That $trat guy, Matthew Scott, finally picks up a Jazzmaster...

[Pepe Silvia]

The economy is so weird. Massive inflation, economy has been fubarred well for 3 years now...but there are tons of people paying huge amounts of money for guitars.
2-3 years ago dept store acoustic archtops would go for like 100-300 bucks, now ebay is littered with Kay archtops that no one is going to buy for $800. IDGI.

It seems like every recession worsens wealth distribution. The people who are being squeezed by food and energy prices aren't the people spending $10k on vintage guitars. Most people who could buy a $10k guitar 5 years ago can still buy a $12k guitar today after inflation.

The 1% wanted a recession and tried to help it along. They seem bummed the recession likely won't be as bad as speculators were making it to be, so some are trying to crash banks. They won't stop until they hoard all the wealth for their sick fucking game of who has more digits in their portfolio.

[andare]

The guitar is not listed in his Reverb shop anymore. I don't know how to check if he sold it or not but it appears to be gone. Flipping guitars is almost as bad as flipping apartments.
Personally I hope whoever has that guitar at least uses it to make more interesting music than blues shredding.

[JSett]

Flipping guitars is almost as bad as flipping apartments.

I think that's a bit of a stretch...the ability to obtain safe and affordable housing is definitely more important than what really just amounts to an extravagant toy.

[Embenny]

Flipping guitars is almost as bad as flipping apartments.

I think that's a bit of a stretch...the ability to obtain safe and affordable housing is definitely more important than what really just amounts to an extravagant toy.

Yeah, I cannot relate to anyone who thinks that they're entitled to affordable vintage guitars the same way that people are entitled to affordable shelter.

If flippers were buying up the majority of the stock of cheap Squiers, modding them with nicer cosmetic parts, and selling them for AVRI prices, I could see the comparison to house flippers. Many people wanting to play the guitar would be priced out of it.

But we live in an era where the abundance of nicely playable and cheap guitars is higher than ever. Vintage Fenders are, like you said, an extravagant toy. Absolutely nobody needs a vintage Fender for any reason. If they ceased to exist overnight, music wouldn't change in any way, because everyone could play the exact same things on the decades' worth of reissues patterned after those guitars.

[andare]

Flipping guitars is almost as bad as flipping apartments.

I think that's a bit of a stretch...the ability to obtain safe and affordable housing is definitely more important than what really just amounts to an extravagant toy.

Yeah, I cannot relate to anyone who thinks that they're entitled to affordable vintage guitars the same way that people are entitled to affordable shelter.

If flippers were buying up the majority of the stock of cheap Squiers, modding them with nicer cosmetic parts, and selling them for AVRI prices, I could see the comparison to house flippers. Many people wanting to play the guitar would be priced out of it.

But we live in an era where the abundance of nicely playable and cheap guitars is higher than ever. Vintage Fenders are, like you said, an extravagant toy. Absolutely nobody needs a vintage Fender for any reason. If they ceased to exist overnight, music wouldn't change in any way, because everyone could play the exact same things on the decades' worth of reissues patterned after those guitars.

You guys can't take a bit of hyperbole. I never said it's as bad as flipping houses and I never said I'm entitled to affordable vintage guitars. All I said is flipping is bad. It artificially inflates prices that are already very high. That's all.

[Embenny]

You literally said it's almost as bad. Not hard to guess where we might have gotten that idea from.

There's also no such thing as "artificial" price inflation of used goods in a free market. When the price rises, it's from supply and demand. That's as natural to a free market as anything can be. There's no governmental interference in the price, there's no monopoly or consortium of manufacturers controlling the rate of production. They're not necessary to anyone for any reason. They're all already out there, sellers can choose any asking price they want, and buyers can choose what price they're willing to pay. There's no factor out of any of those that can be construed as artificial.

You're not overtly saying you're entitled to affordable vintage guitars, but that seems to be the place you're coming from. How else could a flipper be characterized as doing something harmful or morally wrong? Why is it bad if someone who bought a thing then chooses to sell that thing for a profit? That's the basis of all retail businesses in the world.

You might dislike it if your goal is to buy one as inexpensively as possible, but it's not inherently immoral in any way, since they harm precisely zero people in the process. The morality of flipping homes is much more easily debated, since that can and does lead to actual harm when done on a large scale.

[sal paradise]

There's also no such thing as "artificial" price inflation of used goods in a free market. When the price rises, it's from supply and demand. That's as natural to a free market as anything can be. There's no governmental interference in the price, there's no monopoly or consortium of manufacturers controlling the rate of production. They're not necessary to anyone for any reason. They're all already out there, sellers can choose any asking price they want, and buyers can choose what price they're willing to pay. There's no factor out of any of those that can be construed as artificial.

Sorry for the pedantry here. Just that the rational actor model of economics has proven to be severely flawed. How people price things inevitably influences other sellers, especially with rare & hard to find items.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, etc..,

[Embenny]

Sorry for the pedantry here. Just that the rational actor model of economics has proven to be severely flawed. How people price things inevitably influences other sellers, especially with rare & hard to find items.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, etc..,

Yeah, I know, but that doesn't change the fact that those are all natural forces driven by psychology, etc. There's nothing artificial about any of that. There's no major player tilting the table. It's a large number of individual actors.

[sal paradise]

Sorry for the pedantry here. Just that the rational actor model of economics has proven to be severely flawed. How people price things inevitably influences other sellers, especially with rare & hard to find items.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, etc..,

Yeah, I know, but that doesn't change the fact that those are all natural forces driven by psychology, etc. There's nothing artificial about any of that. There's no major player tilting the table. It's a large number of individual actors.

You’ll know better than most that nothing a human can do is unnatural. So it’s down to semantics. I would argue that deliberately selecting a higher price than the market average, looking to capitalise on either your influence & reputation (or, YouTuber or high-end vintage guitar store) or scarcity of an item, is artificially inflating.

At the same time, that would mean any increase or decrease is artificial as the seller is demonstrating agency in choosing the price they set.

As I type this I’m creating some kind of insane paradox in my head that I’m not educated enough to use philosophy & solve

[Embenny]

You’ll know better than most that nothing a human can do is unnatural. So it’s down to semantics. I would argue that deliberately selecting a higher price than the market average, looking to capitalise on either your influence & reputation (or, YouTuber or high-end vintage guitar store) or scarcity of an item, is artificially inflating.

At the same time, that would mean any increase or decrease is artificial as the seller is demonstrating agency in choosing the price they set.

As I type this I’m creating some kind of insane paradox in my head that I’m not educated enough to use philosophy & solve

In economics, there are specific things that are labeled "artificial."

For example, artificial scarcity (like if Reverb or eBay wouldn't let more than 50 vintage Fenders be listed globally at any time, making it harder for buyers to find cheap guitars, artifically reducing the options they can select from), or artificial demand (like if all record labels got together and made a policy that they'll never release an album that was recorded with anything but a vintage Fender, turning an optional purchase into a mandatory one for anybody hoping to land a commercial release).

Marketing and branding, which you talked about above, are considered normal and natural marketplace forces. Any seller is incentivized to make their guitars more profitable, so creating an image of selecting only the finest guitars and then charging a premium to cash in on that image is just Marketing 101.

It's fine to dislike it, but you can't call it an artificial price increase. It's just a price increase.

[sal paradise]

You’ll know better than most that nothing a human can do is unnatural. So it’s down to semantics. I would argue that deliberately selecting a higher price than the market average, looking to capitalise on either your influence & reputation (or, YouTuber or high-end vintage guitar store) or scarcity of an item, is artificially inflating.

At the same time, that would mean any increase or decrease is artificial as the seller is demonstrating agency in choosing the price they set.

As I type this I’m creating some kind of insane paradox in my head that I’m not educated enough to use philosophy & solve

In economics, there are specific things that are labeled "artificial."

For example, artificial scarcity (like if Reverb or eBay wouldn't let more than 50 vintage Fenders be listed globally at any time, making it harder for buyers to find cheap guitars, artifically reducing the options they can select from), or artificial demand (like if all record labels got together and made a policy that they'll never release an album that was recorded with anything but a vintage Fender, turning an optional purchase into a mandatory one for anybody hoping to land a commercial release).

Marketing and branding, which you talked about above, are considered normal and natural marketplace forces. Any seller is incentivized to make their guitars more profitable, so creating an image of selecting only the finest guitars and then charging a premium to cash in on that image is just Marketing 101.

It's fine to dislike it, but you can't call it an artificial price increase. It's just a price increase.

I think it’s fine to call it artificial as it’s human intervention.

But thinking about it, you’re right. It’s definitely a form of supply and demand. Just morally questionable if someone is hoping to profit off lack of customer insight.

Not that I have a problem with it, either way. I’ve said it before enough times about things like ticket touts. If it’s legal, then that’s on the government. Trying to bring morals into transactions makes it impossible to measure without deep insight into buyer & seller motivations for every single sale. Screw that.

Wait. What were we even talking about? Ah, renovating houses?

[Highnumbers]

You literally said it's almost as bad. Not hard to guess where we might have gotten that idea from.

There's also no such thing as "artificial" price inflation of used goods in a free market. When the price rises, it's from supply and demand. That's as natural to a free market as anything can be. There's no governmental interference in the price, there's no monopoly or consortium of manufacturers controlling the rate of production. They're not necessary to anyone for any reason. They're all already out there, sellers can choose any asking price they want, and buyers can choose what price they're willing to pay. There's no factor out of any of those that can be construed as artificial.

^^ This.

A free-market is self-leveling. Flipping only exists because individuals seek out items that they perceive are undervalued relative to the market and raise the price to what they feel that market will bear (or basic market arbitration).

If they aim too high, the market will respond and it’ll sit there.

The economics behind vintage guitars are pretty simple, and I’m always astounded at the entitlement from people who feel they deserve to own scarce vintage guitars at less than current market prices. There are plenty of nice things in this world that are out of my price range, and that’s just how it is. No complaining here, I admire them from a distance.

I joked earlier about Matthew doing a “pump & dump” on this JM, but that’s the basis of all marketing and sales. Raising awareness, fueling demand while also fueling his YT channel with content.

[Highnumbers]

Also, talk about “artificial” scarcity with vintage guitars is unrealistic. They made a finite amount of these instruments, and supply has continually gone down over the decades as demand significantly increased over that same period.

The only way to create artificial scarcity in a vintage guitar market is to own a controlling percentage of the total supply (the only legit example I can point to is Dirk Ziff who owns more than 20% of all ‘58-60 Les Paul Standards ever made). He can artificially influence the market because by limited supply. Any other exceptions? I can’t think of any.

[sal paradise]

Paul McCartney owns 50% of the left handed 1958-1959 Les Pauls that exist in the world.

[Highnumbers]

There ya go. Small market (though Macca’s provenance would supersede the value of the instrument).

I’d say the other guy with a lefty Burst controls the entire market (of one in circulation). It’s basically prototype pricing at that point - how badly does somebody want one?