a similar 'small workshop/one man business' path, with associated costs, with their route to market v that of Fender

Sporky · February 26

I'm more interested in end results than the route (when buying a thing), but I think it should be reflected in the price.

Making a neck takes a lot more time than buying one, and one might think that that makes it more expensive.

Philly_Q · February 26

impmann said:

...but if it was a Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul, its no problem because there's more skill involved in pressing the button the CNC machine there...

<rolls eyes>

Yeah, but that's two bits of wood glued together, not just screwed together. A far more advanced skillset. I think you could easily justify a Les Paul being ooh, I dunno, as much as a grand, easy. I know some will find that excessive.

SlopeSoarer · February 26

Philly_Q said:

impmann said:

...but if it was a Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul, its no problem because there's more skill involved in pressing the button the CNC machine there...

<rolls eyes>

Yeah, but that's two bits of wood glued together, not just screwed together. A far more advanced skillset. I think you could easily justify a Les Paul being ooh, I dunno, as much as a grand, easy. I know some will find that excessive.

I bought a LP Juniorish guitar kit from Musoo guitars off Aliexpress, What was on screen wasn't quite what I wanted and they said tell us what you want and well make it for you! It took months but occassionally I'd get a photo of someone holding up guitar parts in different stages. They charged me £135 including delivery. It is a 'custom guitar' and the end result was fantastic (helped by an Algree pickup) and is all mahogany with a one piece body to boot! Probably cost me between £275-£300 and it is going nowhere!

I could afford an £8,500 guitar but my head says it is bonkers and I prefer this sort of route and one day if I can get some space for tools/machines I'd like to build my own from scratch.

Each to their own 'n' all that!

Musical_Mystery_Tour · February 26

If someone is flush enough (and daft eough) to pay that for a guitar, then that's up to them; actually it's not even the most expensive Tele on that site, there's this one for 26 grand, which is just silly when objectively considering what it is, but I guess that again, if someone is willing to pay that - and Fender evidently think so - then good luck to them.

With regard to the now frequently overused term, masterbuilt, as I've been scratchbuilding intricate scale models out of wood, metal, plastic, clay etc, for decades, as well as faffing around with guitars, so its over-use fails to impress me. I tend to regard the term as particularly laughable when referring to someone at either Fender or Gibson etc who is screwing/gluing some CNC-cut bits together, maybe doing a bit of soldering and asking someone on the phone: 'what colour do you want the thing?'

If it was Antonio Stradivari, hand carving the bits for a Sabionari guitar from in the 1670s, then yup, absolutely, that is master-built, but putting four screws through a backplate to fasten a CNC-cut body to a CNC-cut neck on a Telecaster is no more master-building something than someone putting together a flat-pack cupboard from Ikea.

There are of course some genuinely skilled custom guitar makers out there, but many of those 'masters' at Fender and Gibson are not crafting stuff, they're assembling parts.

Bigsby · February 26

Image: https://www.fendercustomshop.com/custom-life/wp-content/uploads/gallery/master-built/2014-namm-yuriy-shishkov-masterbuilt-heritage-strat-complete-3.jpg

Image: https://www.fendercustomshop.com/custom-life/wp-content/uploads/gallery/master-built/img_0842.jpg

Image: https://www.fendercustomshop.com/custom-life/wp-content/uploads/gallery/master-built/9216080243.jpg

Image: https://www.fendercustomshop.com/custom-life/wp-content/uploads/gallery/master-built/2014-yuriy-shishkov-master-built-strat-namm-piece-complete-studio-1.jpg

Yeah right! Just some talentless bloke with a screwdriver... blah, blah, blah.

Philly_Q · February 26

^^ @Bigsby you know you're just going to get comments saying how garish and tasteless they are....

Seziertisch · February 26

There are folk out there for whom £8k is chicken feed. They come from wealthy backgrounds or they are in a high earning profession or whatever.

People complain about Gibson or Fender or whoever charging X and say it’s ridiculous but then whatever it is sells or sells out so they do it again and the same thing happens.

Musical_Mystery_Tour · February 26

Well, I did say 'many', not 'all', but you are aware that inlaying is generally cut using high pressure water CNC machines these days aren't you? Typically from a vector graphic template created in something like Adobe Illustrator, which does make bezier curves easy to create and often uses pre-made library stuff too. I know this because I'm an Adobe-certified trainer who used to teach all that stuff for a living. So again, with the cut out bits, it is mostly a task of gluing those in, rather than hand cutting them all; certainly at larger companies, however, some one man band luthiers probably do still do that stuff by hand, and if they do, then my hat is off to those guys and for that, their price tags would indeed be justified.

True story in relation to that: I once went to train someone on Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop at a very posh handbag shop in a swanky part of London. Prior to that they'd just been doing rough illustrations (and I mean very basic, as in looked like a twelve-year-old had drawn them) on layout paper with magic markers, then sending those to China, where the drawings were interpreted and turned into a proper cutting pattern, the handbags were then knocked up (probably for less than a tenner a pop), then sent as completed items back to the UK for sale in that shop for exhorbitant prices in the thousands.

swiller · February 26

Cant beat a s/h USA tele. a tenth of the price.

Bigsby · February 27

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

I'm an Adobe-certified trainer

...and presumably an IKEA certified flat pack assembly trainer, as that's the other analogy you were drawing.

Bigsby · February 27

Philly_Q said:

^^ @Bigsby you know you're just going to get comments saying how garish and tasteless they are....

But if it was tasteful, how could anybody tell how expensive it was?

snowblind · February 27

Philly_Q said:

Some of those things might actually be really cheap at £8,500. But I'd expect at least two tubs of Lurpak for that kind of money.

I'd go for two packs of Tesco Butterpak plus an Aldi 100W head plus 4x12.

CountryDave · February 27

guitars4you said:

Sporky said:

guitars4you said:

Going to try and keep this as simple as possible - I'm going to quickly compare the price of this Masterbuilt model v a similar grade of UK luthier built guitar, on more of a like v like basis

When you say "UK luthier built", do you mean that the luthier actually built it - made the neck and the body - or that the UK luthier picked a neck and body off a production line?

Because there's a difference between "made it from bits of wood and components by one person who's good at every stage", and "assembled a body and neck that other people made".

Valid points and both taken and I suppose both - Often been a point of contention within such luthiers (and to customers) in that do they build from 'raw woods' etc or buy in and assemble accordingly - I'm not saying one is better than the other, when you play the end result, but I do believe the process should be listed within the spec, accordingly - But for comparison to the Fender model, both of your 'format's above' follow a similar 'small workshop/one man business' path, with associated costs, with their route to market v that of Fender

There are valid point made every time this subject arises.
However, a couple of thoughts to throw some petrol on the bonfire.

With the ‘bought in’ body and neck, someone, somewhere has had to either press ‘go’ on the CNC machine, or pin router. The end builder has to pay for these parts in the same way they pay for hardware. This all ultimately adds to the cost.

For a second, imagine that your builder has the greatest expertise in turning pre-cut bodies and necks into the perfect guitar. They also realise that the length of time it takes them to do the initial woodwork isn’t cost effective to ultimately give them the blank canvas they can get from a reputable woodworking partner. Also for this example, the bodies and necks they buy are built to their exacting specs and bought on the proviso they can return the ones that they don’t feel are within their tolerances for either weight, grain, resonance, etc.

This builder can do the woodwork to the same standards, but chooses to put their time into what they consider the more important part of the build.

Ultimately the question then comes down to does a body blank built by Mr or Mrs X carry more value than a body blank built by Mr or Mrs Y.

It may also be that a level of consistency can not be achieved by the sole builder in line with their woodworking partner. They also may incur higher costs for each body as some blanks may need rejecting and become fuel for their log burner.

I’m running and hiding already.

Sporky · February 27

I think that's all fair. How likely is it that one person will be really, really good at:

Timber selection
Design
Machining (hand, pin router, CNC, whatever)
Finishing
Winding pickups
Wiring
Fretting
Setting up

Apart from WezV, that is.

We don't expect builders to make their own tuners or bridges. Most don't make their own pickups - and that's fine. And anyone who was good at all of those would surely charge a lot more than £8500.

crunchman · February 27

guitars4you said:

I'm kind of baffled by a lot of the comments above and in particular claims that it is only 2 pieces of wood screwed together

Going to try and keep this as simple as possible - I'm going to quickly compare the price of this Masterbuilt model v a similar grade of UK luthier built guitar, on more of a like v like basis

That guitar, hi-lighted in the initial posting, is £8500 and has a built in vat level of £1417 - So the cost of the guitar is £7083 - Still expensive I know - But now take away the dealers margin and that guitar now costs around £5300 - I don't have the exact figures to hand but suspect around £300 to cover shipping from the USA and appropriate import duty and that guitar now costs £5000 - Of course we don't know the level of profit built into that figure of £5000 that Fender charge but we all know it will be considerably higher than the level of profit applied to the price from our UK luthier

I'm not saying the UK luthier built guitar is better, same, or worse, but think it is fair to say, that most of us would accept the actual grade of materials, build quality, tonal character and playability to be not to far away from each other - But the UK luthier probably is not charging vat (some will some won't) - they certainly are not paying import duty and global shipping - Certainly not paying a dealer to handle the sale - And even if they are charging vat, they are paying it on a value that is probably around 50/60 % lower so a considerable saving of vat

I'm guessing that £2500 - £3000 is the price charged for many/most quality UK Luthier built model - So yes it is still cheaper than a like for like basis of the £5000 charged by Fender - But far closer than maybe we initially look at it

Now we know you can't get such a Fender for £5000 - As the route to market does mean that sadly is a £8500 guitar - But equally if the UK Luthier grow their business and adapted a similar process then their £2500/3000 would suddenly be around £4000/4800

Fender have economies of scale that the small UK builder won't have though.

They will cut multiple bodies on a CNC machine at at time. The small guy is probably routing them from a template.

They will buy wood in bulk and cut out the middle man.

They will buy other components in bulk. E.g. they will probably order pots form CTS 20,000 at a time and get a much better price than the small guy can get from somewhere like RS.

They manufacture their own pickups, so they cut out the profit that the pickup winder makes.

Those elements of large scale mass production still apply to their Custom Shop guitars. The prices of all the Custom Shop guitars are too high for what goes into them.

Until we vote with our wallets though, and buy other brands, they will keep gouging us.

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£8500 for a telecaster? REALLY?

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