Taylor Road Show

She has a few guitars I've bought her, including a pretty Luna model, the same body size as the 712ce.  It's hanging in the bedroom, not far from her.  It's built like a tank, and sounds as dead as one.  I could hook her up with a smaller body vintage Yamaha!

I haven't had time to play with the guitalele.  I've been working on the Old Kraftsman parlor neck reset with what little free time I've had.  I'll be back on it tonight!  I hope.

I definitely agree with that!  I can't see how anyone could make a major decision to buy a guitar during an event like that.  I had one I favored, but I would need to do comparisons to guitars I have before considering pulling the trigger on a $3500 guitar!  Who am I kidding??!!  I don't play enough/well enough to deserve a guitar like that!  I need to appreciate the ones I have, and sell a few I don't appreciate.

I have only had the opportunity to attend one Taylor road show. It was quite interesting. I sat next to Daniel Estrem, who I have been listening to on CD for years. That was fun. I would go again if Taylor does another one around here. I like the fact that I can go to these things and not be compelled to buy anything.

As for putting one on the credit card, my philosophy is that a credit card is a convenience tool, rather than a loan officer. I put on it what I have the money to pay, and I use my online banking to pay off any such purchase within hours of making that purchase. The credit card, for me, is protection in case anything goes wrong with the sale and I have to return the item, especially if buying something online. My wife and I decided long ago that debt-free living was our lifestyle. so we paid off our mortgage within 10 years, paid our way through college, and write a check to buy a car. Every credit card purchase is paid for immediately on returning home. Having had a decent job that paid well and no kids, meant that we could afford some things in life by prioritizing and not buying into the stuff that many people do (i.e. new cars, big houses, expensive vacations, gambling, cable TV, fancy cell phones, etc.).

As for the price of Taylor guitars, I am sure we all have our personal opinions as to what a given instrument should cost. My younger brother builds fine classical guitars, spent years developing his skills after working in an apprenticeship with a known builder for several months. He talked about how much per hour he actually got paid after selling a guitar. Even at several thousand dollars, it was surprisingly low. Most people, when having spent as much time as he did developing a skill to a high level, expect to get paid decently. He decided to not pursue guitar building as a lifetime career and instead went on to law school and has had a solid practice for many years. He still builds, but as a side avocation.

There has long been a cultural bias against spending money on guitars, yet those who play other instruments such as violin, expect to pay handsomely for a decent quality product. The guitar had never really been taken seriously in that regard until more recent years, with the emergence of the individual builders. Even there, you can buy a "world class" instrument for relatively little money. To me, that is one of the big advantages of acoustic guitars.

I have been teaching myself to play piano. Since I live in a condo, I will never have a "real" piano. Yet, for what a decent digital piano costs, I can have a high end "real" acoustic guitar. That is a really good thing for us players, bad for those trying to make a living building them.

There was a company, CA Guitars, that made carbon fiber acoustic guitars. The guy who started the company, Ellis Seal, was an aerospace engineer, designing the carbon fiber components used in the space shuttle, the Boeing 747, and other large scale projects. Unfortunately, he wasn't much of a businessman and the company went out of business. Peavey bought the assets and now makes those guitars. He posted in a small carbon fiber guitar forum back when he was losing his company. One thing he pointed out as a part of the reason for his business problems was the Cargo, his small model.


His intention was to build normal sized guitars, and the Cargo was to be a kind of "loss leader" to get people interested in his other products. Apparently, he initially lost money on each Cargo sold because he sold it too cheap. For him, it was unfortunate that most people really took to the Cargo, rather than the larger instruments, and he sold lots of them. I have a couple of the originals. The originally sold for $799. That may sound expensive to many here, but the process of building was expensive because it was so labor intensive and the materials were expensive to begin with.

After a couple of years, he raised the price to something over $1k, but that wasn't enough to cover his losses. Today, Peavey sells them and I am seeing them around $1400. I have seen a couple of the Peavey models, and they have cut some corners compared to what the originals were.


My Cargo is a great little guitar, comfortable to play with its short scale and wide fretboard. If we travel anywhere, that is the guitar I take with me. When the humidity is low, I generally keep my wood guitars in their cases, and take them out to play. Especially in winter, I tend to play my Cargo more often because it always sits out, ready to play. The environment doesn't affect the all-carbon fiber construction. This guitar has stainless steel frets and GOTOH 510 tuners, so it will last a long time with no maintenance other than occasionally changing strings. It sounds quite good too, much better than many wood guitars of similar size.

So guitars, like any other product, have to sell for enough to keep the store in business. That begs the question as to why Alvarez and others can sell for less than Taylor at their higher end. Well, I am not a business person either, so I again can't claim to have solid knowledge and experience to back any claims or posturing to that effect in a forum. I don't know the answer. All I do know is what I have been told as cited above, which certainly doesn't cover the range of product available to explain the cost differences, but may offer at least some insight on the more expensive instruments.

Beyond the actual cost of an item, whatever it may be, we each attach our own sense of value to it and decide, based on that, whether we think it is a fair price or not. So when we say a given model or brand is way over priced, are we really saying that according to our own fiscal priorities, the thing is overpriced, or are we stating it as the way everyone should view it?

Obviously, many folks seem to feel that the price of a higher end Taylor is worth the money being charged, while just as many (if not more) don't and will either buy another builder's instrument at that price or decide any guitar is not worth that much money to them.

Tony

I've enjoyed going to the Taylor and Martin events for a few years, because I know I won't be buying anything. This was actually the first even that I even played anything! We usually just go for the show, a little education, and some free stuff. If you play some of them it gets a bit more tempting.

The high price of Taylor's and Martin's is due to the high cost of US labor. I'll bet they pay people in China 1/10th as much. Since there are probably hundreds of hours required to build a good guitar, that cost adds up quickly.

I don't see any new Taylor guitars in my local guitar shops, but last week they had a mid range secondhand, Taylor Guitar, it was in mint condition. The shop was very quite, so I picked up the guitar, was very impressed with the quality, it was a beautiful looking guitar, so full of excitement started to play the guitar finger style, then felt really let down, I could not get any volume out of the little beauty, now this guitar my have come in to It's own, if played with a plectrum, but I only play fingerstyle, so the guitar went back on the rack, to be found by someone who will appreciate it far more than I did.

Could that be the reason it was in the shop, second hand and in mint condition?  

Clearly, that is not the only reason a guitar will show up used/mint, as my Huss & Dalton did.  But it is possible.  I sold a 1996 Collings because it just didn't have the sound. 

Tony