How do custom guitars hold value as compared to martins, Taylors, and other big brand

[chippygreen]

In addition to agreeing to everything Mycroft said, I would add the perspective that a custom build offers, in addition to owning the guitar at the end of the process, the experience of building it and personalizing it. This is true in other hobbies - aftermarket tuning for cars, custom built watercraft, commissioned artwork, highly customized houses.

Few of those things sell without meaningful depreciation at point of sale. But the owners enjoy the process of collaborating and having things built to their specification. So if you take the luthier's out the door price and subtract a monetary value equivalent to the joy and experience of building the instrument - which is after all not transferable - that accounts for some of the "loss" one would take. But it's only a "loss" if you got nothing out of the experience, and if that was going to be the case, maybe one should think twice, as the OP suggests!

However, I think it's possible to have enjoyed collaborating to build something, to try to achieve something specific through the talents of the artist, even if you don't own it forever.

[Hoyt]

What about resale for a Custom Shop Martin — like some of our sponsors offer or some of us order — vs. a Standard model? I’m assuming the closer it is to a Standard in specs, the closer resale will be to a Standard.

[Gordon Currie]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

There is a world of difference between a "custom" guitar built in the Martin or Taylor "custom shop" and a true custom built guitar.

Bingo. I'd add that a custom guitar is not always the holy grail for all guitarists - only those who have an empty spot that production guitars don't fill.

If you look at a guitar purchase as a financial investment, then custom guitars are probably not the best place to be - resale value is all over the map, and more often will result in a financial loss. I'd find it hard to enjoy such an instrument in that scenario.

If you look at a guitar purchase as a creative adventure (that's my personal approach), then they can pay back every dollar and then some in life satisfaction - and that is priceless!

[Orfeas]

Depends on the builder.