Heritage and D'Angelico Pro Series

[Frank67]

Yeah, I wonder about the prices too. How could it be justified that these guitars be much more expensive than the guitars that Heritage builds under the Heritage brand label? After all it is the same people doing the same work on the same materials. In case of doubt, I'd rather buy another Heritage :-)

[docbop]

Yeah, I wonder about the prices too. How could it be justified that these guitars be much more expensive than the guitars that Heritage builds under the Heritage brand label? After all it is the same people doing the same work on the same materials. In case of doubt, I'd rather buy another Heritage :-)

When building a large batches of similar guitars it streamlines production and doubt they want guitars to the same tolerances Heritage would do for themselves more time savings.

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah, I wonder about the proces too. How could it be justified that these guitars be much more expensive than the guitars that Heritage builds under the Heritage brand label? After all it is the same people doing the same work on the same materials. In case of doubt, I'd rather buy another Heritage :-)

That is exactly it. The market still sees and values them as Heritage guitars just like that Guild-Benedetto venture where the resultant guitars are seen as Guilds and valued as Guilds, not Benedettos.

Now that Bob Benedetto has gone on his own with Howard Paul the Workshop guitars are seen as Benedettos and valued as such. The skill set and level is no better, to all intents and purposes, than those of the previous Guild. In fact, I daresay that the Guild workshop had a higher level crew of old Guild archtop hands than Howard Paul's Benedetto Workshop. The Guild craftsmen were no slouch. But the market has a certain valuation for Guilds just as it has a certain valuation for Heritage. Those who think they are bigger than the market soon find out to their own chagrin.

There has got to be a lesson in there for the new owners of been-through-the-wringer-by-now D'Angelico trademarked name, logo and designs.

[feet]

without knowing what they models and specs they final builds will be, i'd imagine they'd be priced approximately what a similar heritage would cost, plus the d'angelico markup. which might be significant, given the aesthetics. that aside, i don't expect them to be drastically different from current heritages, and i certainly wouldn't expect many/any corners cut to knock these out, but again, nobody knows anything yet.

i'd then expect jabberwocky's theory to take hold, and assume i'll be excited when these eventually hit the used market at way less than retail.

[Jabberwocky]

Based on the previous Heritage-D'Angelico price list , what would an 18" New Yorker Cutaway Sunburst come in at today? MSRP $15 000? That translates to a MAP of $10500 to $11000. which in turn translates to a street of $9450 to $9900. OK, $9000 with a bit of wheedling and paid for in cash. Would the market bite at that price for a Heritage archtop with D'Angelico appointments?

However, I surmise that the new D'Angelico is not so much interested in archtops as it is in 335-, SG- and Les Paul-types with D'Angelico stylings. That is where the bulk of Gibson's sales come from. Gibson sold over 3300 R9s alone in 2013. At $3500 to $4000 each dealer cost that is a lot of healthy moolah. We have not even accoubted for the other Historics (R4, R5, R6, R7, R8), ES-3xxs, Nashville and Memphis Shops guitars. Archtops are at the bottom of the Pisani-D'Angelico the Company's interest. That is where Heritage with its experience in semi-hollows and planks can really help. Heritage has to eschew the carried-over Norlin practices though.

My unsolicited ha'porth is for Pisani to study Collings (semi-hollows and planks) and then study Benedetto (archtops and hybrids) and take the right lessons from each.