Non-CS Fenders now over $3,000

[SKU]

Rosewood neck

Overrated. They look nice but nothing special

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Overrated. They look nice but nothing special

The aesthetics are what make them special. It's like a nice piece of flamed maple, it won't sound any different but it looks special.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Rosewood neck

I've never owned a rosewood necked guitar just rosewood fretboards. I'd like to change that one day.

 

[Eagle]

It does sound a bit different and I quite like the feel. Not my thing but I like them.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Overrated. They look nice but nothing special

I had one and liked previously. It felt nice and looked great.

 

[laxu]

Overrated. They look nice but nothing special

I have to agree. My Skervesen Shoggie 8 has an Indian rosewood neck with wenge strips. Sure, it looks real nice but that's about it. I may have gone a bit overboard on fancy specs for this one!

For the record Brazilian rosewood fretboards are the same deal, they look real nice but that's it.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I have to agree. My Skervesen Shoggie 8 has an Indian rosewood neck with wenge strips. Sure, it looks real nice but that's about it. I may have gone a bit overboard on fancy specs for this one!

For the record Brazilian rosewood fretboards are the same deal, they look real nice but that's it.

Brazilian back/side on an acoustic, however, is a THING. I always shed a tear when I see any of that precious stuff wasted on a solid body electric fretboard...

 

[DrewJD82]

I had a pair of rosewood nunchucks in middle school that were so damn heavy I was scared to use them. One crack to the noggin’ was all I needed to know I had to practice being a Ninja Turtle with foam nunchucks. Rosewood is heavy.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I had a pair of rosewood nunchucks in middle school that were so damn heavy I was scared to use them. One crack to the noggin’ was all I needed to know I had to practice being a Ninja Turtle with foam nunchucks. Rosewood is heavy.

Yeah for me; I didn't really ever hear any talk about the all rosewood stuff. I just thought the aesthetics were amazing.

 

[SKU]

Unfinished mahogany necks on the other hand ....

 

[metropolis_4]

I love the feel of all rosewood necks!

As a kid this was my dream guitar:

 

[the-trooper]

custom shop models can take easily three or four times longer to make

In case of Strats, to be clear. A Strat is a Strat is as Strat, very few guitars that are more bare bones. Double the time, sure. Four times longer? Hard to believe. It's not like they're carving the tops or doing some intricate inlays. It's still just a Strat with dots.
Am I wrong? Why am I wrong? How wrong am I?

Disclaimer: I refuse to acknowledge reliced ones.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

In case of Strats, to be clear. A Strat is a Strat is as Strat, very few guitars that are more bare bones. Double the time, sure. Four times longer? Hard to believe. It's not like they're carving the tops or doing some intricate inlays. It's still just a Strat with dots.
Am I wrong? Why am I wrong? How wrong am I?

Disclaimer: I refuse to acknowledge reliced ones.

A nitro guitar does take longer to cure than a urethane finished one. They also probably spend more time drying out the woods for custom shop. They'll definitely have more time spent on prep, finish and QC than a Mexican or bog standard us strat.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

In case of Strats, to be clear. A Strat is a Strat is as Strat, very few guitars that are more bare bones. Double the time, sure. Four times longer? Hard to believe. It's not like they're carving the tops or doing some intricate inlays. It's still just a Strat with dots.
Am I wrong? Why am I wrong? How wrong am I?

Disclaimer: I refuse to acknowledge reliced ones.

You seem very open to persuasion.

 

[SKU]

In case of Strats, to be clear. A Strat is a Strat is as Strat, very few guitars that are more bare bones. Double the time, sure. Four times longer? Hard to believe. It's not like they're carving the tops or doing some intricate inlays. It's still just a Strat with dots.
Am I wrong? Why am I wrong? How wrong am I?

Disclaimer: I refuse to acknowledge reliced ones.

When it comes to mass produced guitars there's almost no difference between les pauls and strats ... all done by machines. Glueing a neck to the body in the case of a LP, inlays, tops ... doesn't matter in terms of human time cost - relatively.

 

[metropolis_4]

Also: an American Standard Strat back in '91/'92 was around $900. The internet tells me that $900 1991 dollars is a hair over $2000 2024 dollars. An American Professional Strat is $1800. EDIT: perhaps my memory is off -- the internet is also telling me that an American Standard Strat was closer to $600 in '94, which is like $1300-ish in today dollars.

My hot take:

(1). Fender shoots themselves in the foot by only raising their prices like every 4 or 5 years in big jumps rather than little by little every year.

(2). I'm guessing when folks say "not that long ago" in this thread, they're talking, like SillyOctopus, about the early 2000s. Which was twenty years ago. Getting old sucks.

I understand economics, but the prices over the last 3-4 years seem like they’ve been through the roof compared to the past 10-20 years. I would be interested in seeing a graph of the price over the past 30 years (which would be hard because of model changes).

Like I said, 2 years ago I was shopping for a brand new CS Strat and was seeing prices around $3,200.

Now standard production models are close to those prices.

I remember AmStd Strats being around $700 when I bought my MIM in ‘96

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I understand economics, but the prices over the last 3-4 years seem like they’ve been through the roof compared to the past 10-20 years. I would be interested in seeing a graph of the price over the past 30 years (which would be hard because of model changes).

Like I said, 2 years ago I was shopping for a brand new CS Strat and was seeing prices around $3,200.

Now standard production models are close to those prices.

I remember AmStd Strats being around $700 when I bought my MIM in ‘96

Seems to me tracking American Std/Professional is the only way to make sense of the pricing over time. The Ultra and signature Fender (not CS) stuff all seems to be in response to “huh, people seem to actually WANT to spend over $2k on a pretty straightforward bolt-on guitar. Given we are losing sales to Suhr and the like, maybe we need to offer some stuff at that end of the market”. Maybe I’m wrong.

The Custom Shop stuff, I dunno. Those prices always seem more about “what the market will bear” than a target profit margin.

 

[spawnofthesith]

In ‘96 I spent $350 on my MIM and a MIA cost $700.

Also in ‘96 a Pizza Hut pizza cost the same as it costs today



I call shenanigans

Man, even in 2006 my MIM strat was $360 out the door new from guitar center!

 

[metropolis_4]

Seems to me tracking American Std/Professional is the only way to make sense of the pricing over time. The Ultra and signature Fender (not CS) stuff all seems to be in response to “huh, people seem to actually WANT to spend over $2k on a pretty straightforward bolt-on guitar. Given we are losing sales to Suhr and the like, maybe we need to offer some stuff at that end of the market”. Maybe I’m wrong.

The Custom Shop stuff, I dunno. Those prices always seem more about “what the market will bear” than a target profit margin.

You have to admit price increases over the past 3-4 years have been pretty crazy compared to the past.

Not just on Fender either.

My wife and kids bought me a new Gibson LP Standard in Aug 2020 for $2,200.

3.5 years later the same guitar is now $2,999

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

What i see different here, based solely on my fragile memory, is that the signature and other “premium” production models (not CS), are on a percentage basis significantly more expensive than the American Professional stuff today compared to the sig stuff in the past. I mean, the ones you linked to are all 50% more than an American Professional. I don’t remember the Clapton or Beck sig models ever being close to 50% more expensive than American standard 10-30 years ago. But my memory also sucks.