yes: if your prime objective is to play the most complete, comfortable, competent, custom instrument which compares to the fender you're watching.
no: if you just gotta have a fender!
congratulations on your new ibanez!
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Is Fender overpriced?
- Thread starter Malva kid
- Start date
no: if you just gotta have a fender!
congratulations on your new ibanez!
Great response. Pretty much through the decades they held a price point of a little more than a week’s wage for the average American.
Are Fenders the Mercedes Benz of Basses? Of course not. But a Honda will take anywhere a Benz will and not embarrass you.
You are not the car you drive or the bass you play. Drive your car, roll the window down, play your bass, enjoy the music.
I agree with you on that point.
But a whole lot of big pickup truck drivers would disagree.
I think most new quality guitars and basses are overpriced.
I refuse to pay new asking prices for ANY new instrument, and haven't in about 21 yrs.
Most all my guitars/basses have come from pawnshops, CL, FB Marketplace, and other local musicians.
Almost all Fenders I've ever bought, were all bought well below wholesale prices.
Here's my hauls on Fender basses over the last 10 yrs.
$64.64 - '74 Fender Jazz Bass
$125 - '90 MIJ '57RI P-Bass
$180 - '79 Fender P-Bass
$207 - '94 Fender Jazz V Plus
$315 - '89 Fender Jazz Bass
$400 - '78 Fender Jazz Bass
I refuse to pay new asking prices for ANY new instrument, and haven't in about 21 yrs.
Most all my guitars/basses have come from pawnshops, CL, FB Marketplace, and other local musicians.
Almost all Fenders I've ever bought, were all bought well below wholesale prices.
Here's my hauls on Fender basses over the last 10 yrs.
$64.64 - '74 Fender Jazz Bass
$125 - '90 MIJ '57RI P-Bass
$180 - '79 Fender P-Bass
$207 - '94 Fender Jazz V Plus
$315 - '89 Fender Jazz Bass
$400 - '78 Fender Jazz Bass
i was thinking same thing, that average can't be right....maybe some how the average is...i dunno, i do know i'm a carpenter that makes 35 an hour, and 40 hr week brings 1400.
Agreed. Not after paying taxes. After you pay your Federal, State, and local income tax, one half of your social security and m Medicare tax ( your employer pays the other half, unless you are self employed, then your are paying both halves), then there is person property tax, sales tax, telecommunication excise tax, driver’s license and registration fees, Federal State and local gas tax, tax on tobacco and alcohol to list a few, AND all of the taxes paid by businesses that factor into the cost of whatever you buy.
The per capita income is approximately $35-37K a year gross. After all of the taxes paid on the average you could consider yourself fortunate to net out about $18-$20k, a year.
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Go study the Austrian Subjective Theory of Value and come back.
Within it is a depressing statement for sufferers of GAS:
"Individuals will tend to obtain diminishing levels of satisfaction, or marginal utility from acquiring additional units of a good."
And Adam Smith says, "The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."
@tminus10 - you weren't joking.
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1952 was labor intensive work to make bass.
2020 is "press that START button" work
Comparing the prices is ridiculous.
Some people will pay for Rolex watch as much as they ask for.
So, they pay for style over substance.
It's not just Fender. It's MM, Ric and all of the custom builds.
Friend of mine, famous painter, said to me a few times - "Fools make World turn around"
2020 is "press that START button" work
Comparing the prices is ridiculous.
Some people will pay for Rolex watch as much as they ask for.
So, they pay for style over substance.
It's not just Fender. It's MM, Ric and all of the custom builds.
Friend of mine, famous painter, said to me a few times - "Fools make World turn around"
in 2001, I paid $1149 (US dollars) for a Czech Spector 5-string from mid-state New York (thanks Joe, a friend of Stuart's apparently)- solid maple wings, EMG pre-amp. An absolute stunner with incredible build quality and pretty much always described by others (including experienced players and some hugely talented music store dudes) as the easiest bass to play ever experienced. I still have it, and it is the preferred go-to bass of my 9 basses (incl SR5s, Jazz, Precision and Ric). My Jazz is a ÇS 64 re-issue which I paid $2k US for in 2010. For me, being from Australia, the Spector was an absolute bargain - you don't want to know what the prices are like down here.
In terms of resale, I anticipate the Jazz will do better than the Spector, but that is not why I buy basses. I'll be dead before these instruments get sold.
So after that rant, relatively speaking, yes, Fenders are probably overpriced IMHO. But to each their own.
Cheers
I've bought recently an Ibanez Mikro and it is amazing for only few dollars....
I've an old Yamaha used before that I payed not too few but I don't know about his real market price because I like it and It is my principal bass in Gigs and concerts with the band.
....and I can continue a lot.
What is overpriced and lesspriced is not about the real value of the instrument but only a momentary lapse of no-reason of the market.
In these 30Years I've seen overpriced things and nowaday underrated. For example in Italy Aria, Ibanez, Status, Washburn Status are not considered and If you're lucky who need to sell close to you you can afford a marvellous instrument for a MiKro price.
