Look at the bright side. If you own a Strat or a Tele it just went up in value.

when the hype is there in 20 years or so...maybe...or not.

cheers

I really must dispell this myth. The fact that people aren't buying guitars on the 2ndhand market will only drive prices down. Will i buy a 2nd hand american standard, deluxe, mim or whatever for what i would have oct 07. Not a chance, neither will other people. Just look at what stuff is selling for as proof. It hasnt risen as things get worse i doubt it will.

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No no and no

Agreed. The price increase has done nothing to the scarcity of used gear.
In fact if you analyze the total situation, people are only complaining about the increase as it pertains to timing. This is because a lot of people are finding themselves with less pocket money.

No one will be willing to pay 30% more for a used guitar. And also if money is tight, and the situation persists I think we'll see even more used guitars on the market. this will in fact drive the demand to supply ratio even lower. I think this time next year we'll see used gear will actually be cheaper, as people become more and more motivated to sell.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

No doubt. I've gone on ebay recently, and saw that the prices are starting to fall somewhat inline with real world values. 3 months ago, every 4 year old strat was being sold for a "buy it now" price that was the same as a brand new one, they're starting to fall to reasonable prices. I have a feeling that in the new price increase is a markup buffer zone that will allow merchants to discount items that they werent allowed to do before, although I'm just speculating.

Come to think of it and speaking of e-Bay, has Stratosphere's prices gone up too?

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You dig?

He is absolutely correct. The price will not increase. Supply and demand will control the price. There are so many Strats out there that they probably will never increase in value. They are bolt together, CNC machine-made instruments.

Yes, I believe so - I am fairly sure what they did was take the number of parts that make up the Fender Stratocaster - Calculated the percentage that the new guitars actually went up - divided the actual percent by the number of parts - that will allow them to fairly estimate the increase per part - then, they are going to correlate the value of the dollar in 1954 to the present day dollar and come up with a fair BUY IT NOW price that will be slightly higher than the actual guitar if you completely pieced it all together - I heard they may raise the shipping as well, not sure yet

Yea, im bored!! lol

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"Wait a minute, somethings wrong here!"

Good business pratice huh BigJay?

True. I found a way to beat the price raise. I put my american deluxe on layaway and paid it off before the price increase. Paid 1300 instead of 1700

Just like the value of a used car because the new model cost more! Ya right! I think not. I also have the deed to a used bridge. Its in Brooklyn

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

There is no question that you are CORRECT. But the increase will slowly be realized over years. As time goes on, the used inventory of "new price" gear will increase, while the quantity of used "old price" gear will decrease. And -- you can be sure -- the person who just paid $575 for his sunburst MIM Standard is gonna be looking to sell his guitar for a lot more than $300 or so. But he won't be able to get much more right now . In time though he will. And when he does, our guitar prices will follow upward trends.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...