A bit of googling and this is what I found. Not too sure about the accuracy (We all know the internet never lies, lol) but it the sources look legit enough.

I tried looking for the new price of a late seventies Aria Pro ii Custom LP copy like I have, but could only find info for a 1977 Ibanez Custom LP copy. These types would have been popular and cheaper alternatives to the more pricey originals back then. (Both are bolt-on btw).

In 1977 a dollar would buy you what $6.66 buys you today. The Ibanez copy retailed for between $300 and $400 in 1977, the original Gibson LP Custom for between $800 and $900. So the Ibanez copy would have cost you around $2330 in today’s money, the Gibby around $5660. So you could have bought a budget copy lookalike back then for what a Gibson Std LP will set you back today, and today you can get a limited edition Gibson Custom Shop jobbie for what you paid new for a Custom in 1977.

I'm sure there were a lot of cheaper guitars back in the day, but even they would be way overpriced by today's standards. Even if you bought a $100 guitar in 1977, that would be over R6000 today. I read in another thread you can get a new PRS SE custom for that, and there is no way in hell that the $100 guitar from 1977 would even be remotely comparable in quality to the SE.

And even the higher end guitars from then were more expensive than their modern equivalents. Here's another example: In 1970 a dollar would buy you what $5.62 would buy you today. A new Fender strat would have cost you about $350 in 1970, the equivalent of $1967 today. A new US strat will cost you $1199. So that's what, about 60% cheaper today?

I reckon never before have players had it even nearly as good in the value for money dept as we do now.

Using the consumer price index $400 in '77 comes to $1,400 today. And were those the retail prices or the MSRP? $100 guitar would be about equivalent to a $370 guitar today.

Anyway, a year later you could buy top-notch set-neck Japanese clones - including Arias. In the '60s people bought Japanese, Czech, Italian, German, etc. guitars which were cool, but not much in the way of manufacturing quality. In the late '70s the Japanese upped the ante considerably by producing top notch guitars at affordable prices. But they were generally not available in "the West."

From the late '90s though, an incredible number of amazing low-priced guitars has become available. The iconic one, still made today, is the Yamaha Pacifica 112. Here was a top notch guitar that cost less than a Squier (which, as has been pointed out, were almost all rubbish).

Naah, I just googled " how much is today's dollar worth compared to 1977" Very scientific.? Sure to win me a prize as the crappest researcher ever. ? Got an answer of 15c in 1977 is equal to a dollar today. So 1 dollar in 1977 would be the same as $6.66 today, which seemed about right.
The prices would have been selling. They are what people on the strat-talk forum and another one I can't recall now paid for them new back then.

I'm glad this history won't get lost now ? i can't imagine how hard it was for a person back then to be a guitarist, and i don't even mean a good one, just having a guitar was probably difficult, then not having things like a tuner or tabs or YouTube vids. And i spoke to a guy who started playing back then, he said he had to listen to a l.p. then try and learn by ear, having to lift the needle the whole time.can imagine that's tiresome.

Things weren't all bad in 1971..

a pack of cigarettes(Camel/Texan/Stuyvesant) was....28cents

a brand new Chrysler Valiant 6 cylinder/automatic was...R3000

Who wants to go back...!???......not me.....!

How easy was it to get 28c? Haha

In response to your original question . the cheap /cheaper guitars of those early years were much closer in quality to the Big names . Like the Shadows guys , think it was Marvin used an Antoria . Especially in the seventies there were great guitars from japan .
The cheap guitars today is sold at Cash Cru and are REAL junk . That's the difference . firewood is what they are . I don't think such junk was made in the early years .

Elvin wrote: I don't think such junk was made in the early years .

I think you're either sadly mistaken or don't have very high expectations with regards to guitars. ?

of course there were cheap guitars - joni mitchell even sang about it "Cheap guitars eye shades and guns" (apparently there were also rappers......

mu first guitar was a "gallo" branded special from game in durban - a whole r12 back in the early '70s. was a nylon string pos which i fitted with steel strings 'cause someone told me steel string sound better (i was real young...)....was real easy to play until my fingers bled - took around 5 minutes iirc.... :-[ :-[ :-[

result was me thinking i could never ever play guitar & not picking up another one for more than 10 years...

For sure Chad - those old arb Japanese and European guitars with multitudes of rocker switches and cheapo tuners, with actions that forced you to play a beat ahead because they were so high! The yanks must have made a fair number too - before the Mexicans came to their aid. ?

Aaah, the good old days!! (not!)

The Irony of those cheap japanese made guitars that in my pawn shop trawls , i have found a few gems amonst them , i own a es 330 copy unknown maker and my partner bought a semi hollow president bass ... That sounds and plays well ... And in fact has a unique "dated" tone to them that you don't get outa new insstruments and i paid like R400 each for them .... So yes i agree and growing up in the 70's experienced bad guitars ... But some seemed to be playable ... Even today

Just a historical footnote...

In 1960 Cliff Richard and the Shadows make their first tour to South Africa.

By then, they were signed up with Vox amps and Fender guitars...Hank Marvin on Strat, Jet Harris on P-Bass and Bruce Welch on Strat/Jazzmaster.

Now the strange part...while they were chilling in Joburg before the gig, a local guy from some town on the Reef managed to get in and talk to them about a guitar amp that he had designed and built . He called it a Melodia...

Hank and Bruce tried the Melodias out and loved them so much , they used them on stage at the Colosseum...

They would have used them right through the tour if Vox had not found out and started screaming bloody murder about their endorsement.

Reluctantly, the Shadows went back to using their Vox amps.

So if you're ever in a small junk shop somewhere on the Witwatersrand and right at the back you find a guitar amp with a Melodia badge on it...don't even waste time asking the price...just throw your car keys at the shop owner and run down the road with youir Melodia...

Just a footnote on the footnote...

The Shadows took the Melodia amps back to England with them...

Sneaky Pete wrote: So if you're ever in a small junk shop somewhere on the Witwatersrand and right at the back you find a guitar amp with a Melodia badge on it...don't even waste time asking the price...just throw your car keys at the shop owner and run down the road with youir Melodia...

Condsidering that if you search The Shadows, or any of the guitar playing band members names you get absolutely no mention of Melodia amps at all I'd say this is probably not very good advice - I mean there are websites where you can find the sizes of the whammy bars hank marvin used in terms of diameter and serious articles about his preference in tone for certain sizes - I mean people worship the dude's mojo to the point where they create superluous myths about every tiny facet of his gear choices, yet conveniently an endorsement scandal during the high point of their careers has gone completely unnoticed...I'm calling BS on that one.

My dad made bass's, which at 3 I couldn't actually even lift up... So he made me a Ukelele... It was an epic burst ? Played that bugger till I was about 5, then came a "hand me down"... a Bellini acoustic. A real el cheapo... I think it was actually made of S.A Pine... but I can say, 2 months later with a neck shaped like a Banana, my fingertips were calloused enough, to move on. Eventually after he died I played one of his last unfinished jobs for Eko (Itallian company) for the first time. Proper Intonation on single coils... light gauge, Black Diamond strings. All in all... thank hell for crappy guitars and bent necks, otherwise I would have been a spoosh complaining about sore fingers playing on an expensive guitar ? Cheap guitars have always been around. Some just worse than others.

Thomas can you remember in those days the two string sets you had to have were Black Diamond and Nashville Straights. The straights came in a long box and were never coiled. I only ever used Nashville Straights on my Ibanez 12 string. They were so expensive I kept them on until they would not resonate any more. I oiled them after each session and they still rusted within a few weeks.

Chad etc...(I'm calling BS on that one...) refers:

I was at the Cliff & the Shadows gig at the Colosseum in 1960....were you?
I played through a Melodia amp several times ....have you?
(I knew two brothers - Pete and Mike Smith who lived in Houghton just off Louis Botha Avenue. They had money, so immmediately after the Shadows show, they both bought new Strats and Melodia amps - it was a combo amp, bigger than a Vox AC30, very nice looking , silver grille cloth, about 30 watts...

As for never hearing about it...think about it...this is one story that Vox would not have wanted to get out...the biggest instrumental group in the world (bigger than the Ventures at that time) turns its back on FREE Vox amps after signing an endorsement contract? Vox would have snuffed that story out like a ton of bricks.

Next time you want to call BS...you might want to look in the mirror first...

Just saying....

Sneaky Pete wrote: Chad etc...(I'm calling BS on that one...) refers:

I was at the Cliff & the Shadows gig at the Colosseum in 1960....were you?
I played through a Melodia amp several times ....have you?
(I knew two brothers - Pete and Mike Smith who lived in Houghton just off Louis Botha Avenue. They had money, so immmediately after the Shadows show, they both bought new Strats and Melodia amps - it was a combo amp, bigger than a Vox AC30, very nice looking , silver grille cloth, about 30 watts...

As for never hearing about it...think about it...this is one story that Vox would not have wanted to get out...the biggest instrumental group in the world (bigger than the Ventures at that time) turns its back on FREE Vox amps after signing an endorsement contract? Vox would have snuffed that story out like a ton of bricks.

Next time you want to call BS...you might want to look in the mirror first...

Just saying....

When are people going to learn that when making a ridiculous claim the burden of truth lies with them?

Here you are getting all super defensive when all you'd have to do is post a picture of them with these amps, or a link to a legitimate article mentioning it.

I mean really lesson 1 of the internet should be don't believe anything you read on the internet without proof...

EDIT: Also that's gotta be one of the worst attempts at a smack talk ending I've ever seen.

Play nice please gents. ?