TJ Thompson $$$$$

[gitarro]

Originally Posted by Rwpierce

I’ve never played one of TJ’s guitars but by reputation one may have to agree. Curious on the 3 that you are referring to. I’m guessing Kim Walker is one of the 3 but who besides TJ do you consider to have achieved this status?

Jt1 has played many Kim Walker guitars in addition to owning quite a few...For me, I havent played as many as he has but those I have played would not lead me to classify Walker's sound as being that of a vintage guitar. His signature tone seems to combine the tone of a vintage guitar with a modern fingerstyle guitar to my ears. I have little doubt Walker is capable of building the vintage tone if he wanted to though as he is one of the most skilled luthiers I have ever come across.

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by gitarro

Jt1 has played many Kim Walker guitars in addition to owning quite a few...For me, I havent played as many as he has but those I have played would not lead me to classify Walker's sound as being that of a vintage guitar. His signature tone seems to combine the tone of a vintage guitar with a modern fingerstyle guitar to my ears. I have little doubt Walker is capable of building the vintage tone if he wanted to though as he is one of the most skilled luthiers I have ever come across.

I don't know that any maker has a signature sound that would be identifiable to a blindfolded listener group, and I've always believed there is no such thing as 'vintage tone'.

Any guitar, set up to the satisfaction of a given player, would allow THAT players style to be easily identifiable. Go watch some Woody Mann videos playing anything from a vintage Gibson J-185 to a Monteleone Hot Club, and they all sound like Woody Mann.

Here's a Kim Walker that, for me, needed a slightly higher action/heavier plain strings, but it was literally just being delivered to the owner.



HE

[gitarro]

Originally Posted by Howard Emerson

I don't know that any maker has a signature sound that would be identifiable to a blindfolded listener group, and I've always believed there is no such thing as 'vintage tone'.

Any guitar, set up to the satisfaction of a given player, would allow THAT players style to be easily identifiable. Go watch some Woody Mann videos playing anything from a vintage Gibson J-185 to a Monteleone Hot Club, and they all sound like Woody Mann.

Here's a Kim Walker that, for me, needed a slightly higher action/heavier plain strings, but it was literally just being delivered to the owner.



HE

I agree of course that any guitar being played by a given player will sound like that player. However to my ears, that Martinesque sound is more dry than the contemporary fingerstyle guitar tonality which usually has more overtones. The Kim Walker guitars that I have had the privilege to play had more overtones than that - even including a maple Jumbo that was more of a jazz style guitar.

Nice playing! (BTW Crossing Crystal lake is still one of the tunes I like to hear as lot on my car stereo)

[Rwpierce]

Howard, Sinistral and Gitarro thanks for weighing in. It sure would be nice to hear from JT1 on what 3 builders he was referring to in his post.

[jt1]

Originally Posted by Rwpierce

Howard, Sinistral and Gitarro thanks for weighing in. It sure would be nice to hear from JT1 on what 3 builders he was referring to in his post.

My lips remain sealed!

Great conversation, all.

Fabulous playing, as always, Howard!

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by jt1

My lips remain sealed!

Great conversation, all.

Fabulous playing, as always, Howard!

[Johnny_Boy]

Originally Posted by jt1

My lips remain sealed!

What a tease! ;-) I don't pay attention too much to pre-war martin style builders, so I won't know the other two builders for golden age style guitars.

However, for general guitar building, I would rank these three at the top, not in order - Kim Walker, Ervin Somogyi and TJ Thompson, based on the reputation and the price they demand.
And maybe put Jim Olson right behind those three, as he has even better name recognition and high price the market is wiling to pay for his guitars.

I only have experience with Walker, Somogyi and Olson personally though. So TJ is based on what I've heard second hand. Reached out to TJ Thompson back around ~2017 and got no response, when I asked about placing an order.

(There are other great builders besides the above who provides far better price to performance ratio, and can deliver 95% of it at 1/3 the cost. But the above three or four seems to be what the MARKET seems to say as the "top builder" based on the secondary market demand and sold prices. They are not sort of flavors of the year type of the builder but very respected for a long time)

[jmagill]

Originally Posted by Johnny_Boy

... (f)or general guitar building, I would rank these three at the top, not in order - Kim Walker, Ervin Somogyi and TJ Thompson, based on the reputation and the price they demand. And maybe put Jim Olson right behind those three, as he has even better name recognition and high price the market is wiling to pay for his guitars.

Based on reputation/market price alone, I'd add John Monteleone to these four, but these discussions are seldom about price alone. There is always a conflation of cost and value, which are different things. Of course price is an indication of quality, and if the price is high, it's probably a pretty good guitar, but while the price of guitar X may fluctuate, the value of guitar X does not.

Originally Posted by jt1

The market is the market. Observations that X guitar is not worth Y price are silly ... when X guitar brings Y price.

jt1 is right that the market decides the price. If a guitar sells at $80K, then it was priced properly, but price is objective while value is subjective.

Originally Posted by Johnny_Boy

(There are other great builders besides the above who provides far better price to performance ratio, and can deliver 95% of it at 1/3 the cost. But the above three or four seems to be what the MARKET seems to say as the "top builder" based on the secondary market demand and sold prices. They are not sort of flavors of the year type of the builder but very respected for a long time)

I've played and/or owned instruments by the four builders mentioned here and others, and I agree with Johnny Boy that there are great-sounding guitars at lower price points, if one knows what one wants and is willing to take the time to find it. And that's a great thing. It's always the buyer who decides on a guitar's value and if the price is worth it – to them.

.

[iim7V7IM7]

A couple thoughts:

- TJ Thompson is no doubt the World's premier restorer of vintage pre-war Martin guitars
- He was Dana Bourgeois's apprentice and made some guitars for Eric Schoenberg in the early days of Schoenberg Guitars in between Dana and Julius Borges.
- He has been working at his bench for about 40-years now
- He makes his own guitars now and then among his restoration work and they are few and far between (I have played one)
- Most importantly, he is an exceedingly nice guy who is generous in sharing his knowledge...
- As others have said, the market decides upon the value of a builder's work
- If Dream Guitars has set a price and if it is out of alignment with the market will bear, it will not sell. If they are correct, it will.
- Everyone has their own limit as to when a builder's price exceeds a player's perceived sense of value. Additionally, timbral and playing preference and price are frequently divergent.

Some of the builder's mentioned in this post (e.g., TJ Thompson and Kim Walker.) while FANTASTIC builders of instruments, are essentially no longer in reality taking new orders for custom commissioned guitars. As a result, while I admire their work, I never recommend them. This aspect also drives the market price of the instruments (demand outstrips supply). For myself, when people ask me about a more traditional custom instrument the builders that are still taking on new commissions that I recommend are:

- Nick Kukich (Franklin Guitar Co.),
- Bruce Sexauer (Sexauer Guitars) and
- John Slobod (Circa Guitars).

Bruce is 76-years old, Nick is 70-years old and John is now 60-years old so they will not be building forever.

My $.02

[PTL]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

I have never been to Ashville, NC, and don't plan a trip anytime soon, but . . . I notice Dream has one of my older (successful, though not my absolute best, IMO) 00's for sale for 1/10 the price of this TJ guitar, and I have to wonder how mine stacks up? If any of you have an experience based opinion, I am sitting.

Excellent post by a gentleman who is secure in who he is.... Anyone visiting the shop care to make an evaluation?

[jmagill]

For those still agog at the price of the TJ Thompson guitar, consider this item that appeared recently at Dream Guitars: a 1930 Martin OM-45 Deluxe. This was probably Martin's fanciest production-model guitar, and it's one of only 14 ever made. Dream had it priced at $515,000. and it was gone in less than a day.



If price and value are related-but-different as I've suggested, how does the relationship between them work for a guitar like this?

I've managed two music stores in the past, and I think of guitars as having what I call an 'intrinsic cost', or what it actually cost to make. This includes the price of the materials, the labor to build the instrument, the company's marketing and distribution costs, the dealer's overhead, and the final sale to a customer, with everyone involved making a fair profit each step of the way. For a new instrument, the intrinsic cost is pretty closely aligned with the retail price. For instruments that are used, vintage or rare, other factors determine price, but their intrinsic cost remains the same.

This OM-45 Deluxe probably sold for a few hundred bucks in 1930 – a pretty penny back then. For the sake of argument, let's say it was $300, or $5,400 in today's money. This intrinsic cost is still off the selling price by a factor of nearly one hundred. When these two amounts get this far apart, the guitar's value as an instrument for making music becomes secondary, if not irrelevant.

I've played several guitars with 6-figure price tags, and they were great guitars, but I always focus on value rather than price, and considering their intrinsic cost, none of them had a value I considered to be anywhere close to their selling price.

Guitars like TJ's and this Martin are not being sold to the likes of you and me. They're going to well-heeled collectors who can spend half a million on a guitar and think they got a good deal. And they're probably right.

They are not like us.

So, admire these guitars for the eye candy they are, as you would a 50-ft. yacht or a gold-plated Lamborghini, and don't get bent out of shape by their crazy-stupid prices.

.

[PTL]

Originally Posted by jmagill

For those still agog at the price of the TJ Thompson guitar, consider this item that appeared recently at Dream Guitars: a 1930 Martin OM-45 Deluxe. This was probably Martin's fanciest production-model guitar, and it's one of only 14 ever made. Dream had it priced at $515,000. and it sold in less than a day.



If price and value are related-but-different as I've suggested, how does the relationship between them work for a guitar like this?

I've managed two music stores in the past, and I think of guitars as having what I call an 'intrinsic cost', or what it actually cost to make. This includes the price of the materials, the labor to build the instrument, the company's marketing and distribution costs, the dealer's overhead, and the final sale to a customer, with everyone involved making a fair profit each step of the way. For a new instrument, the intrinsic cost is pretty closely aligned with the retail price. For instruments that are used, vintage or rare, other factors determine price, but their intrinsic cost remains the same.

This OM-45 Deluxe probably sold for a few hundred bucks in 1930 – a pretty penny back then. For the sake of argument, let's say it was $300 or $5,400 in today's money. This intrinsic cost is still off the selling price by a factor of nearly one hundred. When these two amounts get this far apart, the guitar's value as an instrument for making music becomes secondary, if not irrelevant.

I've played several guitars with 6-figure price tags, but I always focus on value rather than price, and they were great guitars, but considering their intrinsic cost, none of them had a value I considered to be anywhere close to their selling price.

Guitars like TJ's and this Martin are not being sold to the likes of you and me. They're going to well-heeled collectors who can spend half a million on a guitar and think they got a good deal. And they're probably right.

They are not like us.

So, admire these guitars for the eye candy they are, as you would a 50-ft. yacht or a gold-plated Lamborghini, and don't get bent out of shape by their crazy-stupid prices.

.

Great post.

[mhw48]

Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7

A couple thoughts:

- TJ Thompson is no doubt the World's premier restorer of vintage pre-war Martin guitars
- He was Dana Bourgeois's apprentice and made some guitars for Eric Schoenberg in the early days of Schoenberg Guitars in between Dana and Julius Borges.
- He has been working at his bench for about 40-years now
- He makes his own guitars now and then among his restoration work and they are few and far between (I have played one)
- Most importantly, he is an exceedingly nice guy who is generous in sharing his knowledge...
- As others have said, the market decides upon the value of a builder's work
- If Dream Guitars has set a price and if it is out of alignment with the market will bear, it will not sell. If they are correct, it will.
- Everyone has their own limit as to when a builder's price exceeds a player's perceived sense of value. Additionally, timbral and playing preference and price are frequently divergent.

Some of the builder's mentioned in this post (e.g., TJ Thompson and Kim Walker.) while FANTASTIC builders of instruments, are essentially no longer in reality taking new orders for custom commissioned guitars. As a result, while I admire their work, I never recommend them. This aspect also drives the market price of the instruments (demand outstrips supply). For myself, when people ask me about a more traditional custom instrument the builders that are still taking on new commissions that I recommend are:

- Nick Kukich (Franklin Guitar Co.),
- Bruce Sexauer (Sexauer Guitars) and
- John Slobod (Circa Guitars).

Bruce is 76-years old, Nick is 70-years old and John is now 60-years old so they will not be building forever.

My $.02

Bob, your $.02 is, as usual, worth a lot more. This is a well reasoned and informative post.

[jmat]

$1,000,000/2. Jeepers. I passed on a pre-war D18 decades ago that was priced at 18-19K at Elderly. Sounded *amazing* but was rent and food for a couple years so no go. You could buy a Collings or Santa Cruz in those days for 3K ish and that is what I aspired to own to get intrinsic and extrinsic to line up for me. Woulda, coulda, shoulda is the 20/20 hind-site vantaged view….maybe. Still have the Collings!

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by Rwpierce

I’ve never played one of TJ’s guitars but by reputation one may have to agree. Curious on the 3 that you are referring to. I’m guessing Kim Walker is one of the 3 but who besides TJ do you consider to have achieved this status?

Perhaps John would say...if he were to say...Lynn Dudenbostel, Wayne Henderson, and TJ if we are talking vintage Martin.

Those 3 fellas can consistently fetch the BIG money without anyone batting an eyelash, and their guitars consistently deliver the goods to hold that level of reputation.

You could add Kim Walker to that list, whenever he wants to build in vintage Martin voicing.


duff
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