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Why are GJ guitars so damn expensive?
Mitu
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Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places? Maybe searching the wrong terms? I dunno.
The guitars on DjangoBooks are 5 figures that I probably wont see this soon in my life and probably not in my thirties either, but that's understandable, vintage, the real stuff and all of that.
What makes these guitars so special? Seems pretty trivial, something I should already know, but so far I never asked myself that question, is it the strings? Is it the material? What is it that makes GJ guitars so special? (and so expensive!)
All comments are welcome.
(Also I wanted to thank everybody from my last post that shared their story, I think I read most of them, all of them amazing.)
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Gypsy jazz is not popular enough that budget guitar makers would make the budget guitars (there are a few on the market actually). You are looking at luthier built, handmade guitars. Classical or other acoustic guitars that are built to the same standards would cost the same. Even top quality electric guitars are expensive. A Gibson Les Paul Standard costs about $3.000 at the moment.
Gypsy jazz guitars are wildly cheap. You can buy luthier built instruments used for $2k or sometimes less. Good quality luthier classical guitars cost $6 or 8k to start. That's the top end for new gypsy guitars. The new selmers at 15k is sort of in the middle of newer fingerstyle guitars by luthiers. Or collings or Bourgeois guitars. It's very common for the small factory guitars to be $15k but there is only one for gypsy guitars.
And there's a very small amount of gypsy guitars in the world relative to flat tops. Selmer made less than 1000 guitars total. In the 30s Martin was making 5000 guitars a year (very roughly).
Tldr: Selmer guitars are very very rare but go for prices way less than much more common guitars.
@Mitu a friend of mine with an MBA once explained to me that pricing in small niche markets is compressed (i.e the difference between the lowest priced item and the highest priced item are much closer than in larger markets.) So, if you compare new solidbody electrics, archtops, classicals, or flatops (all of which have far larger markets than Gypsy jazz) you’ll find entry level models for a few hundred dollars, but the very top builders are fetching $50-100k for their instruments. The most money the top Gypsy builders like Dupont or Barault will charge is about $10K. So you can get the very, very best Gypsy guitar for around a tenth of the price of most other genres. And you don’t need to spend nearly that much for a great Gypsy guitar, $3K will do it. I think we’re pretty lucky how relatively inexpensive Gypsy guitars really are…:
The price of the guitar is small compared to the price of being part of a niche community. If you want a good in-style teacher, and fly to events, and take workshops, and attend jams, etc. you must lay down $3000-$5000 per year. Which is still not too bad compared to hobbies like skiing or riding.
Check out the prices for almost any other musical instrument. Guitars are relatively cheap, and Gypsy Jazz sits in about the med range for the different guitar styles. Fine classical can easily be $15-50K. Archtops are in the same range. Flat top acoustics from boutique builders are comparable to GJ guitars.
Now go to orchestral string instruments. A good quality violin bow will easily cost more than the best new gypsy Jazz guitars. A concert level violin or cello will likely run six figures. A concert grand piano is also 100K+, though you can get decent smaller grand pianos for a few times more than the best gypsy Jazz guitar will cost. A decent harp will be about 40K, running to over 100K. A good saxophone costs several times what the best GJ guitars cost.And so on..
Guitar players don’t understand how lucky they are.
It takes about 3-4 weeks working full-time to make a guitar, so you have capacity to make about 12 guitars a year. If you sell it at 3000, a third of that will go on materials, expenses, taxes and fees. That leaves you with 2000 - times 12, an annual salary of 24000!
I think the question you should be asking is - how come gypsy jazz guitars are so damn cheap?
Shhhhhhh!🤫
This is all true but I think what people notice is that there is so much more choice in the $1K range and even lower in other guitar types.
I've bought three high-quality Selmer-styles over the last 25 years, one small-shop (an early Dell'Arte) and two single-builders (Dunn and Park), and I didn't pay more for any of them than I would have for an equivalent-grade flat-top. (I currently have a Goodall, though that one was second-hand). And if were starting out in GJ today, I would have a pretty wide range of modestly-priced, factory-built guitars to choose from.
I would say that the biggest challenge for a beginning player isn't price but finding GJ guitars to try out--even in a guitar town like Minneapolis, the last shop that stocked Eastmans went out of the guitar biz last year.
Great comments so far.
Gypsy Jazz is indeed a niche market, and comparatively, as I play many other styles, the guitars used for this genre are relatively cheap. I have several guitars build the California luthier David Schramm (lattice braced concert classical guitar for 9k, a double top concert classical guitar for 10k, a flamenco "negra" with Brazilian rosewood back and sides for 11k, and a 7-string double top for about 9k), and his guitars, as far as top shelf nylon-string instruments, are actually affordable, when compared to his peers.
As for Archtops, as Michael described, the range is quite wide; with John Monteleone's carved acoustic archtop guitars costing over 100k, and a cheap, and a good laminate archtop costing a few hundred dollars. The same can be said for electrics as well.
I would say, if you want a great gypsy jazz guitar, just slowly, but surely, save up your money. I did that for many years, and had a fund, for when I (eventually) found a good Selmer. Some of the best gypsy jazz guitars out there are around 3k, if bought used.