Alan Ratcliffe wrote
The thing is, if you look at the price in the country of origin, that price does not include a distributor's markup, transport costs halfway around the world, duties or (in the case of US prices) sales tax. That stuff all adds up.
Agreed. I had it in my head a while back that I wanted a Lowden. It would have cost me substantially less to get one from the UK than from the USA. Because they are made in Ireland and so there's less freightage, duties etc involved in getting them to London than to LA.
Prices in the USA are always difficult because they vary across the country. A lot of things are cheaper in Houston than in New York. And on-line stores can be cheaper because they don't have to maintain a real-world shop.
I am sometimes wary of buying things on line. It might work for CDs say. But for guitars? I'd like to go down to the shop where I know the guys and they know me and I can try things and see what they sound like. OK... you could try things out in a real shop, say "thanks a lot" and then buy the axe on e-bay. But if enough of us do that often enough then those real-world shops will eventually start shutting down.
Finally, what about looking at instruments from some of our local builder? I am having a guitar built by Mervyn Davis. This is not as expensive as you might think, and it's certainly costing me less than all but the very cheapest Martins. And I get some input into the design, certain things built the way I like them.
Tony Cox in concert uses a 6-string by Davis, and sometimes a baritone built by Ian Corr down in the E Cape. Corr gives a ballpark figure of about R15k for a similar baritone - though obviously price can be effected by the wood you choose, special finishes etc.
Guitars by some local makers fetch good prices in the states (2500 - 3000 dollars for a Davis Smoothtalker, 4000 to 6000 for one of Marc Maingard's instruments). You could get that cheaper by dealing directly with the luthier. Which reinforces Alan's point - once you move instruments away from country of origin the price must go up.
