What the deal with deal with Guild Guitars?

[houndman55]

Hey,

 

I remember seeing a Guild Acoustic 12 string that cost like 10000 SEK. That's about 1800 $. That may not be a "strange" price for a Gibson, Martin, Takamine etc. but unless my memory is wack or I'm totally crazy I'm remember seeing a sticker inside the guitar that said "Made in China". Call me crazy but you'd figure it be made somewhere else for that money like Japan or Korea. Can anyone figure out how a guitar made in such a place like China can be so expensive?

[cunningham26]

Because MIC doesn't have to equal bad quality? And likewise MIK or MIJ, or hell MIA guitars don't always work out to a hierarchy of quality?

 

I've played the GAD series from guild and they've sounded great to me. Definitely hitting a quality level at the price point between epiphone and gibson.

[Jayyj]

It's that whole issue that if you want a high quality guitar from premium materials, and you want the people making it to earn a fair days wage and work in a clean, safe environment, then the prices are going to have to reflect that whatever the country of origin. Talking to people who are buyers for companies that source their instruments from places like China and Indonesia, it's evident that they have changed a great deal in the last 20 years both in terms of workmanship and working conditions, which is a positive thing. I've no doubt there are still sweatshops producing poorly made instruments for a few cents apiece, but the likes of Guild, Epiphone and Eastman are a long way removed from this.

 

The bottom line is, does the Guild stack up well against product from Martin and Taylor in the same price bracket? If so then the country of origin shouldn't be that big a deal.