Blast from the past pricing

[COOLCAT]

Came across a old magazine, with an article on axe's.

I think its 1976. The two biggest sellers were mentioned as the Les Paul (used by Jimmy Page, Joe Walsh, Pete Townshend) mentioned to cost $400 and up and the Stratocaster (Robin Trower, Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore) from $225 to $365. Although it mentioned one "rare" Stratocaster sold for $550!!

The most popular selling amplifier in his store was the Twin Reverb selling at $400 used.

This was a store owner in LA being interviewed, so the prices may have been hiked up a bit..

just a nothingness gear post for those sitting on thar asses on a fine weekend day.


Sol Bentnun's Music Store...for the record.

[ermghoti]

You could get a decent car for about $3000 in 1976. So a Les Paul was 1/7 of a decent car, and a Strat was 1/15 to 1/8.

Current decent car price: $16k. 1/7=$2300ish, 1/15=$1100ish. Of course, in '76, you were getting CBS/Norlin crap, far inferior to current production stuff, and the lower end quotes were probably nerfed versions, while 2007 dollars gets you a LP Standard or a Strat American.

What was more remarkable was that the Strat and LP were "best sellers." I would venture the best seller in virtually any store today is something in the Epiphone/LTD/other Chinese or Korean sub-pro piece. The starter guitars in those days were so poorly made that they were little more than a novelty offered to the curious.

[COOLCAT]

interesting numbers you posted.
that makes it seem normal....the pricing that is. However its pretty common to grab a used US Strat still for $400-500. Thats what GC offers and then slaps a $699 tag (with room to haggle). Brand new with case, $899...so mass production has brought price down too. LP's have seemed to get more costly than the Strat it seems.

BTW the article was an interview with approx. 5 store owners at the time. Timetravel....

Mars and Guitar Center marts hadn't come along yet...most the pictures look like small shops.

Does your numbers imply that the $99 Squiers would have cost only $22 back then?

[ermghoti]

Originally Posted by COOLCAT

Does your numbers imply that the $99 Squiers would have cost only $22 back then?

That would be roughly the same in "inflation adjusted dollars." In actuallity, such an instrument would probably sold for 200ish, if not more. There were, to my knowledge, no guitars selling in the $20's, manufacturing was not efficient enough to produce a no-frills workhorse for a couple day's pay for minimum wage work.

I firmly believe the good old days are now, when it comes to affordable, quality instruments.

[Ironklad Audio]

LP's have seemed to get more costly than the Strat it seems.

that's because gibson has position itself as a "premiere" brand, and therefore sells their shit for a price that is way above what it's actually worth

i actually learned in an economics class a couple of years back that gibson is one of the few examples where demand for a product dropped along with the price; they started charging less for their guitars a while back, which hurt their position as a premiere brand - this, in turn, caused sales to drop, which resulted in gibson jacking their prices back up.

that's when they started pushing the epiphone les pauls/sg's/etc., in order to fill the niche towards the bottom end of the market

[COOLCAT]

the G.C.,
I go to mentioned they sell about 10 LP's, Gibson US, a week.
this is one GC store of 4 in this city.