Comments

• flaco ✭ Shelley Park #151, AJL Quiet and Portable

  8:30AM Posts: 168

  https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/121036#Comment_121036

  i have a group of close musical friends and we all have dreadnaughts in the $5k+ range. I bought mine 15 years ago for $5k and it has appreciated to probably $10k. You are right that nobody NEEDS a guitar that costs that much, but when you are talking about acoustic volume and tone in a large, outdoor bluegrass jam, these more expensive guitars are objectively better than cheaper ones.

  
• JSanta NY✭✭✭ Duffell, Gaffiero, Dupont, AJL

  9:11AM edited 9:30AM Posts: 302

  We guitarists are a finnicky bunch aren't we? I understand that most guitarists that are using instruments don't have tens of thousands of dollars for an instrument. But I don't hear even mid-tier orchestra string players complaining about their $5k plus bow and $15k instrument.

  I also don't have a clue how many of the talented luthiers in our community continue to make these incredible instruments for a fraction of the cost of a concert level string instrument. AND can stay in business. I don't know if a violin is harder to make than a Selmac, but I am willing to bet the dedication to the craft is the same. We can complain that it's too expensive until we're blue in the face, but the reality is we have been blessed that our chosen instrument has many levels of access, and GREAT guitars are obtainable.

  I bought my niece a starter (used) Eastman violin a few years back, and for $600 it was like firewood compared to my $200 Squier. We're lucky.

  
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  9:16AM edited 9:17AM Posts: 398

  I mean I've never been invited into such a vault but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of them. If you follow prices long enough you know that guitars sell regularly for more than I make per year as a nurse (hey I only work two days a week, because I'm lazy, but anyway). For a lot of people $50k is not really that much money for a luxury good, which is what these guitars are.

  I spoke to someone who has definitely played all sorts of very high end guitars and owns something that's a bit legendary and his complaint about a lot of very high end archtops is they sound like crap and are made to be eye candy and they go straight into vaults. Or display cases, or whatever.

  My point linking to that Martin wasn't that that's a reasonable price for a new guitar, just that that's what people will pay for a new guitar. It's silly to a degree but it does exist and that was just the first one I googled.

  That said, if people want luthiers to make enough to actually stay in the game, a hand made Selmer for $10k should not be unreasonable. I think my max working full time might be 9 guitars. 90k prior to expenses would be an ok but not amazing income. But really I'm closer to 7 (last batch of 7 took me most of 15 months, but I'm getting a little faster).

  I'm just choosing to do this for now and see what I can do and see if I enjoy it. I will likely work as a nurse till I can't stand up anymore. I have no real retirement savings. So this isn't about me, just saying, $10k is not a crazy amount of money for the amount of work involved. People spend $10k to take their family to Disney. Or more (????). Money is weird. But the market is a flooded a bit and **** are devalued relative to the rest of the market.

  But yeah the dirty secret of guitars is that $2500 guitars sound pretty good.

  
• lucky New

  12:12PM Posts: 73

  My guitar collection is worth about £12-15k. As far as I’m concerned it’s a good bet - I get to enjoy the guitars and they’re not losing money, I usually at least break even when I move guitars on and some of my guitars have gone up a lot in value - my Collings is worth twice what I paid for it. There are more expensive hobbies out there. But these ALD Selmers look like a risky bet at 15k - 8-10k maybe, unless there’s something super high end about them.
• MichaelHorowitz SeattleAdministrator

  4:33PM edited 4:36PM Posts: 6,203

  Today I got a call from Stefan who is the head of the guitar project at Selmer. As others mentioned earlier, these new Selmers will be priced at $15K and 60 will be made. They put a lot of research into Selmer’s original design and production methods and will have Fabian and Gerald from ALD construct them over the next several years. While many of the original details will be faithfully reproduced (they’ve replicated some original tools, meticulously studied bracing and top design, Selmer’s brass specialists will make the hardware, and they even made a trip to Romania to get some Carpithian spruce!,) these guitars will ultimately be a modernized version of the petite bouche design (will have a truss rod, C shape neck, etc.)

  Look forward to seeing one at some point….they go on sale tomorrow via Selmer’s website.

  
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  6:30PM Posts: 5,311

  I wish them luck but that doesn't add up in my mind. World's best builders of this genre have studied original Selmers and were selling them, and still do, ~ $4-7K. I don't see anything that Selmer and ALD team can offer additionally. Except the logo. If they pulled out 503 from the museum, had ALD team fully restore it, study it and them make copies, then that maybe could be a redeeming offer. But this, it's just confusing. Math is simple enough, as it's been discussed in this thread, if ALD team plus the company plus what Michael said about tools etc... if everybody wants to make money, well that's where the price needs to be for it to make sense to everyone business wise. I just don't see the point.

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel