Yes, a noob question, but I am yet to see an answer. All I see is 6 strings and a hollow body (acoustic guitar) joined with a few small things, but that costs an arm and a leg. I don't think manufacturing them is too tough. Then why they are priced so high?
Cheap guitars exist. The guitars you want to buy are expensive. Why are they expensive? Join an economics class. Similar question: Why does a cup of coffee cost 150 bucks at a coffee chain? It's just a glass of milk and coffee and sugar, barely costing 5 bucks to produce as far as raw materials are concerned. Expensive things are expensive because that is where the balance lies between the minimum price set by the manufacturer and the maximum the customer is willing to pay for it. To put it more simply, expensive guitars are expensive because there exist people willing to pay that much for them.
As far as seeing in guitar making i think mostly you are talking about american guitar makers like Gibson Taylor Martin; welh their are many reasons: 1st n d most imp choice of wood usually a standard guitar from these makers will have indian rosewood body that means wood were harvested in india; similarly african mahogany neck; european or african spruce; ebony again from africa; all these woods are exported from various region of the world into america and r assembled their. 2nd the guitar labours or in their language lutheirs are not considered as a carpenters they the artist and a degree holder engineers, a differnet team to construct necks and different teams to construct bodies and diff team for inlays working, freting etc, and they are paid a good salary leading to a high labour cost. 3rd woods are limited resources though gets expensive day by day just like gold for example 70-80 yrs back brazilian rosewood were commonly used in regular series but now becomes a premium wood n 4- times expensive. And last our looser government who can never see the young generation happy all the high custom duty+taxes+commision makes the thing more expensive for us
^ I would rather say that prevalence of high customs duty is actually a blessing for the Indian enterprises. But unfortunately, all Indians have managed to come up with is giVson guitars. Which reek poor workmanship. I guess we Indians are only suited to become Doctors, engineers and accountants after all.
There is one thing missing in the description -- labor cost. You could say that a doctor is someone who uses a knife to cut people open and then stitch them up with theard and needle -- then why does a doctor charge so much money. Making a good guitar takes a good deal of skill that doesn't come cheap.
I totally agree with cheesy_chester on the govt thing.They just dont wanna see us happy. Instead of taking action against corruption they r increasing taxes and sucking our lives.
Hi Like you rightly said what you are paying for now is for a cheap chinese guitar and plus customs duty+taxes+ commission. Do you know that the guitars which are being imported by companies like GB&A/ Pluto cost about $30 (Rs.1400) then there is the duty at about 30 to 35% then the dealer margin/ retailer margin at the end of it the customer buys the guitar at Rs.3500/-. But the truth is that it is a cheap Chinese guitar which is worth only Rs.1400/.
But then again another way of looking at it is the guitar is worth 1400 in China, where thousands of companies make pretty good replicas of the american guitars. But in India, these replicas may be worth more, as we do not have anyone making guitars as good for that price range.
