To those paying insane prices for staytrems...

[Tidepoolbay]

I was making an order last week and was shocked! Only the UK? I was and am Bummed out. A great product! I last ordered three Tremolo arms for MIJ Jaguars. I was looking to get some USA tremolos. You guys & gals is the UK are still good to go.

[stewthom]

On a related note, my Stay Trem tremolo arm on my AVRI Jaguar has suddenly become loose--loose like the standard arm often does, swinging around and not staying in position. I thought this manufacturer was supposed to correct for that problem? Now that he's winding down, not sure what if any product support he offers. Any thoughts/recommendations appreciated.

[Trout]

On a related note, my Stay Trem tremolo arm on my AVRI Jaguar has suddenly become loose--loose like the standard arm often does, swinging around and not staying in position. I thought this manufacturer was supposed to correct for that problem? Now that he's winding down, not sure what if any product support he offers. Any thoughts/recommendations appreciated.

Email him?

[BobL]

In the sold section of ebay, I'm seeing staytrems get up to near 200 dollars. Why someone would pay that, I don't know. I certainly won't, so I decided to explore some options.

It turns out there are several forwarding services in the U.K., which I decided to try. I found one that looked legit (forward2me) and even though it seemed like a gamble, I gave it a shot. You put in their address for the U.K. address and then they receive it and re-ship it to you.

A week or two later I received my staytrem in the mail for slightly upwards of $100. If I was a total piece of shit, I would order them en masse and re-sell them. Don't pay the insane prices set by price gougers, this is a simple way to get a staytrem for close to the original price. The cheapest reshipping option they had was 10 pounds.

Full disclosure: I am not in any way related to this site and I hope this post isn't interpreted as some sort of advertising scheme. I just think it's ridiculous that people will pay close to $200 for a staytrem.

Thank you for this. Did not know this was a thing, and had been trying to get an acquaintance to do all this for me from the UK, which was a little goofy.

[patski]

Dumb question but why can't John sell his design? Is it because it's a modified Fender product?

I thought I saw something about his site not accepting anything other than a UK form of payment. I'm going to get a buddy in the UK to order me one.

[Embenny]

Dumb question but why can't John sell his design? Is it because it's a modified Fender product?

We aren't privy to the details, but he basically said that his manufacturing capacity has been reduced, and it's clear based on this decision that he just isn't interested in expanding his operation again.

As lovers of his products, it's hard for us to understand, because our goal (everyone gets a Staytrem whenever they want) could be accomplished multiple ways - find a new manufacturer, outsource it to someone else, license or sell the design to someone who will, etc. - but he clearly has a reason to be going about things this way. Maybe he wants to be spending less hours at work. Maybe international orders had disproportionately high rates of headaches (lost packages, unhappy customers, returns, whatever).

We're not used to seeing a company seemingly willingly limit its market and its profits, but people can have motivations beyond the expansion of their business.

[andy_tchp]

I'm sure I read that he was looking to retire and wind things up completely.

Nothing to say he "can't sell his design" provided someone wants to buy the design/tooling and stump up a (worthwhile) monetary offer.

[Mechanical Birds]

It’s super fucking stupid that the guy just stopped, without any advance warning of any kind, shipping outside the UK in the first place. Buyers were paying for the shipping themselves, so it’s really impossible for me to understand what possible reason he could have had for cutting everyone off.

Did he ever post any kind of attempt of a reasonable explaination or no? Every time I see some piece of shit trying to gouge people for double their worth and a description or headline featuring any form of the word “RARE” it just makes my blood boil.

Whole situation is fucking stupid. Thanks to OP for the forwarding info, really

[andy_tchp]

It’s super fucking stupid that the guy just stopped, without any advance warning of any kind, shipping outside the UK in the first place. Buyers were paying for the shipping themselves, so it’s really impossible for me to understand what possible reason he could have had for cutting everyone off.

Retirement.

Did he ever post any kind of attempt of a reasonable explaination or no?

Retirement.

Hi all,

I wrote to John about the situation, and got a typically polite response a short time ago.

The reason for scaling-down operations is simple - John is retiring from full time work. He plans to carry on working a couple of days a week, but doesn't feel he can produce enough to satisfy demand beyond the UK.

I thought this is worth sharing so that we don't go any further down the speculative, scandalous route

Cheers!
J.

[Mechanical Birds]

Ok after reading the thread I guess he’s retiring. Still seems ridiculous to refuse to put different letters on a shipping label which is like the only even remote difference for selling them outside of the UK. More power to him I guess, just weird considering Mastery’s insanity with production and people essentially being told they’ll get their bridge when they get their bridge. Seems like the same kinda thing could apply here but oh well. I hope the guy lives a long time and can enjoy being able to relax. I know what my tech’s days are like and the amount of stress and bullshit he goes through, so I couldn’t even imagine if he was also trying to be 1 of 2 major suppliers worldwide for a product like this. Makes more sense when I think of it that way I guess. Again I hope he’s well.

Would be dope as hell if someone here, maybe a BilT or Kauer would buy and start selling them from here. Probably impossible but it’d be nice. I always loved that the option for a nice upgrade existed for people that wasn’t a seemingly crazy amount of money to invest for something like a bridge and I have them on 4 of my 5 guitars (Mastery on my first Jag) and really love how simple yet effective they are.

It’s just annoying that if I was really into strats or Teles or something, I’d have a hundred different options for a bridge upgrade, but liking the guitars I like, guitars that weren’t taken seriously by really anyone, the company who designed and sold them included, until like 10 years ago, leaves me with only ~ 2 viable options (taking into account radius and string spacing and stuff). So it’s double shitty that one of those options is disappearing. Don’t know what ya got till it’s gone I guess. Really wish I wasn’t poor as hell and could afford to start a bridge and tremolo company. That’d be like, my dream.

[andy_tchp]

Ok after reading the thread I guess he’s retiring. Still seems ridiculous to refuse to put different letters on a shipping label which is like the only even remote difference for selling them outside of the UK.

The difference is demand. Population of the US alone (also the largest market w/biggest appetite for anything 'aftermarket') is ~5 times that of the UK. Then add the 7.5 billion of us not residing in those countries who also buy guitar parts

Probably gives him just enough work to keep himself busy for a day or two a week without having the stress of keeping up with orders and being overrun with customers (a nice problem to have as a small business, but not if you're trying to wind down operations and retire).

[Mechanical Birds]

Makes sense. I edited that post a bunch before submitting it but didn’t get all the stuff I wanted to remove out of it I guess. Yr assumptions make it seem more reasonable of a thing

[mcatano]

Also I would assume it's pretty easy to drop a bridge into a flat rate domestic parcel and get a tracking number without having to do much at the post office besides drop off some packages. Anyone who is saying that "it's just changing the letters" has clearly never shipped a package internationally. It's actually the worst.

[wooderson]

Also I would assume it's pretty easy to drop a bridge into a flat rate domestic parcel and get a tracking number without having to do much at the post office besides drop off some packages. Anyone who is saying that "it's just changing the letters" has clearly never shipped a package internationally. It's actually the worst.

Indeed. Other than Ebay's global shipping program where they handle all the work, I won't deal with international sales at all.

From what I recall of my Staytrem packages, he's pretty old school as well - it wasn't a Paypal shipping situation with generated labels, I think there were actual stamps.

[JONFROMJERSEY]

I have been in communication the StayTrem guy and he wrote that he doesn´t ship outside the UK so that he doesn´t run out of stock, which I don´t understand, since what is the point of having stock you refuse to sell one day so that you can sell it another day? I live in the EU so I don´t think it would have been a big deal to ship to me, but whatever.

Anyway, he was nice and answered my emails and I didn´t want to harass the guy so I opted for the forward2me route as suggested above. I hope it works out. Wish me luck.

I hope those 3mm are worth it! :-)