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Originally Posted by Cunamara
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07-16-2020 11:12 AM
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Originally Posted by jazzkritter
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For example: Fifteen years ago my friends and clients at Upton Bass were importing double-basses. Fed-up with the trouble it took to bring their suppliers up to the Upton quality standard, they started setting up to build from scratch. A ton of people, including some who should have known better, told them that they would never compete with the Romanians and the Chinese on quality or price.
They politely told those folks that they disagreed, plunged in lip-deep and imported high-skill craft factory jobs from Eastern Europe to Connecticut. Now Upton is the largest manufacturer of double-basses in the US. They have won multiple awards for skill and tone (the latter blind-tested). Their client list is a who's-who of the DB world.
What does it take to build archtops? Skilled, organized people who really, really want to build archtops.
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Originally Posted by Sam Sherry
The current ownership and management at Gibson, I am sure, took a long hard look at the bottom lines of the different products and jettisoned the ones that didn't make money. That would be archtops, because the audience to purchase them is very, very small and Gibson had to compete with the used/vintage market for sales. Since the standard belief in the guitar playing public is that old/vintage is always better than new, makers face some stiff headwinds in competition from their own past.
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Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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As in fly fishing gear and wood working tools, there is a great gulf between functionally adequate and something that is a true pleasure to handle and use. How much that matters depends on the individual. Of course, I would note that most who have their musical passions stirred by a great archtop, regardless of point of origin, also enjoy their Tele's so it's not just the music. It's the art in the craft.
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Originally Posted by Woody Sound
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Originally Posted by Cunamara
I'm confident that Gibson makes a profit on their archtops, given that they make them on order. L5s will never be their highest selling guitar model by any stretch of the imagination, but they don't need to be. I really don't see a problem.
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Originally Posted by jazzkritter
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I totally disagree. Kids have always formed their own musical tastes outside of school.
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Originally Posted by Phil59
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Originally Posted by pcjazz
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Originally Posted by Phil59
I've been hearing the argument from jazz people for 60+ years that if people were just more exposed to and taught about jazz they'd learn to like it. That might be true for some, but most people like what they like. Sadly, it's not jazz.
As for me, I can't tolerate classical music at all.
Danny W.
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A couple of points.
There is a lot of interest in archtops thanks to mainly Americana/roots music. I see them all the time at festivals.
I bought a 175 in 1981 or 2 for about $900. If just adjusted for inflation, it would cost $2552. And that’s not considering the improvements in manufacturing such as CNC etc. that have occurred in the interim.
So the amount Gibson was charging for the 175 until recently was a “prestige tax”.
That’s OK, I get it, but there’s no reason American companies cannot produce a reasonable product at a reasonable price.
And don’t bring up labor costs, or regulations, cause those are just a small fraction of production costs.
Anyway, not sure there’s a real lesson here, except that I think if Gibson and other manufacturers wanted to make a “workingman’s” archtop like the 125 or 135 they could, at a reasonably low cost.
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The American flattop is far from an endangered species. Martin produces 100K+ annually, and there's a host of others. The archtop market is so much smaller that economies of scale don't realize and investments in more efficient methods aren't worthwhile. Labor costs do factor in - just look at the price differential between parallel American and Far East models. European labor is even more expensive and regulated than American, and industrial guitar manufacturing went into a nosedive in the 1970s. Furch in Czechia stlll makes fine guitars, but even they terminated their archtop line years ago. No demand, no supply.
Last edited by Gitterbug; 07-17-2020 at 06:39 AM.
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Some interesting ideas here. In my experience, Music finds you. However, early exposure in school systems would help accelerate that experience at an earlier age. Why are people drawn to certain genres of Music? I think it's partly cultural and partly personal. For example, if you're born in Plano, Texas, you'd be more likely, as a generalization, to hear C @ W music growing up in a community rather than Jazz, Classical, or Bossa. And, for many/most, it sets your early preferences for music. The converse can also be said that if you grow up in the suburbs of the Midwest, you're more likely to listen to Rock Music. And, in America's black communities it would be rap, R & B, and Jazz. Yes, of course, these are generalizations but they are valid for the majority of people and easily provable if you walk the streets of these areas and listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. However, aside from cultural, one's personal preferences are more complex. As a young person growing up in Chicago, most people in my neighborhood listened to R @ R/Rock. I enjoyed R @ R, but despised most Rock Music: Beetles, Beach Boys, Monkeees, Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, Buckinghams, etc. However, at an early age I was attracted to the music of Sam and Dave, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, Jr. Walker, Booker T, etc. And, when I first discovered Chicago DJ Marty Faye and Daddio Daley on AM radio at the age of 12, I became hopelessly addicted to Jazz. I can't honestly explain this reality and have given it considerable thought over the years. But, it is real and has been a lifetime of love. So, music can be both cultural and/or personal but I agree that early exposure is important.
Play Live! . . . Marinero
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Teach your children well. Didn't somebody say that?
I heard lots of music when I was in the womb. My parents played classical and lots of other good music all the time in our home and never stopped. I shudder to think what my tastes and exposure to the world's great music would have been had I depended on school to inform me. And there was no getting away from popular music once we kids got a little older, but that was through neighborhood and school friends, not school itself.
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Originally Posted by Gitterbug
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Originally Posted by GTRMan
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Originally Posted by Gitterbug
Sorry, G,
It was just too tempting to ignore! Play live! . . . Marinero
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Well if the fact that I love Gibson archtops makes me a cork sniffer I guess I will wear that title as a honor. I was blessed to live in a certain time. I can remember in the 1970's when you could walk into a music store and play a L5,175,S400, or a Guild AA. They were all hanging on the racks.
Last edited by vinnyv1k; 07-17-2020 at 05:06 PM.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Labor Costs are the Biggest Cost of Business
Collings is a good example. The cost of living in Austin has increased by more than 60% over the past two years (30+% 2018 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019). You can see the impact in the cost of Collings Guitars as they struggle to pay appropriate wages to their employees trying to remain in Austin.
Austin '''Cost To Live Comfortably''' Increase Is Highest In Nation | Austin, TX Patch
When the Healdsburg Guitar Festival was still going, I remember seeing table after table of archtop builders in there with the flat-top luthiers. But this definitely represents the bespoke market. Hopefully, as Gibson pulls back from the edge of bankruptcy, they will be able to again offer the 175s or other hollow-body archtop at an affordable price.
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[I can remember in the 1970’s when you could walk into a music store and play a L5,175,S400, or a Guild AA. They were all hanging on the racks.]
I can remember 1996 when my wife, a scientist, did a stint with Harvard in Boston. On a weekend trip, we passed a small town in Vermont and I found a used guitar shop. Your faves were all hanging on the wall there...
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Ok, just for fun let's review - "The Death of The American Archtop" (emphasis mine)
- Gibson has stopped making them (false)
- There is no demand for them (false)
- The only reason that Gibson is making fewer of them now than when Henry was in charge is because of low demand (false)
- Archtops don't make up the majority of Gibson or Fenders lines (true)
- Archtops, especially carved tops with extra binding and inlays etc. cost more than Stratocasters (true)
- The Beatles did OK without them (true)
- Jazz has been in decline for a long time (true)
- A working musician is defined as someone who earns $4,800.00 to $18.000 per year from gigs. (???)
- Working musicians don't have very many jazz gigs anymore (true)
- We don't need no stinkin' L5s, but since they exist they should be cheap, and "working musicians" should be able to easily afford one, and if they can't then no one should have one (contradictory)
- We don't need to worry about the financial security of working musicians in any terms beyond L5 ownership (so it would seem)
- It's fun to agitate class warfare using the L5 as a symbol of pretentious wealth (sadly true)
Ok, just kidding. Have great weekend all.
Gibson ES-125 from 1958
Today, 09:27 AM in For Sale