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RE: Not necessarily! They are restructuring debt. It's not a liquidation (yet).

Posted by CG (A) on November 23, 2020 at 09:52:31

In Reply to: Not necessarily! They are restructuring debt. It's not a liquidation (yet). posted by John Marks on November 22, 2020 at 08:46:21:

I'd guess the Gibson story probably enters into this, at least as a confirmation of the guitar biz instability.

There was a fellow not far from me who made a ton-o-money during peak guitar. He then sold his large local music store near the apex and stayed on as landlord for the new guys. In addition, he started a boutique guitar emporium of his own, appointment only. No more Fenders for him.

About 20 years ago, my wife went to see him to buy an acoustic guitar. She did end up purchasing a very nice one made to her desires. Anyway, one day I got talking to this guy about his business. He explained it all very succinctly.

His average customer was not somebody like my wife. In fact, he said that classical guitar players were lousy customers. They might buy one guitar every decade or two. Instead, his typical customer bought three or four guitars every year. They all were custom, semi-custom, or were signed by a guitar hero. The customers were pretty much all in some high end business, very often finance in NYC. He even explained that most weren't really very good musicians. (He offered that our 8 year old daughter was already better than his typical customer.)

About a decade ago, even his business slowed down. He was ok with that, because he'd already made his nut. Soon after, he passed away - not sure what the message in that part is.

My point is that the guitar business has slowly been sinking into the soup for some time now. Kind of like the home audio business, in fact.

Edits: 11/23/20

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