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Good points. I too am guilty of having bought on the internet, but, again, with a lot of back-and-forth between me and the dealer before the deal happened.
Randy, that was an interesting statement about having a guitar of the same quality as your car (or words to that effect). Having gone through adolescence in car-crazed Southern California, I consider myself a recovering car nut (in my past are an MG TD, '55 Ford Thunderbird, '66 turbo Corvair Corsa, among others, along with several road racing motorcycles that I built and raced) and I am now quite content to drive around in my Toyota Matrix and be invisible to the traffic cops. If my car said "Kelvinator" on it I'd be just as happy, no doubt.
Guitars are another matter. I believe it is possible to grow into guitars (and basses and amps, for that matter). I had an interesting discussion with my step-son's father when the step-son was twentysomething and was having a figured koa nylon-string made by a local luthier (I have a flamed maple jumbo from the same guy, and it's gorgeous). Anyway, his father was concerned that his son was spending 'way too much money on a damn guitar, of all things. My response was that a) cheap guitars limit one's technique (he was studying classical guitar at the time) and b) if he lost his enthusiasm, he could sell it for more than he paid for it. I think that a) is more important in classical guitar playing, where technique is the center of the training (many scores indicate not only the note, but the string and the fingering used), but the second is valid also. A hand-made, broken-in classical is going to fetch some bucks -- and his was (is -- he still has it, twenty years later) a very good one, with even tone and volume from string to string and up the neck.
Amplified guitar is a little different: a good amp can make up deficiencies in a guitar, and vice versa. And, it's true, as I have acknowledged, that the less expensive guitars are far superior to what their equivalents were back in the day I was coming up, BUT:
Once you find that magic combination of guitar and amp, you'll wonder why you wasted your life with something lesser. For me, it's my Les Paul Deluxe and my Fender Jazzmaster Ultralight, or my 335 and my Blues Jr NOS, or my '63 Silvertone Twin Twelve and just about any guitar.
Pretty soon, once I get the Bigsby B5 on my SG, we'll see (or hear) what that's like, too.
I really do think that you get what you pay for. Not only in resale value, but in day-to-day jamming and gigging and playing. My 335 fits me in a lot of subtle ways that the similar Epiphone Sheraton II never did. It feels better, and it sounds better, and it looks better.
Once you find one that works like that, you can't be satisfied with less.
My final point: all of us have had similar experiences to yours, Little Jay, where someone with the to-die-for guitar can't play a C chord and someone else is hammering us with his Montgomery Ward special, but that doesn't make the cheapo "as good as" the higher priced spread. (I was just reminded of a jam several years ago, where we started playing "Barracuda" by Heart, and a guy stepped up and played the solo, note-for-note, on a beautiful blue Ric. Then we played another song, and he played the solo, note-for-note -- from "Barracuda." Turned out that was the ONLY thing he knew on guitar, and was likely the person who requested the song.)
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10-08-2009 10:03 AM
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Oh yes, that's happened to everyone but it doesn't mean anything. A more interesting performance may have been experienced if the younger flamin' groovies were to have exchanged guitars with the ol' burnouts. What does YOUR intuition suggest would have occurred ?
Originally Posted by Little Jay
And you ALREADY own a fine instrument, which I for one would like to see compared to the current typical product. My bet is that the Samicks or whatever, that cost ten to twenty times what you paid for your Japanese guitar would come in second.
cheers, Jay, nice post John,
randyc
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What you call "moralizing" was nothing more than my observation that many players (apparently, mostly younger ones) are blinded by bling and order guitars online as though they were in the Drive-Through at Mickey D's. To then gripe because their plastic-coated goodies are a disappointment is both inevitable and pointless, and does nothing to improve quality.
And the thrust of this thread is not whether Asian makers manufacture decent quality budget instruments: I (and others) have already stated that fact. The point, rather, is that most of them are by no means (as it says in the title) "darn near as good as a Gibson." Feel free to disagree.
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This is a very interesting thread. I would join in, except by the time I've got my ideas straight enough in my head to post something sensible, I'm already three or four posts adrift. I've been thinking along the lines of Igeneri's post - that it's not East v West so much as Copy v Original. Budget guitars that are both affordable and playable have allowed me to learn a lot about guitars - including the realisation that some budget guitars are good, and some are not so good. You can get the Epi Emperor in the UK for something under 500, but the Gibson 'Wes' L5 for something under 5000. I don't suppose (as a 'hobby' guitarist) I'm likely to spend 5000 on a single guitar, and if I do it probably won't be a 17" archtop - but the Emperor at least allows me to get some idea of one, and has taught me something along the way. Judging from the finish on my ES137, Gibson aren't perfect, and Gibson ought to at least monitor what they put out under the 'Epiphone' name - I wonder what their reaction would be to the photograph of the plywood neck? No of course an Epi isn't as good as a Gibson (in a straight test) but they both have roles to play. (I'm sorry if that is a bit barbled, but if I hesitate I'll fall behind the posts again.)
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Ha ha. I feel the same way. I've always said that Epiphone and other Asian brands are a great way to experience the classic designs of Gibson; in fact I've owned a couple.
I'm not really a Gibson groupie: they make plenty of guitars and basses I would not touch with the proverbial 10-foot pole. But the ones I like, I really like, and mostly because of my experience with less well-designed (certainly, not always less expensive) brands. My first "name brand" guitar was a 1963 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman (bought in 1982) and it inadvertently educated me as to what the standard should be -- that is, a great guitar would NOT have the idiosyncratic controls, the next-to-impossible access to the electronics, and the odd elongated heel that restricted access to the upper frets of the Country Gent. A Rickenbacker further refined my taste: non-standard controls, a skinny, narrow neck, and a sound that only Roger McGuinn could love.
An Epiphone Sheraton II led me to my current affair with the 335. I wanted something more attractive than my old road warrior Les Paul gold top to play at church, and, in the course of some horse-trading of gear, ended up with the Sheraton for a couple of hundred dollars.
But that led to the 335: the Epiphone was a well-crafted instrument. Nonetheless, I couldn't bond with it, even though I liked the shape and the neck. I decided to upgrade to a Gibson, starting the chain of events that has led to my contributing to this thread.
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We're in different areas here. I prefer my laminate top (and back) 335 to others I experienced...and, being in a small East Texas City, there's no easy way to try out other brands. I've always wanted a jazzbo full-body archtop, but after having been given a Samick L5 copy mentioned previously, I have to say that, for all their visual appeal, they don't fit me.
I have seen a couple of pictures of Sadowskys (and I'm a big fan of Jim Hall) and a friend here in town has a G10 Ibanez that he is madly in love with, but I've gone off a bit in different direction from the amplified acoustic paradigm (I've also played my Precision bass in a local honky tonk band, so maybe I'm just irredeemably tainted).
What Norlins have you owned? My one and only (and my first Gibson) is the '70 LP Deluxe pictured in my avatar. It was my main electric between the Chet Atkins and the 335, a space of about 13 years. Here's an interesting factoid: even during the Norlin years, widely regarded as the darkest of dark times for Gibsons, many good guitars were made.
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... I think that many premises about these contentions (the "budget" guitar argument) are incorrect. I just spent 30 minutes discussing the subject and <<poof>> off the statements went into cyberland.
I'll try again, this time recording on a word processor BEFORE posting here. At least I'll be able to save as I go along ...
Sorry, will be back later ...
cheers
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Ok.. correct me if I am wrong. My rule of thumb "you get what you pay for +/- 10% "
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Very nice. I'm a fool for that spare style. Thanks for the link.
Good horn playing. I had the opportunity to play with a horn section late last fall when the local U put on a production of Big River, a multiple-Tony garnering musical based on Huckleberry Finn, with music by Roger Miller. We had a fluegelhorn/trumpeter, a French horn/trombonist, and a soprano sax/clarinet/bass clarinet section, comprised of graduate students. The trumpeter, especially, brought a lot of sass to the performances -- every night he added a little more wah from his mute.
What was I doing there? The score includes, in addition to keyboards, bass and drums, and the horn section, a "string band" consisting of rhythm guitar, flat-picked lead guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and me -- on harmonica. I still get teased about being the only one who didn't have to lug big pieces or gear and/or amplifiers up the narrow stairs to the pit. I carried a harmonica case, with my score and notes inside.
Walter Carter's Gibson: 100 Years of an American Icon (General Publishing Group, Los Angeles, 1994) has a fascinating history of Norlin, from the beginning, when ECL bought it (ECL then reorganized into Norlin, named after NORton Stevens, and Arnold BerLIN, the son of Maurice Berlin, who had bought Gibson from the original investors in 1944). It's fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way, as you watch them make one bone-headed decision after another, until all that is left of Norlin is a stock certificate printing shop, soon enough absorbed by Pitney-Bowes.
Randy, you ready yet? -- I'm trying to stall for time here.
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PART 1 – FORUM DOESN’T ACCEPT LONG POSTS
You guys are missing the point of these guitars. It's not that they are made in Asia, it is that they are budget instruments. They used to be made in the U.S. and were called Silvertone or Harmony, now they're made in China and are called Epiphone. Sad to see a great name reduced to Gibson's budget brand, but it's been going on for decades now.
I can speak only for myself but I don’t think that I missed the point at all. I mentioned at least twice that I bought the “budget instrument” as a “bar guitar”, I think that my requirement placed me barely within the very outermost limit of the demographic at which these guitars are aimed. They are produced, IMO, primarily for younger musicians who have yet to acquire the taste that demands a more refined playing experience. No offense intended, I am not suggesting that you fit that demographic, I think that you probably purchased your Epi for much the same reason that I did.
Budget guitars have their role. I could afford a Gibson archtop for many years now. Hell, I could afford them more before I was married. But I was always hesitant because it was always such a big investment. I also worried about durability given how much I travel. I bought a cheap Epi Emperor Regent (Korean) in Hong Kong. I later upgraded it extensively with pickups, an ebony bridge, and a new tailpeice and ended up with a decent guitar. I used the Epi on my demo tracks and was happy with the tone ingeneri op MySpace Music ? Gratis gestreamde MP3?s, foto?s en Videoclips
Yes, I understand that but it’s no more of an investment to buy a Gibson than it has been in the past. Look at inflation over, say forty years, compare the cost of a decent Gibson then and inflate the cost by historical COL increases. To me, based on performing a brief exercise based on a sample of 1 (my new ’61 Les Paul), the prices today are comparable to what they were 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation. And since the average person who plays a L-5CES, as an example, tends to be a more mature individual with greater earning power, the cost of the guitar is even less significant.
If one is earning a significant amount of income playing music – enough so that the income should be claimed for tax purposes – then the cost of your instruments are trivial. Every bit of the money gets deducted from one’s taxes as capital equipment and depreciated over some reasonable period. Used to be five years, so one could buy the L-4CES, play it for five years (deducting the cost of the instrument) then buy an L-5CES, repeat the process and end up with two fine instruments that cost NOTHING.
I think that one of the main attractions of the Chinese instruments is just that we are too accustomed to suckling from the Chinese nipple, sorry for the coarse allusion. Well-reasoned arguments can be made – and are – daily that deal with the decline and disappearance of American steel companies, American machine tool companies, American textile companies and (pick your heavy industry and insert here). Doesn’t that trouble anyone except me and the people who write OP-ED pieces ? I say, stop being a cheapskate, buy an instrument that has quality, history and, based on my experience, an iron-clad guarantee. Oh yeah, and doesn’t have to be “upgraded”, for goodness sake ! AND appreciates in value.
Was the Epi perfect? No. Did it need work? Yes. Have I moved on from the Epi? Sure. Are my D'angelico and Heritage guitars superior, absolutely. But, at the end of the day, it's a $600 guitar. It's not carved and it's not even a high-end laminate. But the Epi served it's purpose and, when I'm boarding a plane, I often wish I hadn't sold it.
My supposition is that many endorsing artists may share your opinion. They travel with their Chinese instruments to avoid scratching their L-5 or D’Angelico J
But the clear point is that you “moved on”. You now own quality instruments that didn’t require “upgrading” so your argument is a little bit fuzzy to me. I would have just bought the quality instruments up front, spared myself the hassle of “upgrading” and enjoyed hours more of pleasurable playing with instruments that suited my taste.
Incidentally, Asia makes more than buget boxes. The Sadowsky's (probably the best laminates around today) are made in Japan and assembled in Roger's shop in NY. They seem ok enough for Jim Hall, Jimmy Bruno, Russell Malone, and Kurt R. The Vestax era Japanese D'angelicos were great and used by Malone, Grant Green Jr., Jerry Hahn, and Duke Robillard. Event the Chinese Eastmans, a student favorite, increasingly produce quality instruments played by lots of working stiff pros that hold their own.
Unless it was by thoughtlessness, no one here has been critical of Japanese guitars, au contraire, I hold them up as a model for the Chinese. Not that the Japanese didn’t produce many tons of trash too until they “got it”. My copy of “Guitars of the Nineteen-Fifties” is replete with examples of poorly-built, drop-dead ugly, fluorescent green “Teisco Del Rey” guitars, or the like., Once the Japanese got it right, they became non-competitive within about ten years. There’s a message there, think about it …
As for the “opinions” of artists, under contract to endorse a certain product, the conflict of interest is obvious …
END OF PART 1 – FORUM DOESN’T ACCEPT LONG POSTS
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PART 2
Finally, I could do without the moralizing about internet purchases. I'd rather buy from a well regarded knowledgable dealer like Jeff Hale, Jay Wolfe, or Joe V. than get to try out some POS display guitar under the pimpled gaze of a Guitar Center store clerk. For the record, I've gotten three fantastic guitars off of Ebay. It's riskier, but quite doable if you're careful. Just because one doesn't feel comfortable or savvy enough to use e-commerce doesn't make it illigit.
I don’t think anybody was “moralizing”, a number of people (e.g. me) shared their experiences, some good, some bad. I’ve had pretty good luck, three for three, even though one had to go back to Gibson, to be replaced with a brand-new instrument. No muss, no fuss – UPS the original to Memphis, UPS a new one back to me. Iron-clad quality guarantee, despite the fact that it was the cheapest thing they made at the time (ES-135).
Disagree. I'd rather have a Sadowsky Jim Hall or Jimmy Bruno, solid top D'angelico NYL2, or an Ibanez George Benson than a new Gibson laminate. For the price, I'd much rather have a carved Eastman than a new ES-175. I haven't played them, but I wouldn't be surprised if the solid top Japanese D'aquistos also outperform the Gibbie lams.
But there are so many variables in lots of wood that picking a “solid” top over a laminate – and I use that term advisedly since the interior of my Epi was not laminate but construction grade “plywood”, is no guarantee of quality. I’d argue against it, in fact, unless you have confidence in the historical ability of the manufacturer to select, grade and utilize solid wood (OR laminates) that are made from a known species, with measured and known density and properly aged, assembled with known, time-proven techniques.
THAT’S the lesson that the Japanese learned: at first, they employed cheap materials, cheap labor and cost-cutting designs that resulted in guitars that nobody except Japanese wanted. Once they started copying Gibsons in every detail, they came up with wonderful, quality instruments. Unhappily, as their cost of living was enhanced and given the transportation cost, when they got it right, their guitars were found to be non-competitive financially.
(Oh yes, and they – like the Chinese – tried the blatant, exact copy technique. This was partly successful, witness the “Orville” for example, but hardly ethically or morally correct. Uh-oh, I’m starting to sound left-wing now, I should adopt a more Republican attitude about business: by definition, business is all good.)
Not Asian, but for carved tops, Heritage blows new Gibsons away. GIbson doesn't make a carved top in the Eastman's price range (Heritage is the only US builder that does). And you can get a hand-made Campellone, or even a lower end Buscarino, for less than a new L-5.
An argument that I’ve read (from you) for years, unproven at best, dead wrong at worst. I have no issue with Heritage but to suggest (as you have in past years) that they are the “real” Gibson is inaccurate, prejudiced and ignores the judgment of the market, which is what success is about.
The “boutique” guitars should be regarded – in some ways – as being similar to the Chinese instruments (blasphemy). Who knows how long their business will last (history, in the form of the SBA, suggests the answer) and how well the instruments will perform twenty years from now ?
Maybe the boutiques, for example, use a “better” adhesive than the old hide-glue method, maybe a two-part space-age epoxy that will decide to de-laminate in twenty years … who will return your $5000 investment (that you have been so hesitant in past years to make) when/if that happens ?
I've owned Norlin Gibsons in the past, and would be interested in a reasonable deal on a vintage instrument (I'm impuslively bidding on a 1951 ES-175 right now). But a chevron headstock and distinct tailpiece do not justify the massive difference in Gibson's prices for its new instruments.
Absolutely not, nor does sticking the name of an American luthier on a Chinese guitar make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The only thing that such a practice “suggests” is a higher standard of inspection of the manufactured product NOT a higher standard of manufacturing. There is an axiom in business that states “you cannot inspect quality into a product”.
I, for one, would not be in the least surprised if Gibson just stopped making archtops. It’s obvious that they know their market is tightly focused at teens-thirties solid body demand, that’s where 95% of their income is derived. The only financial justification for continuing to make jazz guitars is to price them at a level that guarantees profitability.
Like it or not, that’s the way the system works – we are at the mercy of the bean-counters in the final analysis. Better grab that ES-175 while they’re still being made. Jazz is a dying music, the future augers more and more demand for the low-end solid bodies. At some point the bean counters may just decide to terminate the Custom Shop.
Sorry if these hastily-assembled comments offend anyone, that wasn’t the intent. My opinions are mine and worth what you pay for them. I’m a “mature” man, to say the nicest thing that I can think of about my age, and I don’t have to put up with compromises. I want the best and that’s what I buy.
But NOT to say that money is no object. I want my children, if not to enjoy these guitars, to consider them as sound investments. I have a LOT of money listed on my homeowner’s insurance policy – the cost of replacement – and a ridiculously low sum that was actually spent to acquire my instruments.
randyc
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Originally Posted by randyc
Hear Hear! At 50 years old, that's why I invested in used Guilds! Worth every penny!
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History argues that most small companies will fail after the founder passes on and one will be either stuck with a bad investment or lucky to own a rare classic, take your pick and take your chances. That risk isn't for me. Originally Posted by ingeneri
On Heritage v. Gibson, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
On pricing, I think you're missing one important factor: Gibson's prices may be the same in relative terms (aka adjusted for inflation) but musicians pay is the same in absolute terms as 30 years ago.
Regarding the durability and respectability of the small luthiers you're way off base. Sure, some no-name guy just starting out is a risk. But, Sadowsky, Buscarino, Commins, Triggs, and Campellone have all been doing what they do for 20+ years. I've never heard of any major quality control issues with any of their work. So, there's no reason to believe their instruments will last any less time than anything coming out of Nashville (or, to be fair, Kalamazoo). I don't think any of them are going to stiff you with green wood and cheap glue.
You are right about musician's wages but you're ignoring the fact that guitars/amplifiers are tax deductible expenses for working musicians. They are FREE !
I'm not trying to convince you to change your attitudes, that's not possible and it's unlikely that you could change mine. The point of discussions like this is to educate those whose minds are not yet as firmly molded as yours and mine and who may benefit from the experiences of their elders ...
cheers,
randyc
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Only if you are concerned about resale. My will stipulates that I be cremated and have my ashes poured into my archtop Originally Posted by randyc
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Well said, Randy, and you stay on task a lot better than I do. But I beg to differ with the idea that you (more accurately, I) could end up with an L4-CES and an L5-CES substantially for free. We were shooting the breeze after a gig, and I mentioned that I had already paid for the Fender P I'd been playing that night. "Including," said the skeptical singer/rhythm player, "all you spent getting to this point?"
I have, in fact, been making enough money most years lately to pay taxes on my gig earnings (needless to say, playing at dance halls in E TX means that the totals fall rather short of six figures), and what you depreciate is a percentage of the instrument's total value from your earned income, which means that you pay a lower total amount in taxes -- but (at least in my case) that doesn't "pay for" any instruments.
Enough quibbles. This is an interesting thread, both for the points of view expressed and for the eloquence of the various advocates. The issue of Japanese vs Chinese/Korean/Indonesian is telling: when I bought my '63 Silvertone Twin Twelve from its original owner for $40 in 1974, he generously threw in the solid body Japanese electric he had been performing with (surely he was aware of the premium price I was paying for the amp!). Friends, that guitar was a prototypical POS. (No, that doesn't refer to Gretsch' Project-O-Sonic stereo electronics). I was happy to have it -- hell, I had just bought an electric guitar AMP -- but as soon as I got a pickup on my regular guitar, it was traded for a Lafayette vacuum tube reel-to-reel (are we getting old yet?). Someone was making single-coil pickups, and you see them on all the old Teiscos and Kents and Venturas. The headstock was a sort of Fender six-on-a-side, and the tuners must have cost quite a bit less than a dollar a set.
But, as Randy pointed out, the Japanese learned. Boy, did they ever. When Bill Schultz and his crowd bought Fender, the Fullerton plant was not included in the sale, so as a stopgap Fender contracted with Fuji-Gen Gakki (which outfit, ironically enough, had been making Fender copies) while the limited factory capacity in the US was devoted to making the newly popular "vintage" models.
Japanese Fenders, from that day forth, have been known has equivalent quality in many cases to MIA models.
China and Indonesia have benefited from an additional technological boost, which is the revolution in CNC/CAD-CAM machinery, reducing the amount of time it used to take to train woodworkers. Maybe, before long, when American made instruments are no longer available, we'll be bidding on eBay for Japanese instruments 'cause they sure don't make 'em like that in China.
But for now, I'll happily stay with my Gibsons -- recall that my happiness was formed partly by the guitars, less exemplary, that came before.Last edited by lpdeluxe; 10-09-2009 at 05:31 PM. Reason: editing for syntactical, grammatical, and technical errors
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If one truly - even by belt tightening - cannot afford the instrument one really wants, well then, that's the end of the story. However, that's not what I see, for the most part. What I see is misplaced priorities, disposable income being allocated for purposes that, however desirable, don't reward one for making good decisions. Automobiles are a fine example. Originally Posted by ingeneri
I like your comparison of musical instrument to "tool", it's one that I frequently use myself. I've been poor, it's almost embarassing to think of the things I had to do to get by in early years. But I've never been so poor that I had to cut corners not to own the right tool for the job.
The process of evolution has worked in my favor, LOL, in early days the type of music that I enjoyed playing could easily be accomodated on a Les Paul, strat, SG or similar ... all priced at a level that I could - by exercising frugal living - obtain.
As I matured - or not, some might say that I just aged - my tastes in music changed and I found that the tools that I owned didn't adequately perform the job. The instruments that I came to prefer became increasingly expensive but happily, so did my income production.
At all times during my younger days, I could own only one instrument. Even the most carefully orchestrated techniques of thrift couldn't get two guitars into a house shared by my wife. That, however I defined it, was conspicuous consumption as far as she was concerned. So the sale of one guitar financed the sale of the next and so forth ...
Usually, as in cases where one has little or no negotiating room, I took a beating. When I wanted to trade in my Les Paul, there was "no market for solid body instruments". When I had to divest myself of a mid-fifties Epiphone single pickup ES-330, there was "no market for thin guitars".
Eventually I tired of always being on the losing side of economics, so I quit selling the guitars and amplifiers. Happily, by this time my salary was adequate to stifle my wife's objections. The quid pro quo that you allude to in your note about jewelry.
Maybe I've accumulated some nice tools that nobody will value after I'm dead. Maybe they won't - heaven forfend - hold their acquired value. If that's the worst case, though, I still feel pretty good about my decisions. If I'd bought less expensive guitars, would I be further ahead when the "boomer" market crashes? Depends on how much value, if any, that one places on the experience of owning and playing these beauties. I think my actions speak for how I feel about it.
And if my kids can't sell these things, well I imagine a few of them will still stay in their possession because they will remember happy times associated with when I was healthy and apt to celebrate life with music.
Thanks for the compliment regarding the Epi project. It didn't involve much other than basic woodworking - a subject that USED to be taught to all of us in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades. There's a lot of adult men around these days (my brother-in-law comes to mind) that don't know a saw from a soldering iron.
Times have changed, just as our industrial strength continually declines, so do the intellectual resources of our children. Unhappily, our political leaders made decisions not to spend money on the things that THEY should have valued, they chose to reward wealthy people for being wealthy.
I'd be inclined to call them brain-dead morons but THEIR standard of living is still just fine, actually better ! So from their perspective, they made wise, far-reaching economic decisions. There's an old Elvis Costello song that expresses a desire to "p-ss on Maggie Thatcher's grave". It strikes exactly the right mood for me sometimes ....
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John, didn't see your post earlier, especially this:
"I have, in fact, been making enough money most years lately to pay taxes on my gig earnings (needless to say, playing at dance halls in E TX means that the totals fall rather short of six figures), and what you depreciate is a percentage of the instrument's total value from your earned income, which means that you pay a lower total amount in taxes -- but (at least in my case) that doesn't "pay for" any instruments."
That is surely correct, the government typically allows the deduction only against what you have earned. Capital equipment gets deducted at 20%/year for 5 years. However, IIRC, you can take the deductions even if you earn nothing for two straight years. After that time, your music "business" reverts to a music "hobby" and nothing more can be deducted.
So I mis-spoke, what I should have said was that the equipment can be wholly paid for OR up to 40% reimbursed by deductions, depending upon one's earning power as a musician. Better or do I still have it wrong ? It's been a couple of years since I used those deductions.
cheers
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I believe in absolute intrinsic value: that is, what it costs to acquire a similar new instrument, disregarding bubbles (such as the one we are, one prays, leaving) but taking into account intangibles such as my subjective feelings When I'm playing one I like, not to mention the posited increased enjoyment of the audience. My 335 has a very high intrinsic value by that measure. My kids may find it makes more economic sense, down the road, to use that nicely kiln-dried and aged wood to kindle the fireplace. My guitars and basses are by no means even a large fraction of what they will eventually inherit, AND they show a distressing taste for synth music -- another reason, other than purely economic reasons, that the bubble will, if not burst, slowly deflate.
A friend of mine has a beautifully restored '57 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible in lemon yellow with a white top (and this raises a sensible question about "vintage" guitars: why is "all original" such a fetish? This leads to forgeries, the sale of non-players that were passed over back in the day, and obsession with retaining worn frets, frozen pots and whatnot; a car collector would think these are all signs of mental disturbance -- or, would you prefer a '36 Packard that still had the original tires on it?). At one time, after the boomers matured and moved up a little in their professions, they started to indulge their desire for the automotive objects of their teenage but impoverished youth, and that Bel Air was worth somewhere above $40K. Then the inevitable happened: those who wanted a Bel Air either got one, or died, and that same car is now worth about half what it was at the peak (I am quoting these figures from memory: they might well have been higher).
Same thing with guitars. I'm not really in this fight, because while everyone else my age was ogling Les Pauls and Strats, I was doing something quite different in road racing motorcycles. I think I had one friend who played guitar --he had a D-18, I remember, and I also remember wondering why he bothered to tell me that. Anyhow, the day will come when old guitars will go for a percentage of the new price, and only nuts like us will seek them out. The obvious comparison with Stradivarius is usually raised at this point, at which I can only answer, "Puh-leeze!" Strads were last made, not 40-50 years ago, but centuries gone by; and their superiority derives not only from their exquisite tone (so I am told with persons with more intact hearing than mine) but also from their adaptability to changing fashions in technique and music. Imagine a '58 Les Paul changing hands for seven figures after having been many times broken and glued back together (this example being a Les Paul, OF COURSE the repairs were done to the headstock), outfitted successively with piezo and Stratocaster and Synthesizer pickups, having suffered the finish being worn off and redone every hundred years or so, and you'll have perspective.
As Randy remarked, we grow and evolve through our lives, and so do our tastes in and abilities to, play music on our chosen instruments. I like to think that I can separate my definition of intrinsic value with, say, Vintage Guitar Magazine's.
While reading Randy's post I recalled a saying of an uncle of mine, made at least one while I as a young teenager was looking at a display of cheap tools at a hardware store.
"Buy cheap, buy twice." No discussion allowed.
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More succinctly, I don't think anyone on their deathbed ever thought: "I should have bought the cheaper guitar".
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You posted that while I was composing my latest ramble. The outlines are correct: and I wasn't playing "gotcha" but only pointing out a very minor error. The fact is, a lot of tax preparers can't get it right. And damned if I didn't make a mistake in calculating a deduction based on my age, last April: to this day I'm not sure how I calculated it, or what I calculated, or why it was wrong and why the examiner was right. I just paid the small difference and forgot about it. Originally Posted by randyc
I got into the same thing back in my racing days: computing depreciation on a "bitsa" (that is, bitsa this, bitsa that) such as we ran back before you could buy a racer at the local Japanese motorcycle store, surely drove my tax preparer to an early grave, dementia, or a sordid and unhappy life.
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I understood that you were pointing out an error that could have caused someone embarassment/fines/penalties, thanks. Originally Posted by lpdeluxe
OK - diverting to off-topic subject, sorry ..
Yes, I remember those pre-YDS-3 days well. I had a converted Suzuki X-6 250 road racer and a Matchless G-50 500. I only raced a couple of times at the Sears Point Amateur Events. (I did get sponsorship from the local Suzuki dealer, though, to the tune of a pair of "chambers and some glass accoutrements ... big deal.)
The Matchless was traded for an early Fender Precision Bass, one of many that were "lost" in years past. The Suzuki was re-converted to a street-legal machine and served as basic transportation for a year or two before I traded it in on a BSA Victor dirt bike. Still enjoy dirt bikes, I have a KLX-250 out in my shop - needs carburetor work from not running it for two years - float probably stuck.
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>>LMAO<< Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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No.. but more than a few have thought " I should have passed on the oysters" Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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I was further South: we ran at Riverside, Willow Springs, both of which, like Sears Point, were proper race tracks, and various drag-strip/return-road/parking-lot tracks like Orange County and Carlsbad. Originally Posted by randyc
The G50 was pretty popular, along with the Manx (I guess we're from the same era). A friend had a Manx-framed CL450 Honda, complete w clunky four speed -- I rode it once. It had a carburetion glitch that caused it to stumble at low revs and then suddenly come to life just when you were ready to write it off. If you could keep the revs up (a challenge with the transmission) it was a rocket.
My main machine was a Honda Super Hawk engine in a Yetman space frame, with the obligatory Yamimoto 5-speed, Harmon & Collins/Forgtrue 350 kit. I fabricated a seat pan and battery box, and found various pieces like the fibreglass fairing and windshield bubble (had to buy them separately, back then) at the myriad specialist racer shops roughly surrounding Ascot Park down in Gardena-Downey where, incidentally, Paul Bigsby, inventor of the vibrato tailpiece, had his guitar business (trivia: he had been the chief engineer on the gorgeous Crocker Motorcycles, made in LA in the 30s and 40s -- they didn't survive the onset of WWII; more trivia: my uncles, Jack and Cordy Milne, who later became speedway world champion and runner-up in 1938, started out on Crockers). The day I saw the handwriting on the wall was when Don Emde and a couple of other guys showed up at Willow with the new 350 Yamahas. I came out of turn nine, with that 2-stroke shriek in my ears -- Don and another guy went around me so much faster on the front straight that the pressure difference sucked the sides of my fairing off the mounts, and the bubble support felt down and pinned my hands to the clip-ons.
That was a hell of a lot of fun, but I have since learned that you can't fall off a guitar. Gee, if I had only known, all those bone chips in my knee would never have existed.
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Haha. Also, kudos for BDLH. That was indeed a succinct summary. Maybe I should have you edit my posts. Originally Posted by dh82c
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