Pricing is a funny thing - that's why there are entire college courses taught on "price theory" -
If I recall correctly, when I worked at a local fender dealer in the late '80s, Fenders were "A Mark" item - that is, the store paid 50% of the retail price and so nearly half of the instrument's price was negotiable... So the ~$750 custom Fender P-plus had them order cost me less than $400 new - but only because I was a teacher and got cost pricing. The rule of thumb was no more than a 30% discount for normal folks, and if it was mom & pa, GOUGE THEM HARD. Great store, G*** T***r.
Anyway, If Fender put out the word that prices were going up and then retracted that, I would be shocked. Fender is imperfect, but they are old enough to know how to deal with this sort of thing - one doesn't raise cost to dealers and MSRP to then retract that.... and if they did, don't you think they'd be advertising it? "At Fender, we know times are tough, so while our costs may be going up, we *refuse* to pass those costs on to the hard working musicians around the world that depend out our gear..."
Nah, this whole thing sounds like a dealer network snafu. Now, why EB , etc are rasiing prices - they may have been responding to Fender, hoping to make a few more bucks... who knows.
