I have done repairs and setup work on a number of Peter Chandler's basses since the late 1990's, when the started showing up on the coast. Even got to speak with Peter a couple of times on the phone; really a generous, warm-spirited man, who loved that he was able to give something to the world of music. Only after his passing did I learn just how generous he'd been with his time, as he had given many instruments to students. Apparently he didn't need much money, so he didn't charge much either when he sold basses and other instruments. I know how much his wood cost, having bought from one of the same suppliers he did, so it's not hard to figure out how much of what he did charge was 'profit.' Not much. Guessing from his book and what I saw of his techniques reflected in the work itself, he was a very efficient maker, didn't spend a lot of time on subtleties and extravagances, just got the instruments made in a fairly neat and sturdy fashion and got on with the next. Even at that, it seems unlikely he was paying himself more than $20 per hour for his labour. Considering that the average carpenter these days makes over $40/hour, usually more than $50/hour, that's dirt cheap. If anyone thinks his average selling price of about $9,000 was expensive, give your head a shake. He was giving them away. I sold my first bass last year for $20,000, having put $5,000 into the various materials, tuners, strings (saved a bit by making my own bridge, tailpiece, endpin) and spent over 900 hours making the thing. I'm not a big fan of power tools, and I fussed a lot more over details than Peter did, so mine took forever, relatively speaking. Still, doing the math I think it's fairly obvious I charged a similar hourly rate...
So far as I've seen, only a couple of bass luthiers in Canada are making significantly more money than that for their new instruments. And those guys have international reputations many years in the building, have advanced into the upper echelons of luthiery so far as their clients are concerned, and no one's complaining about their prices so far as I've heard.
So what I'm getting at with this little diatribe is that putting 'Long & McQuade plywood' in the same breath as a 'reasonably priced Canadian luthier' isn't really sensible. You're thinking about this all wrong. The next step up from L&M plywood isn't a custom made bass from a Canadian luthier, who has to pay rent in Canadian dollars, buy Canadian groceries, raise Canadian kids and all the rest in this expensive country, but rather a Chinese-made bass from L&M or other stores, made in a place where $1,000 can supply all a family needs for several months at least. Of course there's all sorts of questions to be discussed around that, if one is so inclined... as in 'is it ethical to take advantage of that economic disparity?' or 'what about Chinese logging practices in Nepal?' But if we're being simple-minded about shopping, yeah, Chinese carved basses seem the way to go. Especially some of the nicer ones, such as the Romanian-Chinese 'J. Heinrich' basses which show up here and there once in a while for $3,000 or so. Incredible value there, though the Chinese-only J. Heinrich basses tend to be rather ordinary, even poor in actual value. (It's a distribution thing and there are apparently a handful of Chinese workers employed by that firm, making these in Romania, selling through Beijing, or so I'm told.) Next up might be Upton, or Shen basses coming through Nick Loyd. I'm sure there are a hundred options in the $5,000 to $15,000 range. But if you want to ask a Canadian luthier to make you a bass for a reasonable price, might I be so bold as to suggest $15,000 would be a starting point?
