Why do people pay more than they should for reissues?

[corliss1]

I wish they'd make them more serviceable

There is nothing that isn't serviceable inside any Hot Rod or reissue series Fender. When I see those amps come in it's like free money.

 

[Blrfl]

There is nothing that isn't serviceable inside any Hot Rod or reissue series Fender. When I see those amps come in it's like free money.

The people who bring those amps in see free money, too. They look at their cost to do the same work (acquiring skills and equipment plus the value of their time) and figure out that paying what you're charging puts them ahead of the game. That doesn't mean your work is undervalued; it just means that some of your costs can be split across more work.

I'm fully-capable of changing the oil in my cars but still pay a shop to do it because I place a higher value on being able to use the time I'd spend doing it for other things.

 

[xtrajerry]

In my experience vintage amps need repairs sooner or later and it’s a hassle just finding someone reliable to trust working on them. Then you need to find parts, and hope you don’t get shaken down. I picked up a Champ a few years ago from someone who at the time was a well known and respected amp builder and rebuilder. The amp arrived and it’s had all sorts of buzzes and rattles and it was pretty clear to me that the guy who sold it to me was happy to unload it. I tightened up the cabinet where I could and made sure everything was seated firmly but really wish I had purchased something new so I could forget about it. The seller claimed everything was working fine when he wrapped it up so it must have been bounced around by UPS.
I had planned on having it looked at locally but never really found someone that inspired confidence.

 

[ReverendRevolver]

There is nothing that isn't serviceable inside any Hot Rod or reissue series Fender. When I see those amps come in it's like free money.

My Dad's HRdlx was serviceable, but the only part that's went out was something on a board, and was roughly the Size of a pencil lead.
They aren't fragile, but they're more intimidating to look inside than the old SF stuff I've had.

My observations on most modern Fender PCB stuff is it feels like working on a car sometimes; the actual fix is simple with most issues, but you have to remove parts to get to it.
A big complaint is often newer amps fail constantly because the tube sockets are pcb mounted......
But they aren't all, and I haven't heard of the specific issue being what kills every modern PCB amp. People like to look fir problems while it's still working I suppose.

Space and layout make pcb more difficult than vintage amps to service, but with "vintage" prices climbing, internet gossip will be the only reason people know what the difference really is. The early 80s was the last run of ptp hand wired in Corona Fender standard offerings, right?
That makes a load of UL super loud stuff comprise a reasonable amount of the last 5 years of ptp Fender.
The tipping point in my mind is if people are willing to pay more for a vintage UL bassman head than a modern PCB combo, then the theoretical parts have become more valuable than the practicality. I feel they hover around $1000 now. Time will tell.

 

[Maguchi]

My question is, unless you own stock in the company and see a problem
WHY WOULD YOU DO ALL THAT.

^^^Yes I agree completely. And because Fender are a privately held company it is not possible to get any of Fender's financial numbers. So we can't buy stock in Fender and their financial numbers are not available to the public.

Anyways, with the info we do have, we can compare similar, widely available products of large and small manufacturers to each other for our buying decisions. As far as the cost of an amp that an amp tech may build or rebuild in a small one man/woman shop, comparing costs might be harder.

 

[Dukex]

It would be naive to think we're(the public guitar forum) going to see a copy of Fender USAs Segmented Operating Income with breakdowns for minor accounts under each division to analyze cost on a granular level, or even see what thier in-house alleged cost is, based upon thier own margin (which again will be confidential in-house information not even broadly available to all stake holders, just Boards and key operators).
We can infer by knowledge we have that they've seen sales growth big time in the last 2 years, that amps weren't the top 2 divisions they reported booming after 2020, and that they're still making thier 2019ish margins per unit at least with price increases and labor cuts. We can infer (based upon dealer price sheets that I don't have) a percentage of increase in cost to dealer, compare that to how inflation was tracking the week of the increase, and ascertain a generalized number of how thier margin is comparing to pre-inflation margin (which is still an unknown number, by the way).
My question is, unless you own stock in the company and see a problem
WHY WOULD YOU DO ALL THAT.
I've never worked manufacturing, but as the economic landscape in retail has shifted recently, it takes a few quarters before our actual SGI looks right due to wages amounts increasing with the same hours counts because we are paying more, and our cost of goods sold being impacted on every side from suppliers to wages from warehouse and transportation... very few variables haven't changed.
I'd bet money Fender has similar realities to business, and several people being paid 6 figures a year to have a handle on this will in fact have a variable number themselves.

Dukex,

I applaud your financial acumen rebuttal, and know that I just drove the point t you were making HARD, but this thread will get really boring really fast (and I'll need to take notes in an excel sheet to follow) if we really dig into it. Boomtexan made some points I follow, but getting lost in the weeds of a P&L of a company not paying me to do it seems like a voluntary root canal.
Can we go back to arguing over JJs vs EHX vs Ruby? Simpler times........



You fix the bloody things, but if you're job depended on them breaking and needing replaced (instead of repaired) once a decade, you would have Fenders mindset. Or they aren't evil geniuses and im giving too much credit. I wish they'd make them more serviceable and expect everyone to buy one of each. I can dream.....

Rev, I appreciate your post. I'm not here to eruct and argue numbers (you'll see none in my posts) or to defend the company. But I do take issue when someone comes on this board--not asking (trying to understand) why something costs what it does relative to other products--but instead begins making ignorant & derogatory declarative statements about a company's business operations they know nothing about. It was an arrogant and pretentious way to start what could be a legitimate and interesting discussion.

 

[Ignatius]

Maybe people buy the modern versions because they want to spend their time playing music and improving as a musician instead of reading about how amps are wired on gear forums like this one. There's WAY too much emphasis on amp construction, fragility, and repairability/longevity in these forums, to the point of being irrational. I'm not saying those observations are invalid - I am saying that it's overemphasized.

 

[mmannaxx]

I guess I have been fortunate that I have had very competent craftsmen who worked on my vintage amps and got them up and running after replacing a few parts, tubes, etc. Living in a larger town or city may make that more of an easy task. I also have a hand built newish amp (2010), a Goodsell, that delivers the goods as well. My gigging days are winding down but for the last 15-20 years I have enjoyed gigging with mostly vintage Fender amps, PRs, DRs, Vibrolux Reverbs, Vibroverbs, etc. You can't beat the tone of vintage amps if they are properly serviced. Maybe some newer hand built amps like Goodsell can get very close or equal but they don't surpass the tone of a fine vintage Fender in my opinion. The mass produced newer stuff just doesn't cut it tonewise in my opinion.

 

[colchar]

ime, the newer Fender amps built to a mass consumer price point..or lower??…are more prone to failure than a pre-1985 Fender amp that has been properly serviced. I know of vintage amps that were recapped and serviced before many of these inexpensively built newer Fenders and that have needed no service whereas the newer Fenders are prone to have problems. It is all in the quality of the build.

Yeah I know that, but many people do not want to deal with having their amp serviced regularly, recapped, etc. nor will they want to deal with an amp when they have no idea how it was treated for the two or three decades before they bought it.

I own a vintage amp (a Traynor YGM3, their Twin Reverb killer) so I get how reliable they are when properly maintained.

 

[Vermoulian]

I think a big reason a lot of reissues sell when for similar price you could get a clone of the original built without a PCB and potentially with better components comes down to, most people shopping for amps do NOT spend a big chunk of their lives on music forums like (let's face it) we do. They go to the local store, play some amps, find one that sounds good. They buy into a certain amount of advertising hype because they don't know better, and look at the price the same store is charging for that ratty old Princeton or Deluxe Reverb and figure they're getting a bargain. People above have referred to the market, and unfortunately the market is not being driven by people like us.

 

[68goldtop]

Hi!

...unfortunately the market is not being driven by people like us.

I think that´s true - but then, it isn´t
If it weren't for "people like us", there were no "Reissues" of any kind, there´d be no "relics" and and there´d be no "boutique"-companies etc.
Companies wouldn't have offered gazillions of different types of speakers or tubes. No "amp-kits", no replacement-cabinets or even capacitors.
Fender and Gibson wouldn't have bothered to re-invent the Strat or Les Paul over and over again.
"people like us" had a very strong influence on the market in the last 30 years (or so) - and I see no end to it any time soon

cheers - 68.

 

[Tim S]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of amp purchasers see them as appliances they plug their guitars into.

Like most appliance purchases, they shop in their prices range for something that produces an outcome they want. Some want a nameplate for an image.

You don’t see many people insisting on vintage washer and driers because they are easier to maintain (yes, I know *some* people do)

I’m just trying to point out that we view amps differently than the average purchaser (aka “the market”)

 

[68goldtop]

Hi!

... I’m just trying to point out that we view amps differently than the average purchaser (aka “the market”)

Not sure if you saw my post above yours...
If companies didn't care about "us", they wouldn't offer products for "us".
We are "the market" (aka "the average purchaser"), as much as anybody else is.

cheers - 68.

 

[Tim S]

Hi!

Not sure if you saw my post above yours...
If companies didn't care about "us", they wouldn't offer products for "us".
We are "the market" (aka "the average purchaser"), as much as anybody else is.

cheers - 68.

We are a minority segment of “the market”. If we were the entire market and companies made amps tailored to our needs, then there’s be a LOT less posting here and more amp utilization overall.

 

[68goldtop]

Hi Tim!

We are a minority segment of “the market”...

Hey, EVERYBODY is a "minority segment" of the market - but it still seems to add up

Personally, I would like to play out a bit more often - but I still have 1.5 bands going, and I play my amps (almost) every day.
In the meantime, I enjoy hanging around a gear-forum or two

cheers - 68.

 

[Tim S]

Hi Tim!

Hey, EVERYBODY is a "minority segment" of the market - but it still seems to add up

Personally, I would like to play out a bit more often - but I still have 1.5 bands going, and I play my amps (almost) every day.
In the meantime, I enjoy hanging around a gear-forum or two

cheers - 68.

I guess what I’m trying to say is “We’re not normal!”

 

[68goldtop]

Haha

I guess what I’m trying to say is “We’re not normal!”

Yeah, I hear you - but I (personally) think that we´re extremely "normal"

cheers - 68.

 

[Gary135r]

I should rephrase this. Two people has answered the question so far, their answer was that they have warranties, they're popular, and they're easier to purchase. The other answer was marketing.

I guess my post seemed to be calling out people that bought reissues, and I didn't start it intending to sound like that, but as i unearthed a vintage Supro and saw that a new one was the same cost I because pretty infuriated. It's a dirt cheap amp and shouldn't cost that much. Same goes for the 5F1 and 5E3 reissues. Fender is trying to sell you an amp for 1600 that I could make myself for 250 or buy from a boutique amp maker for 750.

I understand the Bassman reissues, Supro Thunderbolt reissues, and a lot of other valuable vintage amp reissues that are hard to build costing so much, but I just feel that the 5F1, 5E3, and 1606 reissues are horribly overpriced for what they are and what goes into making them.

Not blaming the people who buy them, blaming the companies for overpricing them.

It's only overpriced if no one buys one. Supply and demand. People say to buy American, and then people complain about an American company "overpricing" items. Sure you could buy a hand built Champ for hundreds less, but that private builder doesn't have a payroll to meet, or advertising budget, plus having to make the books work with all their products at hand to keep the company solvent. I'm sure the man hours and cost of parts supplied for these high end amps doesn't pay the bills, but they still make them to show what they are capable of. Just like a Corvette probably loses money for Chevy overall, but the prestige of making them still is worth the buzz and the bottom line.

 

[Gary135r]

It's just a culture clash for me, and I need to be more tolerant and understanding of those who want to go mainstream.

Looking your age on your profile, I believe you'll hopefully learn to be more tolerant of this and many things as your life goes forward. There seems to be a severe lack of tolerance right now.

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]