Kev

If everyone else follows suit with such ludicrous price increases, it’ll be a very interesting time for the market indeed. Fortunately just seems to be EBMM for the moment (unless someone has seen these kinds of increases elsewhere?) but it often takes one to take the lead on things line this. As someone said, Far East basses may be the only affordable things left.

Just so odd, guess sales in Europe must have performed badly over the last few years?

Very interesting. They seem to have ditched UPS for that order, and instead of taking two weeks it’s taken 3 days??

And to think, capturing fuzz pedals is one of its weaker captures. It’s so good!

Best get saving, they’re terribly expensive these days, so I hear... 😉

I haven't a clue why you are talking criticism of Ernie Ball so personally. You will have noticed both Admin and Moderator members comment in here, so rest assured if anyone takes anything too far, we'll act. In the meantime, perhaps step away from the thread if you don't like where the conversation is headed, but at the very least refrain from any attack on other members because their opinions on a bass builder you like differ with yours.

Dangling a carrot here! Can't imagine what Valenti may be able to do that no luthier in the UK can, not much experience with Valenti but they strike me as rather vanilla, so you've definitely made me curious about what they are doing for you!

The tracking is worse than useless, sadly. When my order was delivered, the tracking was suddenly updated with a ton of events that weren't there before, and actually changed some of the time stamped events that were already on there.

Again, as has been alluded to, if they want to charge that much, they just need to make the Specials “Custom Shop” only. Not necessarily masterbuilt or equivalent, but certainly open to a wide range of possible specs and modifications based on what the customer/dealer orders, ala Warwick, Dingwall etc. Otherwise, yeah, it’s a £3k production bass, and I remember how much mockery Rickenbacker used to get for its prices.

Not sure why this surprises you two so much when a few pages ago a entirely regular Stingray H with a white pickup was £3k 😂 it’s all completely bonkers.

Yeah I think there is little chance of the sub £135 orders going wrong.

I know, I agree, just countering previous arguments that it is

The Bongo seems to have had the biggest rise, and its made of Basswood and maple. Basswood is a cheap wood, and Maple is surely largely abundant.

Wow. So no ambiguity this time, the Bongo stealth 6HH has gone up by over £1k in 12 months. I swear they were made from basswood, too...

I'm interested too, as check this out: https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Music-Man-Bongo-6-HH-Bass-Stealth-Black/270H £2,506, not reduced etc. This bass was built in 2020 according to serial, so if that new price is accurate, this bass has gone up by £1,000 this year. Surely not?!!!

It's odd that most of the other German stores have already implemented a DDP service and as such are selling for a total price, when they're the size that they are. Good to see that should be changing in a few weeks.

Here we go...

Certainly none of their core range of instruments, the gotoh type is exclusively used. Warwick did at a time make budget Jazz bass copies, although I thought this was long enough ago to refer to West Germany on the key, rather than just Germany. Interesting one! EDIT Of course John beat me to it 😂

Apologies, I thought you were talking about the mirroring VAT rule.

This is true, provided that the seller collects the VAT. If they don’t, you will pay at import instead. Particularly relevant when it comes to non-VAT registered private sales, to which the £135 threshold is effectively meaningless.

That's interesting. You place an order in 2021 from Thomann totalling £700 ex Vat and you've received, without a bill? I mean it does happen, I've purchased things from the US before and got away with it, but I didn't think it would be happening in Europe now as everything is being heavily checked? Must say, my previous experience with UPS was that they don't wait for customs fees to be paid before delivering (unlike Royal Mail) but it seems Graham did get his bill first. Who knows, its a bit of a mess I think!