The Steel Guitar Forum

I have noticed lately that plenty of steels are going for a crazy amount these days.
Just in the past year it seems that Sho Buds jumped up to the price of Emmons PP steels.
I guess that Sho Buds are in the same class but they usually didn't fetch as much. I'm surprised that a lot of the other brands are bringing as much as they are as well. I hope people don't keep upping the prices to this degree. Pretty soon we won't be able to find a guitar for under $4000.00 if people are out there willing to pay that.
I know I might sound like a moaner but I'm definitely middle class and I certainly would like to purchase steel guitars in the future. If you can afford the modern prices ,more power to you! Im not knocking anyone (just jealous ) What are your thoughts on this? THanks guys
-Jeff

I stopped paying premium for cars but they didn`t get any cheaper....
Seriously, the prices we see are asking prices and the deals are closed privately.
We can`t really know what the actual prices were.
I have made offers that I think are fair and lower than the asking price and more often than not I`ve been able to get something for my offered price or something in between.
Also, when more an more old Emmonses and Buds find permanent homes there will be less and less available...
Maybe the altcountry players who are used to the guitar market "older is better" philosophy have inflated the prices of PPs and Buds a little, who knows....

As has been often stated on prices.

"Supply and Demand". Its no different for a Telecaster or Les Paul than it is for a Pedal Steel Guitar.

If you want a particular brand/model guitar you either pay the going price or you don't buy. Just that simple.

Good subject.

Think supply & demand. And, of course, those two factors are influenced by a huge amount of considerations ranging from advertising to the current unemployment rate to everything inbetween.

You are also going to find a wide range of conditions of ShoBuds and Emmons PP's and a corresponding range of sale prices. As the years go by there are fewer and fewer vintage instruments with minimal wear for sale that have been sitting "under the bed" for decades. Take a look at some of the beautiful refurb work by people like Ricky Davis (ShoBud) and Lynn Stafford (Emmons) and Tommy Cass (Emmons). The cost of fine craftsmanship doesn't come cheap but it's well worth the price. You can probably find a fixer upper for a very reasonable price but when you start adding in your own "free" labor and the cost of quality machined replacement parts etc, your personal investment in the instrument increases accordingly...

I think only a few guitars are getting a premium prices. For most of the others, I'd say that prices are generally lower. You can usually find a great deal on a Carter, MSA, BMI, Dekley, Sierra and lots of others. If you want a Franklin or an old P/P, you will have to pay the price. If you are asking; should you pay a premium for a Sho-Bud, in my opinion, you shouldn't.

With a small handful of exceptions for particularly desirable guitars, pedal steels seem to be a lot less expensive, relatively speaking, than they were when I was starting out. If you're worried about future availability it would seem to me that it is important that builders are able to get a decent return on their investment of time and money.

Try to make one of the quality that those instruments are fetching for less. There is a reason for the price and I think that they are more than reasonable.

Of course all economies are dependent on supply and demand, BUT a lot of factors influence the nett eventual outcome of sales of inter alia musical instruments, cars, gold coins, platinum bars, yachts, house goods, etc.

So, to name few factors:
1 Is there a demand for pedal steels; new, used?
2 Are there a lot of newcomers and/or are there a lot of players upgrading or just buying another one?
3 What is the PPI (Production Price Index) in the USA economy, UK, France, Germany in a certain timeslot and are they comparable? Are the 90's the same as the 2000'S?
4 What is the unemployment and buying parity rate in a certain timeslot?
5 How many builders can supply the demand, etc?

I have just read an international blog on violins, new and old and it seems the market is doing well there.
I know of somebody from here going in a few weeks time to collect a custom built viola in Brazil. She would not disclose the price.
I read there are only 10 violin builders in Moscow but more than 500 in Cremona, Italy. That also influence prices.
Ordinary handmade violins start at $10 000, but mandolins less so, fortunately.

So, what is a reasonable price to pay for a pedal steel, new or old?
I dont know!
All I know the South African rand is very weak against the dollar, pound and euro. We miss very good steel deals.

Owning a steel guitar is sort of like owning a house. You can sell it for more than what you paid, but the new one will cost more too, so it's more of a break even deal. It's a challange for new players starting out and trying to get a quality steel they can afford.

Roll on Free Market

So, wouldn't it be nice is somebody would go mass produce several thousand 1966 Emmons push pulls just to drive the price down?

Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you....

jeff - judging by your byline, you have to get a bigger price base - steels are selling for about what they always have, if not less. i can recall people predicting with utmost certainty that PPs would soon easily be $5k++ back in the early 2000's...we're still not there yet a decade later. you came into steel during a severe recession which had prices depressed - now it seems they are rising, but really they are only getting back to a baseline value.
i dont think you are going to see unrestored sho-buds selling for $4k anytime soon. restoration work is expensive and highly specialized. even if you do see a restored SB at $4k, i would bet the seller is losing money. PPs are very expensive to restore and properly set-up.

at your age, i wouldnt sweat it - there are a lot of 65+ year olds out there who wont be able to play / carry these old heavy steels much longer.

i think people should sell stuff to me at rock bottom prices!

when my daughter sells my junk after i die, i think they should give her outrageously high premiums.

So...the market should move to accomodate whatever you feel like paying...(when you are buying..of course)

Eat cake; lose weight.

Sheesh!

Since many of us,if not most of us,started off on six-string,it seems to me that all varieties of guitar played with a slide get lumped in with six-string.Because that market is so large,the major six-string manufacturers have the advantage of making perhaps a hundred six-strings for every PSG built.With that economy of scale plus the outsourcing of production to countries where there is neither a minimum wage nor anything resembling environmental,trade,or copyright regulation,a player could have a dozen adequate-quality Squier Jazzmasters plus a dozen adequate-quality Fender Mustang amps for the price of a D-10 8X5 G2.It just adds up to a great deal of sticker shock for players used to cheap gear.I've always been glad that pedal steel has(apparently)escaped the attention of the Peoples' Liberation Army and I hope it stays that way.

"making perhaps a hundred six-strings for every PSG built"-
consider more like 20,000 six strings/PSG built- just look at one NAMM show to verify this guestimate

I attended all the NAMM shows for over 20 years, and the only company I ever saw at a NAMM show was Sierra.

Bill Moore wrote:I think only a few guitars are getting a premium prices. For most of the others, I'd say that prices are generally lower. You can usually find a great deal on a Carter, MSA, BMI, Dekley, Sierra and lots of others. If you want a Franklin or an old P/P, you will have to pay the price. If you are asking; should you pay a premium for a Sho-Bud, in my opinion, you shouldn't.

Correct.. You can get a truly great pedal steel if you stick to the brands Bill mention, and they are all really great steel guitars.. Some other great guitars that you see now and again, are Pedalmaster, Remington, Nashville LTD, MCI,. When you find these brands they go reasonable, and are all GOOD guitars...

Want a clean original Emmons??.. Restored and upgraded and drop dead gorgeous birdseye
Sho Bud? Franklin perhaps?? Lacquer Zum? Fulawka? Anapeg??.. You will pay tip top dollar for stuff like that because its rare, very highly desireable, and were labor intensive when made, with expensive wood.. they CAN'T be sold cheap..


You pay for rarity, premium or rare materials, and ultra precision work as opposed to "mass production". No steels are mass produced of course, but ultra premium steels by some builders do use better material, and more precision workmanship than others. You pay for the desirability factor, and there is always someone with more money than you that wants what you want more than you do... bob

the cost of the steel guitar is high because of the machining that is done for endplates and cross rods knee levers key heads, and pedal changers, these take time to make and polish, plus the wood body, but machinists don't work for cheap, guitars like GFI pedal steels are high volume but are made quite well and can be bought at a modest price and will stand up to the higher dollar guitars in sound, I am not endorsing GFI but have heard them perform. Steve B.

Steel guitar builders are in business to create musical instruments.Fender,Gibson,Ibanez et al are in business to make money.

Dave Hopping wrote:Steel guitar builders are in business to create musical instruments.Fender,Gibson,Ibanez et al are in business to make money.

"I lost all of my own money for a good cause. My motives were pure. I wanted nothing for myself....I have never made a profit!"

The bigger guitar companies churn them out like mad, and whole forests disappear weekly.
I know this is slightly off theme, but the demand for guitars is still there.

Quote:
"Samick is the largest guitar maker in the world (2011). They began corporate life as a piano maker just after the Korean war. Today they are said to make 60 guitars per minute. That's 720 per hour or 1,380,000 per year.

Their factories make an incredible 4000 models for 400 brand names, including Gibson Epiphone, Washburn, Aria Pro, Rogue, Silvertone, Abeline and Boston."

I also read somewhere that the whole Eastern block produces 20 million guitars per year.

Where does this leave psg builders?

Indeed something to ponder.

how many of our current steel builders still have a "day" job, in addition to plying their craft? I venture the majority.

Im not arguing that the modern steels that are being produced today don't deserve a turn around. I'm just noticing that today the Emmons PP on the forum are going in the 3500 range when just last year they were going regularly for $2200-2800.00
I was only half serious about my actual opening statement, hoping that others would get the facetiousness. Just wanting opinions, not arguing my wealth. As you can see I'm just a 24 year old warehouse worker. No real hopes of owning a vintage PP anytime soon.