The price of Mark series amps these days. thoughts?

[VisaL]

The official numbers are highly manipulated garbage, with many staple consumer goods and energy types excluded. If calculated the same way they were in the 70s, your 33% is well over 50%. In the music industry, some things are up over 100% since 2020.

That highly manipulated garbage is still pretty standardized way in the EU and US to calculate inflation. It is average and as we buy different things, on personal level it can be something different, but I think if you really would calculate it for you based on what you consume, it would not be far off. At the same time salaries have gone up. More so in the US compared to EU and especially here where i live. Likely one of the reasons why inflation here is already under 2%.

I think it was pretty nasty when covid hit prices went up because of ’anticipated supply chain issues’, companies made astronomical profits and contributed greatly to inflation.

If you use gibson prices only to calculate inflation, it is close to 100% in 5 yrs. But that’s corporate greed, not inflation

 

[Theresa]

When considering what manufacturers are charging for amps these days, I really think it's not unfair to ask OG "vintage" prices at or above the MAP pricing of a contemporary model.

Here are some examples:
New Mark IIC+ RI retails for $3600. So an OG Mark IIC+ with similar appointments could command pricing around $4000-4500 fairly to those inclined to pay for an OG and the satisfaction of owning an OG. Of course a Boogie with a custom wood cab OG EVs etc command higher prices for obvious reasons I don't see injustice here.

A Mark III or Mark IV similarly has market niche that can equate to current model offerings such as the Mark V or even the Mark VII. I never understood the mentality that just because it's old it should be cheap.

When I see Marshall selling a contemporary 1959 HW for $2500, I wouldn't bat an eye at an OG pre-1969 SuperLead (1959) / SuperBass (1882) for north of $4000 or even $6000 depending on condition and sound. Finding unmolested and well maintained specimens are rare considering the number of units produced during that time.

Hiwatt is another example. New DR103's sell for $3500 and a OG DR103 from 1970 - mid 70's sell for roughly$3500-$4500 for a reason. Makes sense considering the iron (transformers) used and revisions made in modern iterations.

Consider the vintage car market. Why would someone pay $50,000 - $100,000 for a car without air conditioning and get terrible mileage along with all the headaches of a car from the '50's or '60's. Even when the manufacturer try to "bring back" a model with modern appointments.

Let's not even contemplate the '59 Les Paul market and their modern re-issues. (What a rabbit hole).

Now that I've had some coffee, I leave these thoughts for some health discussion.

 

[CoG]

I don't think it makes sense to try to apply an inflation basket approach to music gear, because it's a very niche product. How many American households purchased a product from Yamaha, Casio, or Kawai last year? One in twelve, maybe? And even then it was probably audio equipment, not music gear. Those are the three biggest musical equipment manufacturers in the world, and they all outsell Gibson Brands and FMI in the US.

@Theresa, you have to remember that vintage gear isn't desirable only or even mainly because of its inherent qualities, it's always got some goofy animal spirit thing and there is literally no better example than vintage Mark series amps. You still see Ampeg V-series and silverface Fenders on stages where the audience is substantially bigger than the band, but has anybody besides the dude in Nofx played a Mark III on stage for more than $300 in the past 25 years? And yet, you can pick up (ba-dum-tss) a minty mint V4B for not much more than $1K, and people are trying to say their Mark III is worth well north of what you'd pay for most silverface Fenders.

edit: forgot the Phish guy. Don't think it devalues my point lol

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

That highly manipulated garbage is still pretty standardized way in the EU and US to calculate inflation. It is average and as we buy different things, on personal level it can be something different, but I think if you really would calculate it for you based on what you consume, it would not be far off. At the same time salaries have gone up. More so in the US compared to EU and especially here where i live. Likely one of the reasons why inflation here is already under 2%.

I think it was pretty nasty when covid hit prices went up because of ’anticipated supply chain issues’, companies made astronomical profits and contributed greatly to inflation.

If you use gibson prices only to calculate inflation, it is close to 100% in 5 yrs. But that’s corporate greed, not inflation

It's not average. It's calculated by using the change in prices on a "basket of consumer goods", the contents of which are manipulated to get a result that looks good for the government, but (currently massively) understates the impact on the 99% of the population that lives paycheck to paycheck.

The method of calculation was changed after the inflation in the late 70s and early 80s because the inflation at that time made the government look quite bad.

Salaries have NOT increased the the 70-100% food, energy, and rents/mortgages have increased in the last 5 years.


And Gibson wasn't in the numbers.

The cause of the inflation comes down to two things, "corporate greed" not being one of them. 1) Decreases in energy production leading to increases in energy costs, which drives literally all prices up, 2) insane monetary policy that adds $1T to the federal debt every 90 days, with the accompanying addition of that to the money supply.

Whether a corporation can raise profits by raising prices, or even pass through rising costs to consumers, depends on a lot of things, like price elasticity of demand, individual cost structure, etc.

 

[kmanick]

Man I had a mint III red stripe with R2 mod fully loaded simul class in 2008 that I had a hard time moving at $700.00
how times have changed

 

[Darkstar2]

The first guy willing to part with a Mark III Black dot/stripe/blue/red/purple simul-class for $1,500 gets my money. I'm in the market, got the Wife OK, just gotta find the amp... (doesn't need to be modded or recently serviced - just want it to work as intended).