UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I made a prediction that the pandemic pricing surge would ease off. And it has ... sort of.
Martin Standard Series instruments have gone from about $3800 AUD (£2,027) to $5419 (£2,891 - OM-28, D-35, 00-28) and $5069 (£2,704 - D-28).
That's a huge increase, well out of kilter with movements in most other makes. Everything has gone up but Taylor, Furch, Maton, Cole Clark, Yamahe and Takamine have all kept their increases to around about half the Martin increases, in some cases less.
And it looks as if Martin have finally hit the customer resistance barrier because they have now introduced a new line in satin-finished Standard Series guitars. These are (so they say) identical to the traditional Standard Series models except for being finished in satin rather than gloss. Martin purists see this as a downgrade. Can't say I care either way myself - no-one in his right mind buys a Martin for its finish anyway - pretty much everyone except Gibson does that better after all.
Anyway, it amounts to a price drop by stealth: A satin D-28 is $4399 (£2,347), a satin D-18 is $4369.(£2,331). In other words, you can now once again buy a Standard Series Martin for around about the same price relative to all the other major brands as you paid in 2019. But it uses the cheaper satin finish.
How do we feel about that?
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My read is that Martin are using the satin finish (which probably saves them less than $50 USD - wages in the USA are quite a lot lower than in Australia or the UK remember) as a smokescreen to cover a price drop.
As for my feelings, I don't mind paying for quality but paying overs for greed (e.g., the £2700 D-28) gets right up my nose. So I went from quite likely to buy a Martin in 2020 or so for around £2000 (I like HD-28, OM-28, D-18) to not-a-chance in 2022 when they started asking £700 extra for the same guitar while other guitars of equal quality and value went up by far less.
Now? Well I've pretty much mapped out my guitar buying for the next few years so there is no room to add a Martin into that program, but if for some reason I buy an extra one, a more-reasonably-priced (i.e., satin finish) Martin is a possibility. All else aside, they'd probably look better.
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1 year. Ok, the retailer will chuck in another 2 (GG in my case), but Martin owners in the US get lifetime warranty. I've always seen this as unfair, and I'm a Martin fan and owned several models over the years.
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If I'm paying £2999 for a guitar I want it to be full gloss. £3449 is ridiculous money for a standard factory-built D28.
I wouldn't buy either of them new.
A bit surprised by the comment on finish quality actually. I’ve had a few Martins and all were finished to a very high standard.
That aside, compare any Martin to an equivalent Yamaha, Maton, Taylor, Cole Clark, Otherbrandofyourchoice. The Martin will be the least well-finished guitar by quite a margin.
OK, seriously, the finish IS good, the action is low, intonation is perfect, plenty of bass and sparkling highs. Happy chappy.
But yes, of course you're right, spending that much money, you expect a little extra care. I'm with you all the way there.
there certainly was cost pressures during Covid but I also think the smart business used the huge demand to move margins. There were also plenty using all the Covid and post Covid era to mange up margins.
As much as I am a fan of Martin guitars I think their continued reliance on old style local distribution outside of the US makes them over priced as it’s not a very cost effective way. All the big names have their own EU distribution and service centres Prs Taylor etc. setting up their own Martin warehouse would allow them to give the US style lifetime or something more than one year warranty.