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What about the price for domestic walnut sets?   LMI has fairly plain stuff for $130.00 a set, and that's a lot more than either mahogany or even East Indian rosewood which is looking cheaper by the month compared to Koa (think Bz rosewood prices) or black acacia. I'm just lucky that I can resaw my own here, and I may be switching my standard Renaissance model wood from walnut to sapele or mahogany as I readjust to the realities of the market.   

Kim and Paul have it right on the money. I got the same report from the guy I get my acacia from in Aus. I had these sets for sale for that same figure that you found as the average, $230. I have been told that finding this high figure is harder and harder and you do cut a lot of wood to get these few sets, that makes them expensive. Even though spruce trees are plentiful around here, tonewood logs are not! Getting access to top grades of any woods is expensive just because there are numerous markets for the fine woods and we have to compete with them. Also, in softwoods anyway, volujme is the issue so the best logs are the bargaining chips for volume. Brokers include the high grade logs in a HUGE volume (read a ship load!) to export markets and won't sell them locally at any price unless you want a whole cut block. The tonewood thing is difficult. There have been a few dicussions on MIMF over the past year about the "investment" in tonewood. They are probably right, one of my customers was able to buy BRW for $45 a set 20-25 years ago, bought a few but opted for the $20 EIR sets for volume. Imagine where he would be today with a closet full of those $45 sets!

Shane

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Canada

Well I just clicked the "active topic" link and see that you are all talking or were talking about Blackwood pricing. From my perspective sourcing the material has become more difficult with specific logging companies clear felling and turning a lot of good wood into woodchips. Environmental issues of biodiversity have meant in real terms the permanent closure of forests. So with the prevalence of these factors available logs now attract a higher price with the added problem that the logs are not clean or easily broken down into flitches suitable for resawing into sets. Recovery from the log to the flitch is about 20% if everything is going well. Beyond this the probability of having high grade colour and figure throughout the entire log is not assured.

I have and will attempt to keep my pricing within a realistic price range. Current pricing will remain fairly stable in the medium term. One way to reduce shipping would be to organize a group order shipping on a pallet by sea.There would be a slight reduction in set price for medium and high grade. Master grade because of its low volume remains at $200+ USD

regards

Tim
Black Swan38806.0390393519

but the thing that gets me is none of the issues Kim brought up are new, meaning they did not change to the current status with in the past two years. I do understand suppy and demand ecconomics. I work in one of the most fluid markets in the world, where supply is the driving factor. I also understand the board foot yeild is small with any Acicia. but I just have not seen, in my limited universe, reasons for a doubling in price over one year. I know Koa is going up and up but it did not take a 100% jump.

Ok I have fussed enough. I need a cookie now

And ya got yer Teddy for support Michael!

[QUOTE=MichaelP] but the thing that gets me is none of the issues Kim brought up are new, meaning they did not change to the current status with in the past two years. [/QUOTE]

Ebay may not be new to you and me Michael, but it IS new every day to more and more people around the world. The growth of ebay globally over the last 2 years has been nothing short of staggering and it has now become a monster which controls the prices both on and off line for a huge array of products.

Indeed some things that were never in short supply have in fact come down in price because of Epay, but nearly everything from aardvark attire to Zulus zebra skins that could be even remotely described as desirable, collectible, rare, special, limited, etc, etc has gone up remarkably driven by the numbers.

Once, if you had a nice bit of wood for sale, you had the newspaper to tell people about it, you paid for the add, then waited for someone to read it and make you an offer. Now with epay, they come to you, and they come to you from all over the planet. Now, if you have a nice bit of wood for sale, you look at the finished items list on epay and that will tell you straight away exactly what the market will pay you making your decision regarding how much to ask for it on or off the net a very easy one.

As a buyer, if you want it, you just have to pay a little more than the last guy, and up and up she goes and just were it ends is anyones guess.

If you want the very best Blackwood in AU at the best price I know of, coupled with courteous, honest and reliable service, take Tim Spittle from Australian Tonewoods up on his offer, on this account I can speak from personal experience. Tim is a very good vendor who understands from his own personal experience just what the people involved in this craft want and expect and like most of the great vendors here at the OLF, he then goes that little bit further to keep the customer happy.

Cheers

Kim

I don't think there is any price gouging here. (It seems some may be thinking that is what is being said). I don't see it that way. It just seems like these woods are rising faster than the rest of the markete for some reason. It wasn't THAT long ago when Koa could be had for less than $100.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Hi guys - I have been scourig the net all morning for woods and I ran across this retailer who has some reaonable prices - check it out
http://www.colonialtonewoods.com/cgi-bin/store/store.cgi?&sh op=city&cart=38687619x30029&session=442c3854754d5383&L=eng&C ategory=australian_blackwood
hope it helps someone find some nice blackwood.
Cheers
Charlie

Welcome to our forum Charlie, Yep that's Steve, he is a member and long time sponser and we all adore hime . We have many member/sponser tonewood suppliers here and I have to say they have the best wood at the best prices anywhere.

after two years I still droll over that bottom pic Ya really got to do somthing with that one day....Oh ya your retired

While I understand that premium wood is going quite a bit higher in price, it has always been that way...gone are the days when only a few importers are where everyone got their supply from...it is truly a global economy. Premium sets are and will always be expensive.

I still hold on to some of the sets of BRW that I bought when I was first starting out in the 70's...Back then LMI had sets (they got from Hut Hettig) that were tight quartersawn that sold for $75!! I was usually too poor to buy them so I knew if I showed up at Monteath or Marshall with cash I could get it cheaper and then get it resawn elsewhere. Those sets came in at $40-50 a set but that doesnt count my labor.

Honduras Rosewood then became the alternative but is now high, then EIR and even that is quickly creeping up in price for better grades. Try to get a bargain on African Blackwood these days AND get it 2 piece backs...tougher and tougher to find. When Jeffrey Wong first started selling Malaysian Blackwood I got it for about $100...Now Allied gets $220-300. A couple years ago before wood dealers in Spain were busted smuggling BRW into Spain Madagascar Rosewood could be bought from Madinter (in Spain) for about $80...two months after the BRW bust Madagascar Rosewood is in demand so the price has doubled.

Prices for top grades going up is not the problem. I will gladly pay $400-800 for primo BRW as it is recognized as a quality tonewood and I build that into the price of the guitar. In the big picture scheme of things the cost of wood in a guitar, no matter how zoot, is relative.

It is the cost of labor that is far more valuable. Ruck, Byers or Humphrey have basically the same sunk cost for their guitars as I do but their labor cost and profit are considerably higher and deservedly so...Even a top builder can only build so many a year by hand so their income is capped by that limitation no matter whether they charge $3000 or $25000.

Most builders (whether they call themselves builders, luthier, grand master, whatever) without exception are very underpaid and includes the top builders.

The demand for guitars is high but the volume of poor quality factory built guitars meets that demand and drives down the price for all guitars. Most hand builders have at some point caved on their asking price because the potential buyer was deciding between a top factory built or a custom handbuilt.

My real issue is not how expensive the really nice wood is, it is the rising cost of inferior quality wood driven buy the pulpwood guitars getting churned out in offshore factories. Most of the BRW sold on eBay is really junk (there are exceptions) but people pay a premium just because it is BRW.

Several of the top builders actually prefer EIR as it is much more consistent in quality, is possible to get very good quality still and shows that the price is in the level of craftsmanship, not the materials. Romanillos prefers EIR to BRW. Smallman and Humphrey dont use expensive Rogers tuning machines...Smallman uses Schaller (hauser style) and Humphrey uses Sloanes.

In the case of BA, I have always liked it better than Koa as it is usually more consistent than the grade Koa usually seen. I use the curly and plain figured for flamenco guitars for players (usually Jazz) that want a classical with a little extra flash. Even most plain figured BA will still have alot of chatoyance (light reflectiveness) to the grain and is still gorgeous.

Some of the finest guitars ever built were built from wood we would have rejected as not "zoot" enough. Torres was very poor for much of his building career and as such has guitars that still exist that show a 3 or 4 piece top or a top with the joint offset. He did this because it was all he could afford at the time but always insisted that the grain be 100 percent quartersawn if possible. The reason why the joint was offset was the he was willing to sacrifice looks for quartersawn strenght and stability.

Some of the very wild grained wood that is so attractive to build with may not stand the test of time. While I love BRW and use it alot (I build classicals) I have had great looking sets crack or warp just by staring at them...it doesnt matter how good it looks if it will not stay together. That is why Martin when they used to get a load of BRW sets in would use CA to stabilize them. They used to do things like bleach to even out figure and then dye for consistency.

For my I always try to buy a "must have bargain" or "zoot" set when ever the opportunity strikes (you never know if it will come again) and will usually pay a premium to do so but then use the best of what I have for the quality and price of the guitar I am building.

Hauser bought a trees worth of German Spruce that he used to build most of his greatest guitars. He guarded that stash and only used it for his best, one of which is the guitar that Segovia called the greatest guitar of this Epoch. Buy the best you can afford at the time and then sit back and enjoy that your stash is now worth more or is a higher grade than what is available today.

On a lighter note...I met Tim Spittle online by buying really nice bindings and back/side sets on eBay. Great wood and glad he is here. I agree with Kim...cant go wrong buying from Tim.

While there is alot about eBay that can be complained about, for me I have met several great OLF'ers via first buying from them on eBay..."Zootman" Bobc, John Hall (Blues Creek), Skip (BeachTonewood), Tim Spittle (Black Swan) and others all sell on eBay and alot of them eventually end up here.

eBay attracts alot of potential luthiers but OLF and its group of great sponsors keeps them :)

[QUOTE=charliewood]   Hi guys - I have been scourig the net all morning for woods and I ran across this retailer who has some reaonable prices - check it out
hope it helps someone find some nice blackwood.
[/QUOTE]

Unless I miss my guess, the last set looks exactly like one I sold to Matt Gage a couple years back, which he may have traded to Steve. I could be wrong, but boy does it ever look just like it.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Wood products overall in every market segment are and have been on a steady rise. Look at what an 8' #2 Yellow Pine 2X4 cost now vs. just a few years back, its up 40-60%, in some markets doubled in price. I'm just going to keep buying until my shelves are heavy laden, I run out of money, or my wife slaps me around for being out of control. Buy now - pay less, Buy later - pay more. I love wood

Mike
White Oak, Texas

[QUOTE=Rick Turner Gui] What about the price for domestic walnut sets?[/QUOTE]
Oh, man, Rick--That's been chapping my bottom for years now! We keep hearing, "Use domestic alternatives--they're plentiful, toneful, and not endangered--save the rainforest!!!" Yeah, well, I thought that was a good idea, so I looked at some curly maple--whoa! Too costly for me! What's the deal, doesn't it, er, grow on trees? So much for plentiful! O.K., what about walnut? Couldn't find it (I didn't know then how to find instrument wood from sources other than LMI or equivalents). Then it started showing up--cost more than maple!!! I've seen "plain" walnut that looks like Indian RW, but do I see it for sale? NO! When it finally shows up in quantity, I'm sure it'll cost as much as rosewood. Why, for crying out loud, can't we get a plentiful tonewood, IN its native country for the price of scarce mahogany? And finally, myrtle...I got a B&S set sight-unseen several years ago, before most people in lutherie had even heard of it. It had modest figure, I got it cheap, and I thought it looked pretty cool. I thought, "Finally--something I'll be able to afford in the future!" Wrong! Man, don't get me started...oops, too late!

I think i'm gonna buy myself a great bandsaw with resaw capacity and start building all pine guitars, it's plentiful of that around here and i wouldn't be competition to our all spruce guy Ron Steiger! Wadda ya think o that Carlton, you could send me your native wood and i'll send ya some pine?

Hmmm fero-cement back and sides is starting to sound pretty good to me

Kim, I'm sure you could get yer business concrete solid in no time!

Well, if you feel that a particular wood is overpriced, it seems that you have identified an inefficiency in the market. Go at it; source and buy some trees, slice 'em up, and sell for 50% of the going rate.

I'm going to guess that you aren't going to be successful; if you could be, why wouldn't somebody like Steve from Colonial already being doing it? He could have walnut flying off the shelf if he could price it at 1/2 the competition. When you bid on a tree with figure, you are competing with the veneer industry. Don't think that they wont outbid you if you are trying to buy it for under current market value.

LMI has cheap, plain walnut in the 50 bucks range, and LMI isn't exactly known for their cheap prices. If you want flamed claro, you are competing for a scarce product, and you are going to pay. Doesn't seem like a mystery to me.

[QUOTE=rlabbe] LMI has cheap, plain walnut in the 50 bucks range, and LMI isn't exactly known for their cheap prices. If you want flamed claro, you are competing for a scarce product, and you are going to pay. Doesn't seem like a mystery to me.[/QUOTE]
Well, I didn't know about the LMI plain walnut. I'll have to look into that. As for the rest, you may well be correct, especially about competing with the veneer industry. But there are some other things to consider...Honduras mahogany ain't flamed walnut, but flamed walnut isn't endangered, and it's not imported from another country--so why the HUGE discrepancy? What about myrtle. I don't see a lot of myrtle veneer showing up anywhere, yet flamed myrtle costs as much or more than Indian RW, which not only has to be shipped from overseas, but has to be MILLED there as well! Why the discrepancy? Most of the spruce harvested in North America either goes overseas or into paper or other industries--highly competitive--yet we can buy beautiful, master-grade tops occasionally for around fifty bucks! Strange, don't you think?

FWIW & in case no one has noticed...But LMI has Black Acacia Jumbo sets (first grade) on sale for $131.00. That's 25% off. So maybe there is hope...And I just paid $230 for a set from down under!
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=+ Backs+and+Sides&NameProdHeader=Black+Acacia

Rich,

Notice that LMI says nothing about the first grade being flamed... It's probably not to any degree at all.
Certainly it won't compare with what Tim is selling for $230. Not even close. I would be suprised if it is as good as what my friend Rick and I were selling last year for $75-90 a set. The lower grades are still great sounding wood, but without the visual "wow" factor, people don't want them. It's all about appearance. Just look at the amazing Black & White Ebony (aka Pale Moon Ebony) that Bob Zootman has on sale...it commands a huge price because it not only is a great tonewood, but the figure is stunning. The plain stuff is easier to get, but nobody really wants it as badly. Still, even when plain, it's better sounding than Mahogany (Colin ) and as Shawn mentioned, it has an amazing chatoyance to it. It can be almost irridescent, with all kinds of crazy colors hidden in there. My stash of 30+ sets isn't going anywhere...unless it's for something really special in return.
Don Williams38807.7955092593

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

My fellow luthiers

Just a point of pricing clarification. My master grade sets sell for $200 (not $230). If there is any thing extraordinary then it might attract a higher price. If I am feeling generous I will throw bindings etc with the set. Of course don't forget that high grade sits at about $140.



Tim

Hesh, you're killing me Man!