Value of a US Strat in 1970 in RSA

andrewjbryson

Given the incredible prices vintage/ original Strat's are going for nowadays, I thought it would be an interesting
exercise to compare the prices and study the exponential inflation.

So the big question is.

How much did US Strat's go for in 1970 in SA. Could you even get them locally?

aubs1

Oh yes, AFAIR you could only got US Fender products in the good ol' RSA. I don't think I saw an MIM or MIJ until many years later! But then I was quite young, just out of school and did not pay much attention to anything except Fender Strat and Gibson LP. A friend of mine had (actually still has) a Gibson Hawk, which I thought was the only one in SA, in fact I have not seen another one here, but I'm sure there are a few ......

And I stand corrected, but I think they retailed for way under R1000!!

BTW. The Rand was worth ....... R1=$2US !!!

inflames

My '76 American Strat cost my dad ( lol ) , R495.00 in 1976

How about you sell it to me for a 400% return on investment?
?

vic

Fender Strat in 1969 was R300 at Darters in Cape Town...... The average monthly salary of a young BSc graduate was about R 250 at the time. So you can see that even then it was relatively expensive...! ?
a Vox AC30 in '65 sold for R300 as well.

Bob-Dubery

aubs1 wrote: Oh yes, AFAIR you could only got US Fender products in the good ol' RSA. I don't think I saw an MIM or MIJ until many years later!

I doubt you'd have seen MIM or MIJ Fenders anywhere at that time.

aubs1

X-rated Bob wrote: I doubt you'd have seen MIM or MIJ Fenders anywhere at that time.

You're right Bob, like I said, only many years later.

And BTW. they came in a beautiful hard case, not like the crappy molded ones you get now..... ?

Ok, I know that's a Tele in there......... ?

Keira-WitherKay

YEAH it's unbelieveable when you think how the price increased but then so did the salaries hehehehh so in comparison it's about keeping pace........... anyway who'd want a 70's strat heheheh they were dreadful the ones i tried ..... the 60's for sure then the 80's again but not the 70's with those big headstocks...... well just my personal feeling .....

and yeah even in 1985 i had just finished music school and was booked for my first pro tour gig..... ( i studied upright bass ... but the gig was electric) and i needed to buy a brand new cream colour USA fender P bass which i paid R1000 for with a case of course and a set up ..( i saw a P bass selling with a R 20 000 price tag about a month ago ) so yeah huge price increase in 20 odd years .. mmm wish i had kept that but i traded up a short while later to a genuine steinberger XL (graphite bass) which was at the time (about 1990 ) a whopping R4500 wow you can't buy a squire for that these days .......

nick

aubs1 wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: I doubt you'd have seen MIM or MIJ Fenders anywhere at that time.
You're right Bob, like I said, only many years later.

And BTW. they came in a beautiful hard case, not like the crappy molded ones you get now..... ?

Ok, I know that's a Tele in there......... ?

case looks exactly like my rockwood R350 case ? I think the moulded ones are much nicer! ?

singemonkey

X-rated Bob wrote:
aubs1 wrote: Oh yes, AFAIR you could only got US Fender products in the good ol' RSA. I don't think I saw an MIM or MIJ until many years later!
I doubt you'd have seen MIM or MIJ Fenders anywhere at that time.

MIJ Fenders were a response to the fantastic Japanese copies of vintage Fenders from the early eighties - most famous, Tokai's Springy Sound (which had a neat logo that looked like "7okai")

While Gibson when apesh*t when they realised and even sued the American importer of Ibanez (the famous "lawsuit" wrongly attributed to just about every Japanese company), Fender took a more reasonable stance - they started contracting Japanese companies to make their reissue models. This is why 80's MIJ Fenders have such a great reputation. Even today, MIJ Fenders are made by Fujigen and Tokai (which is why Tokai no longer makes Fender clones). Gibson, of course, started a custom shop and charged 3x as much for their reissues as for their main line of guitars (a clear admission that they'd cheerfully let standards slip over the years).

What I'd like to see is the conversion factor for the prices. Like, what is the equivalent to the R3,000 I paid for my Les Paul in '95 (when a bottle of black lable cost R1.80 - R2.00 in Ruby in the Dust on lower main road Obz)? Are these prices going up in real terms, staying the same, or even declining? What is the equivalent of 1 1970's Ront, today? Then there's a basis for comparison. Anyone know a link to an index of the currency going back that far?

andrewjbryson

cool post Singemonkey

I'm going to hunt for pics of "7okai" guitars on the net today.

singemonkey

Just put in "Tokai Springy Sound." You'll see the pic I posted on the first page ?

Hey, just found an inflation calculator (http://www.westegg.com/inflation/) and the original price of a 1959 Les Paul sunburst (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/max-baranet/a/a93/611).

1959: $275

2007 (didn't quite make it to '09): $1936

What's the price of a Gibson custom shop '59 reissue again? 8)

Jack-Flash-Jr

I got hold of a very reasonable priced and reasonably playable JTele some time ago and I do so love it but imho many 'native' Japanese guitars are better than J copies of US makes.
(I spent many an hour at Rubies too :? - miss those prices)

singemonkey

Jack Flash Jr wrote: I got hold of a very reasonable priced and reasonably playable JTele some time ago and I do so love it but imho many 'native' Japanese guitars are better than J copies of US makes.
(I spent many an hour at Rubies too :? - miss those prices)

I feel like I'm thread-jacking a little. :-[ Thing about Japanese guitars though, is that they tend to have a vast quality range under a single name. Most companies make Indonesian or Chinese models with poorer materials, electronics, etc. Then they have Japanese made models that also get better materials/electronics as they go up in price. So to make a comparison, it's obviously important to know if it's a bottom of the range, middling, or top-of-the range guitar. Comparing an Ibanez Jem to a bottom of the range MIJ Fender won't work out so well. I think there are magic original MIJ guitars, and MIJ copies of American guitars that are as good as anything ever made in Yankee-land.

Jack-Flash-Jr

singemonkey wrote:
Jack Flash Jr wrote: I got hold of a very reasonable priced and reasonably playable JTele some time ago and I do so love it but imho many 'native' Japanese guitars are better than J copies of US makes.
(I spent many an hour at Rubies too :? - miss those prices)
I feel like I'm thread-jacking a little. :-[ Thing about Japanese guitars though, is that they tend to have a vast quality range under a single name. Most companies make Indonesian or Chinese models with poorer materials, electronics, etc. Then they have Japanese made models that also get better materials/electronics as they go up in price. So to make a comparison, it's obviously important to know if it's a bottom of the range, middling, or top-of-the range guitar. Comparing an Ibanez Jem to a bottom of the range MIJ Fender won't work out so well. I think there are magic original MIJ guitars, and MIJ copies of American guitars that are as good as anything ever made in Yankee-land.

Good point about the value range... important to note also that within a brand like Gibson even dogs exists within the same model line... but yeah...