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#16
09-29-2017, 02:46 PM
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The reality is that in the market - it does mean something. People who try to abuse it very quickly find themselves with no takers or their wares are priced significantly lower reflecting the market's opinion of them.... What does that mean in real life... If you see 4A curly maple priced as 1A curly maple - its probably not really 4A... 
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#17
09-29-2017, 04:35 PM
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Most luthiers, boutique builders, and factories are pretty frugal about how much they want to pay the tonewood suppliers for wood. The tonewood suppliers generally/usually make an enormously smaller profit margin on the wood they sell to lutheirs, boutique builders, and factories, than the luthiers, boutique builders, and factories make selling the wood...as guitars...to customers. duff duff
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#18
09-29-2017, 04:52 PM
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#19
09-29-2017, 05:43 PM
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So a builder who can only "tolerate" paying...say for instance...$550.00 for a really nice set of Braz can somehow manage to "tolerate" charging...say...$3500.00...or more, to the customer for that set to be used on a guitar. Part of the reason the "market"...which really means the customers...will "tolerate" that pricing scheme, is that they simply do not know how much the actual cost of the wood was to the builder versus what they the customer are paying for that wood. I suspect that if more customers really had a more accurate notion of the pricing, that their levels of "toleration" might just re-adjust a wee bit... duff
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#20
09-29-2017, 07:46 PM
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I agree with some of the sentiments that the markups are steep sometimes.
That being said, there are a lot of costs beyond the actual purchase of the wood that have to be factored into either the cost of the instrument or the cost of the wood upgrade. The time it takes to acquire rare wood can be substantial--I know I spend many, many hours each year finding inventory above and beyond the normal stuff you can buy online. It takes travel hours, sometimes plane tickets, gas, shipping costs, etc. Then there is the resaw. $160-$250 carbide blades that will need to be discarded or resharpened after only 4-6 sets of blackwood, not to mention the power bill of running a 20 amp bandsaw continuously for 2 weeks each years. Ah, and not to mention the $1500-5000 spent on a decent setup to cut it, and the man hours it takes. It costs money to store wood by the way. I have about 500 square feet dedicated to wood storage. Where did the 500 sf come from? It's part of the purchase of a property, and if it's filled with wood, you can't use it for anything else. Property taxes, etc, factor in here, and this compounds with wood that is stored over the career of a luthier 50+ years. Also, my really expensive sets (the ones I paid a lot for) get looked over once a year to see if any cracks are developing so that I can take corrective action. Again this takes man hours to stack, unstack, and inspect wood. It was mentioned before, but I'll give it another mention--already for every 1 set of really nice wood that I have I've probably gone through 10 sets of decent wood to get to it--this is especially true for me with spruce, cedar, and other top woods. By the time I've been a builder for 40 years I imagine that ratio will be a lot higher. My friend estimates he has kept 2-3% of his wood over 50 years, which he now builds with. WOW!
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#22
09-29-2017, 09:30 PM
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Plenty of really top quality...for this modern era...braz has been bought by factories, boutique builders, and luthiers for $550.00, sometimes more, sometimes even less! And I am talking from...when I know for sure...the late 90's early 2000's, right to the present day. If you only knew Shuksan...if you only... duff
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#23
09-29-2017, 09:42 PM
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Back in 1914, someone bought a Model T Ford for $260. Now some car salesman wants me to pay $28,000 for it.
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Jim 2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi 2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood 2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar 2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce 2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce 1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos. YouTube
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#24
09-29-2017, 10:20 PM
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To be fair...the tonewood suppliers face most of these very same issues and work steps, and "costs" of bringing the wood to market, that you describe for the builders...with the exception...usually but not always...of hand selecting only specific quality sets, and very long term...many years or decades even... storage of sets...only the tonewood suppliers mark up margin is not nearly as good as, by and large, builders margin when charging to their buyers. Just for the sake of discussion, Martin was, last time I had heard, charging $20K up...or possibly a little bit more...just for braz. Taylor at one point a few years ago, was $6K or more...I do not know where they are at now. In 2009 when I was putting a Breedlove custom order together for myself, I inquired as to the cost of going with braz, and was told that braz was a $4k to 10K upcharge depending on size and quality of the set. One of my best friends...in 2012/2013 custom ordered a guitar with braz, that was an upcharge of $3200 for the set, and I know that the cost of that set to the builder was between $500-$700 because I know the supplier from which the builder got it, and what that supplier was charging for that grade of braz at that time. In each case...the tonewood supplier made a fair bit less money, by margin, on the braz sets they sold to the builders, than what the builders made selling it to their customers, especially when you do also factor in both the tonewood suppliers, and builders, costs of procurement, preparation, storage, and marketing. duff
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#25
09-29-2017, 11:57 PM
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So you really think its fair to compare cost with sale price of a commodity like exotic and endangered woods?
In 1980, Santa Cruz offered Braz RW as a $125 upcharge - but they didn’t make every guitar in Braz. It was a great deal easier to get then, and a new dread cost $1100, so why didn’t everyone pay just a bit more? From many comments here, it seems unreasonable to sell BR for much over its cost if you're a a luthier, but no limits if its used? Many luthiers are selling inventory they paid far less for, but know what it will cost them { in both money and especially time, plus some risk ) to replace, and price it accordingly. Thats just basic business. And many buyers are more interested in the rarity and value of the materials used, and name of the builder, than in the quality of the product as an instrument. So business sense dictates that they need to get as much as they can to cover their materials, and they need to bank on their name as well - the really good ones have spent many years learning their craft, and built many dozens of guitars before calling themselves masters, and are only now starting to see a good return on that investment -
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More than a few Santa Cruz’s, a few Sexauers, a Patterson, a Larrivee, a Cumpiano, and a Klepper!!
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#26
09-30-2017, 02:57 AM
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Some people may think that a significant mark-up on certain woods is profiteering but more likely it is responding to the vagaries of the general customer base. It is quite common to have a variety of mark-ups across a range of items. For example:
• Retail outlets use “loss leaders”, where they advertise items at a loss just to get people into their stores. They may also have impulse buys at the checkout which have a mark-up much greater than the average for the store. • I used to work for an engineering consulting company where the percentage mark-up on our secretaries was far greater than the mark up on our managing director, a highly experienced and respected engineer. Why? One reason… general customer perception of what things should cost What value the customer puts on each element of a transaction is often emotional not rational. The seller has to go along with this, and the margin on the overall transaction may bear little similarity to the mark-up on individual elements. Selling a fine hand-built guitar can thought of the same way. I suspect that some luthiers have minimal mark-up on their basic guitars but a higher mark-up on the extras. It does not mean they are ripping people off. All the luthiers I know live pretty down to earth lives…definitely no Porsches or sea front condos! So across the many different components of a guitar that they sell they manage to make a reasonable and not extravagant living. That said, if they can make enough to buy a Porsche, then good luck to them!
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#27
09-30-2017, 03:43 AM
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On the topic of “wood grading” escalation and “wood branding” to project exclusivity seen by some in lutherie, I do have some thoughts. This subject is different to me from the business practice of up charging for wood which I touched upon in my prior post in this thread.
Wood Grading Escalation: I have seen this used by some for both hardwoods and softwoods. I have seen many sets aesthetically that are at best AA be called “master grade”, “AAAA” or “AAAAA” by both supply houses and by some clients (who I assumed heard this from their builder) which is simply dishonest hype in my opinion. There is way too much focus on aesthetics because that is what is tangible to the lay person and not enough on the the less tangible attributes such as density, stiffness, tap tone, seasoning/stability, quarter-sawing etc. As hardwoods become less available I see a shift towards the use of visually ornate, rift and flatsawn sets for hardwoods that move significantly with moisture. Some of the best sounding tops used in some of my guitars are clearly no better than AA aesthetically, but sonically they were actually superior to AAA sets that I had the option to chose at the time. I think that I may classify the top in a future build as “journeyman average grade”...  .Wood Branding: I see this used to establish a “brand” around a material to promote exclusivity. In Brazilian Rosewood I have seen “shipwreck”, “beam”, “insignia”, “1930s” etc. In mahogany there is “the tree”, “sinker”, “mahogany mama” etc. In softwoods we have “moon spruce”, “tunnel 13”, “carter family”, “1959 Sitka” etc. It is an ever increasing list. Let me be clear. I am not picking on these woods. Many are indeed truly excellent tonewoods, but the branding and assignment of unique sonic properties are used to enhance the exclusivity of a finite natural material. In guitar marketing, material exclusivity is a primary lever of value proposition. So in summary, I think there are three distinct topics confounded here: 1) the prices charged for wood; 2) wood grading escalation and 3) wood branding. The first issue is what I was addressing in my prior post. Wood grading escalation has unfortunately become prevalent, and wood branding is now used to enhance perceived the exclusivity of finite natural materials. My $.02
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A bunch of nice archtops, flattops, a gypsy & nylon strings… Last edited by iim7V7IM7; 09-30-2017 at 05:53 AM.
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#28
09-30-2017, 03:53 AM
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It's " ultra, super duper, 1st choice mastergrade,
Luthier select, wood,,with an upcharge only the most financially grounded can afford!
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Classical guitars, flat top steel string A few banjos and mandolins Accrued over 59 years of playing
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#29
09-30-2017, 04:12 AM
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I have 2 grades concerning the wood that I harvest .
Good enough for guitars and not good enough for guitars . I like simple .
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#30
09-30-2017, 06:57 AM
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And then there’s this.
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