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briananaves

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  1. Oh good lord, folks. I get that you have to drink the Kool-Aid to a certain extent to belong here, but the IQ of some of these posters might be dipping into the low-80's, from what I can tell. Anywho, I'll say my peace, before I bid thee all fond adieu: I'm not "trashing" the brand, nor do I want to return back to "1936 Weather", like Albert Einstein suggested before me. (Nor do I want to strip the good old Bozeman boys and their CNC machines of their healthcare benefits...what a strange comment to make). I just came to point out that, maybe, just maybe, Gibson guitars are overpriced. You can delude yourselves about the perceived value of these guitars until kingdom come, but, ultimately, as consumers, you are being taken advantage of. There is nothing magical or special about a Gibson guitar's manufacturing process that warrants charging triple of what Godin does. This is pretty much a cold, hard incontrovertible fact when you consider the Gibson lineup outside the Custom Shop. Granted, I'm not a fan of how Seagull guitars are voiced (a matter of taste), but, if anything, their existence proves that high-quality, solid-wood guitars can be made in North America at a fraction of what the big three are charging. I genuinely love Gibson guitars. I think they sound great. I even prefer them to Martin's and Taylor's. In fact, I love Gibson so much that I wish to see the brand survive after its bread and butter of gullible, oh-so-exploitable, pension-cashing baby boomers meet their end. It would be a shame if Gibson died out with them, having failed to tap into a market of young, burgeoning guitarists who lack the 1.5k needed to buy a decent-sounding, American-made, solid-wood Gibson guitar, at retail price.
  2. Hi all, I recently watched a video where I learned that, in 1936, a J-35 had a list price of $35.00 and an Advanced Jumbo was valued at a whopping $80.00. Adjusted for inflation today, those two guitars would cost $636.49 and $1454.83, respectively, bearing in mind that the AJ was the crown jewel of the Gibson lineup, at that time. A 2018 J-35 (complete with plastic nut, saddle, and bridge pins) will set you back $1,869.00, new, at Guitar Center, while the AJ will cost you considerably more, if you can even find one retailing new. A J-15, complete with walnut back and sides and a laminate maple neck, retails at $1340.99 at GC, while a walnut b&s "J-45" will set you back $1,529.00, at the same store. All that being said, I'd like to ask, what gives? Is Gibson (along with the rest of the industry) pulling the wool over our eyes and overcharging its customers? If a shortage of tonewoods and American manufacturing standards are to blame, then how does one explain Seagull guitars being made in Canada with North American woods, at a considerably lower price? I understand that the used market has stepped up to fill a void that Gibson has left, but shouldn't Gibson price its guitars more competitively, in order for people to purchase more new guitars? All things being equal, I would imagine that building a guitar is significantly cheaper and more efficient today than it was over seventy years ago, so it really makes you think...
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