I'm also worn out to this poor-pitiful-me regarding used Alembic prices.
Once you get away from the usual eye-watering resales of 50's Pauls, original korina Explorers and V's, Super 400's, D'Angelico's, etc., all the usual VINTAGE GUITAR suspects, the other 97% of used, serial-production guitars trade hands at reasonable prices. There's LOTS of old Fenders, Gibsons, Guilds, and so on that don't require a Black AmEx card to buy.
And the last time I checked, nobody was selling used Bebensees, Ken Smiths, Warriors, Modulus, ( . . . . . fill in the blank for your 'boutique' guitar or bass here . . . . ) to finance a Master's Degree, new SL, or their piece of a time-share Gulfstream Five. You can watch used Ritters drop fast enough the oxygen mask pops out of the overhead !
The market rises and falls, some things get hot, some things get cold, but usually individual, truly artisan-built and very personalized one-at-a-time axes depreciate like hell: You just can't get that skill set to build them for minimum wage, the woods and woodwork, the fittings and electronics, there's nothing cheap involved in the build. That just doesn't translate once it's dropped into this vast sea of used guitars around the world, where everything that makes it so special is just overlooked, underappreciated, and usually just ignored. And a lot of people aren't educated: They've seen Carvins and Arias and Ibanez' that are striped neckthrus, swirly-topped, with funny-looking pickups and hardware. Hell, they just saw a WESTONE at the pawnshop that looked like that. They just don't know . . . . . 'hey, what's all them knobs for? '
It's the market. I can't tell you how many times I've been in George Gruhn's here in town and watched the usual clueless, more-money-than-brains 'typical guitar collector' walk right past a Collings or Santa Cruz, thinking only a D-Martin or Montana Gibson is worth the money. I tell you, the real genius of Bob Taylor or P R Smith is they somehow broke through that kneejerk, lockstep mindset in consumers.
For me, I love that some doofus will shell out 8 grand for a clapped out 60's Jazz, and they ignore used Alembics: It's the only way I can afford them !
And that brings me to this point:
IF every time you see a used Alembic for sale and involuntarily it comes up your throat 'THAT's too much $$$ !' . . . . then how can you complain the resale value on these things is always too low?
J o e y
