Didn't get much of a chance to test the new marketing strategy before the first of the US made guitars arrived. Three grand with the case. Nobody's ever gonna' pay three grand for it but that's not the point. First point is that American products are over-priced. It's worth about a thousand. But it's now my best sales tool. A blatant example of the cartel at work. Raising prices continuously so as to maintain the value of the older instruments. And it's the only guitar I have in the shop that will appreciate in value over time. Coincidence? No, It's a speculative frenzy. Martins have always appreciated on their own merits. Everybody else does this cost jumping thing to make it seem like their instruments are worth more. I don't want to be holding too many of these things when the bubble pops. But perhaps you'd like something more reasonable. Check out this beauty... it's only eleven hundred...

But this guitar company might just thrive at these prices. They only make a hundred and fifty guitars a year. Well make that six months because they turn the factory over to yet another US guitar company for the other six months. So you can pretty much bet there won't be more than a handful of the dozen or so models per year and across any geographic region. I might want to stick one of these in the attic for a few years.

No, you guys still didn't capitulate. I checked - it's an impressive squiggly line going constantly lower, but the slope is too shallow. OK we'll just have to go through this again next week.