I'll buy the whole formula except the implied equal comparison of a Maverick to Cutlass Supreme.
I'll buy the whole formula except the implied equal comparison of a Maverick to Cutlass Supreme.
Gimme the Cutlass ANY day!
..... f5joe
I think the market is shrinking even more these days than we realize ... x-gens and millennial's simply aren't making the kind of money that we boomers made 20 years ago, therefore in total there isn't a wave of younger people with that kind of disposable income. Credit card debt continues to pile up and they aren't saving. The vintage and collector markets are as soft as they have ever been.
Not to politicize this but when we were growing up we had a very healthy middle class - today not so much...right, wrong or indifferent, we've shipped all of our jobs off shore in effort to compete in a world-wide economy.
Last edited by mtucker; Jan-28-2017 at 9:52am.
I'm a millennial (perhaps the tail end of it being 31), but the other real issue for my age group has been college debt greatly decreasing my ability to purchase much of anything. My wife has a Master's in Nursing and I'm finishing up a Doctorate. Combined we are close to $200k in student loan debt. We are fortunate to make really good money, but the reality is making any "big" purchases that are not related to our home or a vehicle is not plausible. Buying an instrument of any value takes a great deal of planning and thought unless we want to go into debt. Whether or not people in my age group want to buy anything I think is secondary to the fact that our student debt load has massively surpassed anything experienced by the boomer generation.
I of course realize that it was our choice to go to college and get advanced degrees, but in this market, we've had to be competitive both with skills and education. There wasn't really any other option for us.
TL:DR - I could buy a Loar in 10 years if I didn't have student debt
What I don't know is whether or not the prices will trend down because of the lack of buying power for many within my age group. I wonder what the trend has been for 1959 LPs...?
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
A lot of similarity in the stories of the F5 and the Les Paul sunburst. If you think of the goldtops as being like the oval mandolins then both the F5 and LP were made for 3 years before being discontinued for lack of sales. In both cases they were both became very popular in musical styles they weren't necessarily designed for and due to scarcity became very valuable.
There's a 57 Burst LP at Carters for $69K and a 50's gold top for $35K.
2010 Heiden A5, 2020 Pomeroy oval A, 2013 Kentucky KM1000 F5, 2012 Girouard A Mandola w ff holes, 2001 Old Wave A oval octave
http://HillbillyChamberMusic.bandcamp.com
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@hillbillychambermusic
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
There were no 57 bursts so that guitar is a refin. The one listed as " the first burst" was listed for $625k and is sold.
I also noted that Carter's Vintage handled the sale of "the first burst" and "the first Loar" both within months of each other.......certainly an interesting coincidence in our tiny collector subset........
Record collectors like to use the word "scarce" sparingly to describe a record that rarely surfaces, rather than the more common "rare". There are records that have been on collectors "want lists" for 25 years with none having come up for sale! (Everything seems to be "rare" these days, if you believe the internet.)
It does show the leveling power of the internet. Price has brought these instruments "out of the woodwork", so to speak. Loars and Bursts were once scarce. If we can find 10 of one item for sale on any given day, it would be hard to call it scarce, IMHO. But, still expensive. Or to twist an old expression, "these are common at $175K!"
Last edited by Jeff Mando; Jan-29-2017 at 10:57am.
JSanta makes an excellent point about student debt. But there's something even greater at work here than income or disposable cash. While millennial may be the target demographic that's missing in instrument purchases, it extends a bit up the age ladder. What's more at work is a lessened desire to own stuff. Real estate agents in our area tell me that millennial (we'll just use that as a lose definition of age bracket) aren;t looking for the bigger house on a large lot. Something down close to town and smaller is more what they want. They don't really seem to care if they even own it.
Extend this to instruments, and by and large, the name is less critical. I see this all the time with the younger musicians who come through the concert series. The upper end is at the Red Diamond range, but the greatest concentration are those that sell for about 3-6k. They're aware of the Loar mystique, but have virtually no interest in owning one. They're too happy touring around, playing wherever possible, and not having to worry about "stuff" getting damaged. This extends to guitars, violins, basses, the works. It's not that they don't want to worry about damaging a "fine" instrument, they just have no interest in owning one. If the price of a Loar came down to 40-50k, some might bite, but where they are now, you might as well try talking them into having a Ferrari as a touring van.
I know someone will come up with an exception or two, but a handful doesn't make a market sustainable.
There may be a sale or two in the future that keeps the price somewhere around the 100k mark, but as an investment, forget it, not enough buyers.
I actually meant to clarify that.....much of what I posted was numbers from personal experience around those dates and again are ball park numbers...a $2000 Maverick was actually 1970 and my Cutlass was actually a '75 I bought in late '74...I did buy a new loaded Vega GT for $3175 in '73..all relative
My Dad tried to buy a Loar from Benny Cain in 1968. Dad said he could buy a nice nearly new Cadillac for that. Obviously, we did not leave with a Loar
Darryl G. Wolfe, The F5 Journal
www.f5journal.com
Agree 100-% In a sense, If you did not grow up with Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs, there is no longer a built in desire to have a Loar or a Flathead Mastertone
Thile is probably the sole young example of a Loar player....but his ear and talent is the exception....It certainly appears that the more of us that pass on..the more will be for sale and the prices surely will adjust
Darryl G. Wolfe, The F5 Journal
www.f5journal.com
I really have to meet you Darryl! An afternoon, and asking instruments with you would be a ball, throw Tom in the mix (sorry bad pun) and I'd be mandolin stupid for days.
Timothy F. Lewis
"If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett
If memory serves, when Thile bought his Gibson Loar the price was around $250K, which is substantially higher than what you can get one for today?
John A. Karsemeyer
Just a very quick look at Carter's Vintage Guitar site, first page, shows three at $175,000, one at $180,000, and a previously damaged and repaired one for $75,000.
Gruhn's has three at $165,000, 2 at $135,000 and one at $90,000.
That's a 2 minute internet search. That's a lot of competition, and no one rushing to buy.
It certainly has been interesting to watch the prices of Loar F5s over my adult lifetime. I remember a time as a lower to mid, middle class earner that I could have purchased a Loar. It would have meant some sacrifices but I could have done it and I did seriously contemplate it in the 80s when I had an opportunity to get a Loar for a price that was a little below perceived market value. I myself never considered vintage instruments or any other instruments to be recession proof though. They are a luxury after all and I guess that was the biggest reason that I never pulled the trigger. I also recall thinking that when the Loars first hit $10,000 that it was crazy and the price is going to crash but they went on to climb to 20 times that.
I don't think that anyone can answer the question of what is the "real" value of a Loar except to say that it is at the intersection of a buyer's willingness to pay and a seller's willingness to sell. Few people would wish to sell their Loar for less than what they paid for it unless they are highly motivated (financial difficulty) so they may like to cash out but won't unless the price is right for them. Others may want to cash out for retirement and bought their Loars years ago so may be willing to sell for less than the average asking price.
I have a similar situation going on right now with a vintage motorcycle that I have been trying to sell for over a year. I have a value in my mind that I think it is worth but so far, buyers have a different idea. I am not desperate to sell so I have declined offers. So what is the "real" value of my bike? We won't know until one side gives in.
The fetching price of a Loar is dependent on an almost infinite number of variables. (the proverbial butterfly flaps it's wings) One or more of the younger, influential players could acquire a Loar through some fortuitous circumstances. One or more of the older influential players could trade in their Loars for other makes and of course, there is always the economy. Maybe the swamp will be drained and America will be great again or maybe not. It would seem to me that at this particular time there is downward pressure on Loar prices but hey, I've never been right before.
www.apitiusmandolins.com
What is good Phaedrus? and what is not good?, need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
How many professional musicians besides Thile are earning the kind of money it takes to buy a Loar? At that level it becomes a business deduction. I'm curious, half a dozen? That leaves collectors including big name entertainers that don't necessarily play mandolin primarily, and then upper end income folks with huge disposable incomes.
I know people who have their retirement savings in vintage instruments and I would not want to be them as all the collectors' widows start dumping those instruments. What is an Epiphone Casino worth to a forty year old compared to a geezer who grew up with the Beatles?
I could see Loars being bought by patrons and lent to promising young musicians like Strads in the classical violin world.
Silverangel A
Arches F style kit
1913 Gibson A-1
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
Then there is the psychological factor that relates to who owns the Loar that may come up for sale. I'm thinking that if and when John Reischman (or Mike Marshall or Thile or Ricky) decides to sell his, the price may well be above the current prices of the current Loars that are now on the market.
John A. Karsemeyer
This I completely agree with. You see this with other collectibles as well though. If a seller can tie some historical significance to the object, the value generally is higher than the same object without the famous roots.
When they sold Gary Moore's 1959 LP he got from Peter Green, it obviously went for huge money. Names mean a lot to collectors.
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
I think the mandolin market, and especially the market for a particular collectable historically significant kind of mandolin - is so individual and so small that generalizations likely don't work.
I don't think we can, with any certainty, discern the state of the economy in general by the prices of specific mandolins, or even the buying patterns mandolins, there is so much other stuff that makes more specific differences.
And I don't think we can go the other way, and take the general economy (or what we think the general economy is), and predict the buying patterns and prices of specific mandolins.
Thinking about the significance of Bill Monroe among mandolin players seems like it would be fruitful, but I haven't noticed that Bill has become less significant among mandolin players. (Non mandolin players sure, but they are not participating in the markets of interest anyway.)
Perhaps the generally availability of excellent new mandolins, arguably as good as a 23 Gibson F5, for a fifth of the price, has made folks ask themselves the actual value of the signature and legacy, or do they just want to get on to pickin. Bringing the demand down a peg or two.
I don't know. I am skeptical, however, of any narrow single cause answer, and I see nothing to justify any certainty in any answer.
Vintage Guitar magazine has a section that lists values of vintage instruments based on current sales and information from some of the top dealers. The Feb. issue has a 1924 F5 listed with a range from low to high of $120k to $180K.
That seems to be in agreement with what Gruhn and Carter are asking, but I would say even at that, the market is being "kept" artificially high -- for whatever reason. I guess there is a parallel in the housing market -- there are five houses on my street that have all been on the market for over a year, one has been over two years -- and I'm thinking if they were put for sale at absolute auction most would have difficulty reaching half of the asking price.....
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