2009 Fender Price Increases........scary

[electricskychurch]

personnaly i think this Relic thing is more hype and money than anything else and i find it's a pitty to find mostly Relic time machine guitars in the shops here in France.
when i read all the problems people have with their rusty hardware on guitars they paid 3000 to 4000 $, i think it's simply unbelievable !
it makes me think of those totaly torn, worn and bleached blue jeans you pay about 150 euros here whereas they don't last , when i remember a nice pair of 501's was maybe 50 to 60 euros (and lasted years) !
the Relic guitars won't last as long as the original ones as they are already old before beeing sold.
also, you will find very few time machine guitars in good shape in the future and i suppose those clean ones will cost much more than the relic ones .
i like aged guitars like some Gibson and closet classic Fender guitars ( they seem to have discontinued !!) but i don't like when they are totaly worn and beaten up;
a very slight relic would be ok for me but not more .
i like to age my guitars myself although i would like the lacquer of the nos guitars slightly thinner or maybe slightly aged like on some closet classic guitars.
in another hand, if some people like those guitars, why not making them available for them but i think they should propose all the models equally as they did a few years ago (but Relic brings more money to them obviously as it's more work !)

[fivecoyote]

Big company = lots of overhead = price increases. While many other companies in the world are taking significant pay cuts (like 15-20%) from the CEO on down and holding the line on prices to customers, the execs at our companies are firing people and paying themselves more. Stupid.

One quick story: The only guy I've seen recently buy a new Fender bought a new American Tele -- without even playing it. The sales guy at Sam Ash literally looked stunned and like he was about to burst out laughing for the 10 mins it took to run the guy's credit card.