Price of Brazilian Rosewood guitars

[musicman1951]

Not every guitar made out of Brazilian is a great guitar. Every set of Brazilian is not of equal quality.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by musicman1951

Not every guitar made out of Brazilian is a great guitar. Every set of Brazilian is not of equal quality.

Not every maker makes guitars of equal quality. Not every maker produces consistent results, varying in sound quality from one guitar to the next.

[Taylor007]

Originally Posted by UncleJesse

While as a GenX'r, I do not wish for anone's demise, it does make me wonder where the market will be in 15 year's time.

^
Yes this!

[Tony Burns]

Judging the market as a whole by one or two different instruments is very silly -

Guitars are not all the same -some are way better than others ,
it all depends on the builder - ( wood quality - age etc. )
A really good luthier knows his / hers abilities and how to best use a decent piece of wood -plus the better stuffs not really very common .

I am seeing the opposite of what your seeing -it use to be very common a couple of years ago to see well made BRW guitars go for about 3 grand -now im seeing about 6 grand ( or around their )

If people say bad things about Brazilian RW -they dont own one !





.

[chippygreen]

Originally Posted by UncleJesse

While as a GenX'r, I do not wish for anone's demise, it does make me wonder where the market will be in 15 year's time.

One possibility is someone will figure out what a subscription model will look like:

First we rented our music (iTunes replaced CDs, tape and vinyl)
Then our videogames (Gamestop)
Then our cars (Uber)
Then our clothes (Rent the Runway, TheRealReal)
Then our homes (AirBNB)
Then our shaving equipment (Dollar Shave Club)
Then our experiences (Instagram)

Would I consider $500/year for Martin to send me a newly set up different model every few months? Maybe not to supplant a core 2-3 guitars that I must own, but yes, it would be cool to try a 1985 M-38 this month and a 2012 000-28EC, each time with the option to buy, and with each monthly delivery having passed through a Martin inspection and setup each time. Add in that each guitar could have an online "history" of reviews - what strings prior borrowers have tried, the music styles they played, recordings and video clips.

It could be appealing to some.

[blindboyjimi]

I’m not too worried about the guitar market. Money is made in the stock market and the housing market and the likes. The guitar market is not for investments, it’s for fun, like skiing, surfing, boating, golf. Its a luxury item so I play what I like and spend my “fun” money there.

Anyone that buys anything fun new will normally be a victim of depreciation. Folks buy boats and cars and expect depreciation. You play golf every Wednesday and Saturday, join a club, buy the latest clubs and they are old technology next year. But buy a guitar and one expects no depreciation or at least only down to a fixed value of, say, 50% retail. I bought all but 2 of my current guitars used so my actual costs are quite low for a super fun hobby.

I have 5 mahogany acoustics and 6 rosewoods. 5 are Brazilian. One is EIR, one is Maple. My EIR guitar is by master luthier, Bill Tippin, and must have retailed at close to $10K. It’s an incredible guitar but even in the hands of my 5 favorite luthiers where I’ve played EIR guitars (Julius Borges, Nick Kukich, Bill Tippin, Bruce Sexauer and the Froggy Bottom boys), I still prefer their Brazilian or mahogany guitars. YMMV, but when I play something that needs a fundamental tone, I pick up a mahogany or maple guitar and when I want complexity, I reach for Brazilian. I’m fortunate enough not to worry about value per guitar, per se, just tone. My least expensive is my maple Waterloo WL-12 and my most expensive is probably my mahogany 1937 000-18, so the type of wood, luthier, or price really doesn’t matter to me. It just has to make me smile when I play it, if not, I move it on.

[Audie]

Originally Posted by charles Tauber

Never in the history of the World has there been more guitars produced than are being produced today. Has the demand equally risen? If not, therein lies the answer to your question.

At some point, Brazilian rosewood will be just a nice wood that used to be used to make guitars, along the lines of elephant ivory nuts and saddles: the World moves on.

100% winner winner chicken dinner. Well said Charles!

[RP]

Originally Posted by PorkPieGuy

...I'm trying to cover up the fact that I simply don't know.

Wow, you had me fooled....

[thingthatisdone]

On a custom Martin, it may be a five figure up-charge.
Collings stopped offering it for personal builds.
Bedell is giving it away.
There was a brazilian Larrivee OM-09 in my local shop that took over a year to sell, with a tag just over 2k.
I think it's mostly marketing.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by musicman1951

Not every guitar made out of Brazilian is a great guitar. Every set of Brazilian is not of equal quality.

I agree. What’s more, even with guitars from the so-called “Golden Era” before World War Two, not all those Brazilian rosewood instruments necessarily sound all that great. I’ve played lots of them, and for every one that has those glassy, crystalline trebles and the marvelous natural built-in reverb that gives the sound a sort of three dimensional aspect, there’s another vintage Brazilian rosewood guitar that sounds pretty ho-hum, nothing at all special about it.

Correction: nothing special about it except for the five or six figure price tag.

With the modern Brazilian rosewood guitars that I’ve had a chance to play, maybe a third have that sought-after Brazilian sound, with the glassy trebles and 3D effect and all that.

If you’re being generous. More like a quarter of them have that sound, if you’re being realistic.

Short version: getting that sought-after signature tone from Brazilian rosewood can be quite elusive, and simply spending thousands of dollars more than you’d pay for Indian rosewood is no guarantee that the guitar will give you that tone.

And it was always that way, to an extent. It’s simply become more elusive as the supply of good-sounding Brazilian rosewood has declined.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[AndrewG]

Not to harsh anyone's mellow, as they say, but I can see Brazilian rosewood in a few years achieving the same 'cachet' as rhino horn, tiger skin and elephant ivory, i.e totally unacceptable to those concerned about preserving rare and endangered species. Personally I never saw what all the fuss was about. Like the man said, there are good, mediocre and bad (ask me how I know this), guitars made out of the stuff, just like any other tone wood, and prices asked are not reflective of the guitar as a musical instrument, but of its rarity and what the market has decided. The same applies to the astronomical six-figure prices being asked for Gibson Les Paul models built from 1958-1960.

[SprintBob]

Given how good our acoustic luthiers have become especially in producing guitars with amazing tonal signatures using woods other than BRW, I believe that could also be a factor in pricing for BRW (i.e. if demand goes down for it, pricing will start to drop).

[UncleJesse]

Originally Posted by chippygreen

One possibility is someone will figure out what a subscription model will look like:

First we rented our music (iTunes replaced CDs, tape and vinyl)
Then our videogames (Gamestop)
Then our cars (Uber)
Then our clothes (Rent the Runway, TheRealReal)
Then our homes (AirBNB)
Then our shaving equipment (Dollar Shave Club)
Then our experiences (Instagram)

Would I consider $500/year for Martin to send me a newly set up different model every few months? Maybe not to supplant a core 2-3 guitars that I must own, but yes, it would be cool to try a 1985 M-38 this month and a 2012 000-28EC, each time with the option to buy, and with each monthly delivery having passed through a Martin inspection and setup each time. Add in that each guitar could have an online "history" of reviews - what strings prior borrowers have tried, the music styles they played, recordings and video clips.

It could be appealing to some.

Interesting concept! I think I would be interested in that as well.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by chippygreen

One possibility is someone will figure out what a subscription model will look like:

First we rented our music (iTunes replaced CDs, tape and vinyl)
Then our videogames (Gamestop)
Then our cars (Uber)
Then our clothes (Rent the Runway, TheRealReal)
Then our homes (AirBNB)
Then our shaving equipment (Dollar Shave Club)
Then our experiences (Instagram)

Would I consider $500/year for Martin to send me a newly set up different model every few months? Maybe not to supplant a core 2-3 guitars that I must own, but yes, it would be cool to try a 1985 M-38 this month and a 2012 000-28EC, each time with the option to buy, and with each monthly delivery having passed through a Martin inspection and setup each time. Add in that each guitar could have an online "history" of reviews - what strings prior borrowers have tried, the music styles they played, recordings and video clips.

It could be appealing to some.

Would $500 a year cover the cost of shipping and setups?

[M Sarad]

I paid about $1950 for my Brazilian/Sitka SCGC D Cutaway in 1982. Today it would cost me $15-20k. The 15k figure was given to me about 7 years ago when I inquired as to the replacement value.