Is a new mass-produced bass ever worth more than £1500

[Nicko]

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

I was asked what I thought of a 90s squire Korean p bass someone had seen for £300 

nothing special, a starter instrument from the 90s - what I find odd at the low price bracket is the disconnect from the prices of cheap but good now compared to then…

 

from vague memory Squier starter bass in early 90s -£100ish? 
harley Benton starter bass now £100ish, nicer Sire thing, £300 ish 

- how do you map the older basses into that?

I fail to understand why anyone would value a 90s Squier Korean P Bass more than a new Chinese one.  Some vintage instruments get better with age but I'm not sure that's true for the vast majority and certainly not for cheap mass produced items.

[Misdee]

5 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

So I think the JV squiers in 1982 were £200

£200 in 1982 is the equivalent of
£375 in 2000 and
£686 today 

 

Looking at thomann that's a Fender Player Series MIM, Sire V8, Foreign made Stingray, Yamaha BB 434, today
 

That's about accurate -I bought a JV Squire in 1983- but inflation -based figures don't take into account that on the whole people were poorer fourty years ago than now.

[neepheid]

Well, your resident grippy Scot is here to tell you that £1500 is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a bass - I've bought CARS for less FFS!

 

The most I have ever spent on a bass is £1300, and I thought long and hard about it.  FWIW it was my G&L wunkay and it was my post-lockdown treat to myself.  Apart from that, I try to keep it below a grand.  There's so much good stuff appearing around the £500 mark these days (and lower) that there's no need to spend more to get "quality" any more.  The "high end" manufacturers know this, and they are running scared from the increase in quality at the "lower" end of the market.  They can't make their stuff any better (because they were already "the best", right?) so all they can do to differentiate themselves is to jack the price up to create this artificial aura of superiority - tapping into this "I paid more so it must be better, right?" part of our psyche.

 

It's all smoke and mirrors.  The high end aren't innovating, they aren't improving, and eventually people will see through this transparent bluff.  I already have, I think.

Edited May 15 by neepheid

[gjones]

I've only ever bought one bass brand new and that cost me £1900. Usually though I let other people buy the bass brand new and then buy it off them for half the original price once they've got bored with it.

[Nicko]

9 minutes ago, Misdee said:

As horse racing enthusiasts would say, there's very little value to be had in the market at the moment.

 

What bass could you say offers good value for it's current U.K retail price? The other day I was contemplating a Mexican-made Fender JMJ for £1250. Still a lot of money but might be an affordable treat if they are as good as people say. I could buy one and pretend I am still trendy and "with it". Then I read on Basschat that I would have to shield it myself to stop incessant electrical hum. I have enough problems already. 

 

The higher up the price range you go, the harder it is to find a good deal when it comes to new basses. All this with the caveat that in many cases it's the exchange rate which is killing it. Even with British-made basses. Companies like Wal can charge whatever they like and then close the order book because they are inundated with orders from the USA taking advantage of the weak pound. Other less feted bass makers are having to pay more for parts and materials. Everything has gone up, and prices won't be going back down in any foreseeable future.

 

I remember back in the 1990s being shocked at how much imported basses were in Australia compared to the UK because of trade tariffs. Now we are like Australia was in terms of prices and I'm not sure who or what to blame. 

The £ is weak against the us$ and the Euro, but not that weak against the Japanese Yen,  Korean Won or Vietnamese Dong.  If you are looking at Far Eastern manufactured instruments there really isn't an excuse for rises in the last 5 years aside from "market forces".

 

Similarly the £ vs the Mexican Peso IS down significantly in the last 5 years.  But - and it's a big but, the exchange rate is roughly what it was in the 90s with the £ having rallied against it 10 years ago and then losing the gains in the last 5 of years.  I do not recall Mexican made instruments becoming cheaper between 2014 and 2020 so it seems when the £ is strong the importers are ripping us off and when it's weak they use it as excuse to up prices.  The big F of course has a habit of moving production somewhere cheaper and maintaining prices - so a Standard P Bass used to be MIA, and is now MIM, the Squier brand used to be  MIJ and is now MIC.Indonesia but they never reduce the prices.

[LeftyJ]

32 minutes ago, neepheid said:

The most I have ever spent on a bass is £1300, and I thought long and hard about it.  I try to keep it below a grand.  There's so much good stuff appearing around the £500 mark these days (and lower) that there's no need to spend more to get "quality" any more. 

 

This sums it up pretty well for me too. I buy used most of the time, only rarely have I bought a new bass. The last one was a German-made Esh Stinger that had been hanging in a store for years and I paid €800 for it NOS in 2014-ish - and without that massive discount I wouldn't have bought it. Most of my instruments came from private sellers. My most expensive bass was probably my 4-string Status S2 Classic that had to come from Israel and I had to pay customs fees and 21% VAT when it arrived. All in all it came in at around €1700 I think, which is still good considering they were around €4000 new in the end. 

Edited May 15 by LeftyJ

[Owen]

1 hour ago, Misdee said:

Now we are like Australia was in terms of prices and I'm not sure who or what to blame. 

..........................

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Bassfinger said:

Indeed. 40 years ago a hundred quid, which was rather more money then than now, got you a near unplayable egg slicer.

 

Actually I think 40 years ago is when things started to change, that is when the decent arias / tokais and Westones came in. I remember being a kid in telecoms musc in portsmouth, having played the fenders and the gibsons, and then picking up a westone concorde. It was nowhere near as cool but it played really well.

[Misdee]

12 minutes ago, Owen said:

..........................

Just let me know who it is and I will blame them quite happily. Give us a clue.

[Lozz196]

2 hours ago, Misdee said:

 

What bass could you say offers good value for it's current U.K retail price? The other day I was contemplating a Mexican-made Fender JMJ for £1250. Still a lot of money but might be an affordable treat if they are as good as people say. I could buy one and pretend I am still trendy and "with it". Then I read on Basschat that I would have to shield it myself to stop incessant electrical hum. I have enough problems already. 

 

Shameless plug here but I`m selling three black JMJs at the moment (£1000 each), all have been shielded. Great basses, they really are as good as they say (imo better), sadly arthritis in left thumb forcing the sale.

[Misdee]

Just now, Lozz196 said:

Shameless plug here but I`m selling three black JMJs at the moment (£1000 each), all have been shielded. Great basses, they really are as good as they say (imo better), sadly arthritis in left thumb forcing the sale.

Hi Lozz, I've read your posts about the JMJ with great interest. Unfortunately I'm looking exclusively at a  Daphne blue one. 

[Bassfinger]

"Value" is a fickle mistress who doesn't always conveniently converge with "desire."

 

If I like a bass and can afford it, I suck it up and pay the price.  If I can't, I grumble to myself and move on. 

 

Sadly value rarely holds hands with my desire to acquire a particular bass.  Once or twice she has smiled kindly upon me (Sire Marcus Miller), which is nice when it happens but it's still a long way from being my prime reason for ever desiring an instrument.

 

Conversely, it doesn't matter if a bass superb value and comes with free sexual favours from Rosamund Pike, if I don't like it I won't get my wallet out.

[LukeFRC]

14 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Hi Lozz, I've read your posts about the JMJ with great interest. Unfortunately I'm looking exclusively at a  Daphne blue one. 

 

Blue basses have a different inflation rate to non blue

[Lozz196]

39 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Hi Lozz, I've read your posts about the JMJ with great interest. Unfortunately I'm looking exclusively at a  Daphne blue one. 

No worries, you won’t be disappointed, I think these basses are superb, good luck on the search 

[Lozz196]

29 minutes ago, Bassfinger said:

"Value" is a fickle mistress who doesn't always conveniently converge with "desire."

 

If I like a bass and can afford it, I suck it up and pay the price.  If I can't, I grumble to myself and move on. 

 

Sadly value rarely holds hands with my desire to acquire a particular bass.  Once or twice she has smiled kindly upon me (Sire Marcus Miller), which is nice when it happens but it's still a long way from being my prime reason for ever desiring an instrument.

 

Conversely, it doesn't matter if a bass superb value and comes with free sexual favours from Rosamund Pike, if I don't like it I won't get my wallet out.

With those t&c’s I’d be looking at distant selling regs 🤣

[chris_b]

In March 1969 my Fender Precision cost me £120, nearly £1700 in today's money. That was the first "mass produced" bass I bought. It was a massive outlay for a young kid, but was definitely worth every penny.

 

We don't know we're born today. CNC and Far East labour costs have given us playable basses for peanuts. Which is why so many can afford "collections".

 

I have a cheap bass at home which feels good to play but you can hear where they made the savings. The pickups are OK but up against my Sadowsky they don't come close. IMO if you can hear the difference, more expensive basses are always worth it.

[Lozz196]

Agree Chris, I`ve got a couple of cheaper Mustang basses and up against my JMJs there is a difference in sound, the JMJs being fuller sounding. I`ve noticed this on the Andertons "Sound Like" series - the difference when they do the same bands on the By Busting The Bank compared to the Without Busting The Bank is usually quite apparent, with the By episodes being fuller sounding with usually a much smoother top end.

[asingardenof]

5 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

I was asked what I thought of a 90s squire Korean p bass someone had seen for £300 

nothing special, a starter instrument from the 90s - what I find odd at the low price bracket is the disconnect from the prices of cheap but good now compared to then…

 

from vague memory Squier starter bass in early 90s -£100ish? 
harley Benton starter bass now £100ish, nicer Sire thing, £300 ish 

- how do you map the older basses into that?

Depends if it was an Affinity or a Standard. My Korean Precision Standard was £230 when I bought it new in 1998 but I believe the Affinity series was cheaper than that.

[TimR]

It's supply and demand. People are obviously paying the prices. 

 

The supply chains were broken after the pandemic, and in a lot of cases, we are still feeling the effects plus lag from pent-up demand. 

 

Lots of people do have money to spend. 

 

Would I buy a bass for £1500? Possibly. I like the look of the Ibanez Premium (£1300), but the SR600 (£800)  probably do me once I'd changed the machineheads. 

 

A lot of basses seem at first glance to be pretty well made, they're all CNC machined so quality control is higher than it was in the 80s. But whether or not they last the rigours of gigging remains to be seen. 

[Lfalex v1.1]

I bought a mass-produced bass for more than £1500. And it was second- hand. 

 

It's an excellent instrument,  and was really good value compared to some others I've seen.

[Misdee]

When it comes to basses, I'm one of those people who have been cursed with good taste to the extent that the vast majority of basses I would consider owning are pretty expensive.

 

Very few less expensive basses appeal to me, though they might come in useful at certain times. The instruments I mainly gravitate towards tend to cost a fair bit. That's been true right from when I started playing and my bass teacher explained to me about Alembic basses. (I've still never owned one).

 

If I've got the money, I'm perfectly prepared to spend more than £1500 on a new bass. But that doesn't mean I won't pass on buying a bass if I think it's grotesquely over-priced for what it offers.

 

To some extent we're all talking at cross-purposes in so much as what people want from a bass differs greatly from person to person. Some folks want a tool to do a job, i.e playing some songs with a few friends down at the Dog and Duck on a Friday night. That's great. Some people are happy just playing at home for their own entertainment. That would be me nowadays. That's great too. Some folks are aspiring to be professional players. Good for them.  In all of these circumstances some folks want expensive instruments, others less pricey ones, and there's no wrong choice, just differing points of reference.

 

 

[Woodinblack]

12 minutes ago, Misdee said:

When it comes to basses, I'm one of those people who have been cursed with good taste to the extent that the vast majority of basses I would consider owning are pretty expensive.

 

One persons good taste is another persons tragic.

[Mykesbass]

18 minutes ago, Misdee said:

When it comes to basses, I'm one of those people who have been cursed with good taste to the extent that the vast majority of basses I would consider owning are pretty expensive.

 

Expensive doesn't  necessarily equate to good taste.  

[LukeFRC]

sometimes a good instrument is a good instrument and the price is just a secondary quality to it. 

 

If we are online we tend to buy with our eyes. All I knew about Fodera was they were expensive, then I tried one in a shop and could feel and hear why someone with the money might want to buy one. 

Conversely one of the best basses I've played was an old Cimar jazz that cost me £60 

[tegs07]

6 hours ago, Nicko said:

The £ is weak against the us$ and the Euro, but not that weak against the Japanese Yen,  Korean Won or Vietnamese Dong.  If you are looking at Far Eastern manufactured instruments there really isn't an excuse for rises in the last 5 years aside from "market forces".

 

Similarly the £ vs the Mexican Peso IS down significantly in the last 5 years.  But - and it's a big but, the exchange rate is roughly what it was in the 90s with the £ having rallied against it 10 years ago and then losing the gains in the last 5 of years.  I do not recall Mexican made instruments becoming cheaper between 2014 and 2020 so it seems when the £ is strong the importers are ripping us off and when it's weak they use it as excuse to up prices.  The big F of course has a habit of moving production somewhere cheaper and maintaining prices - so a Standard P Bass used to be MIA, and is now MIM, the Squier brand used to be  MIJ and is now MIC.Indonesia but they never reduce the prices.

I would hazard a guess that the cost of living/standard of living is also going up in all of the countries you mentioned. The far east is no longer as cheap as it once was. If anything their GDP and wage growth is outpacing the west.

The era of low interest rates and rock bottom prices is pretty much over. 

Edited May 15 by tegs07