Eastman INCREASE in value year after release?!
 

I called a company trying to get a price on a E20D-TC. They quoted me a price and I told them ok, I'll wait until next year when used prices fall a bit.

He said because of the low volume Eastman puts out, he said only 300 guitars a year.. similar in output to Collings, that the price of an E20D-TC will actually go up.

He then we quoted me a price $500 below current retail of the 2020 E8D for my 2019.

Anybody have any insight into this?

I would think his opinion would have been negated by his offer... I can't imagine a shop needs to make $500 margin on a guitar since retail for the new E8D is $1200 and he offered me $700 for my 2019 E8D. If his logic about raising prices being correct, I'd think his offer would have been above $1200.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but used is used. That shop has to make money on guitars so they're not going to give you the same pricing that you could make selling it on your own. As you saw in that thread where he bought a used E8D for $800, they're out there at that price. I think $700 is fair on a trade. That shop isn't going to turn around and sell your E8D for 1200. $1200 is MAP on a NEW E8D. They sell for 10-20% less with negotiation. They'll probably list it at $900. Maybe you can sell it outright for 800 or 900 if you're lucky.

The value of western currencies are falling and will continue to fall against Chinese and other far eastern currencies.

Buy now.

You'll always do better buying the guitar outright and selling the E8D. The middle man is always gonna make money so the trade deal won't be nearly as good.

I understand they have to make money, I was using the quoted prices in reflection to him saying a 2020 now will sell for more in 2021.

That's my real question. Have you guys seen the prices of last year model eastmans go up?

For instance..... Have you seen a 2019 Eastman go up in price in 2020?

Not LTD or special editions... Standard run models.

I wouldn't necessarily take what he says to mean that he'll turn around and mark all his guitars up, I'd take that to mean that next year's models might go up in price. I don't watch that close but I bought an E20OM-TC about a year ago. It listed for $100 less then than it does now, $1559 vs $1659. Back then I got a 16% discount on the new guitar when I bought it. Sounds like you were offered about the same discount on a E20D-TC.

Next year the price might be up another 100 or so.

I just did the math. When I traded in my E20OM-TC on an E10D-TC I got about 64% of the MAP price in trade. If you do the math on a E8D, 64% of $1105 (the price all the dealers are selling new E8Ds for) you get $707. I wasn't sure where you were getting that $1200 number from since if you google E8D you see many dealers with them listed at $1105. I know my trade in was with a different dealer than you were talking about but it seems like it matches up fairly well.

Did you mean 300 of that specific model or 300 guitars in total?
If you take into account their budget models they must produce in the thousands annually. Even 3000 annually would be a very Conservative estimate.

That's what he said.... 300 total. Maybe he meant per model.

Reverb, price plus taxes

I just went on r to see two used Eastman AC122ce offered under 500$CAD.
I paid mine brand new 600$CAD (plus 15% taxes) two years ago.
So I do not actually see price increase there.

Ok. That's good to know.

I might be forced to hold out until 2021 for a 2020 E20D-TC.

I doubt that the pipeline for anything will be back to normal anytime soon. We take a lot for granted, and any dealer who discounts like he did a year ago when his inventory is low and replacement is sketchy is not an astute businessman. And any dealer would be foolish to buy a used year old guitar at a price where he would compete with his own new inventory at a lessor profit. Think about walking into a store and a new guitar was $1000 and netted the dealer a $300 profit, and next to it was a year old clean guitar for $800 that made him a $200 profit. Not good for business.

Eastman has 150 to 200 employees. The number of acoustic guitars produced I have seen reported was a couple of years back and it stood at 3,500 to 4,000 a year. What is probably happening is the pandemic is impacting numbers built and availability

I thought that about two years ago they had at least 30 people in their California office just for quality checking the stuff that arrived. That would be a tremendous growth going to 150 to 200. In China they have thousands of assemblers.