They're not moving...

[surfreak]

It's been months now that virtually all the available stock of CS Charvels has been listed on ebay, and basically not one of them has sold.

Price too high? Simply not desirable for what they are? Would you buy them if they were $ 1,000 cheaper?

[MikeStrat]

I've had my eye on one or two for months. I personally think they are $1000+ too high. The cs prices and the production models that I own have turned me off to the whole custom shop idea. Aside from the quilt and flame tops on my cs Charvels there is virtually no difference between them and the production models.

[XSSIVE]

i own a few and i still stand firmly by my following statement...they're priced quite a bit too high to sell, even in a good economy.

-Mike

[Big D]

While I dearly love the handful of custom shop Charvels that I have, my $900 production Tele has persuaded me that it is very difficult to justify pricing of the custom shops out there for sale right now.

My production model is essentially *just as good* as all my others. Actually, tone on it is even better than some of my higher dollar ones. If the custom shops were in the $1,500-$1,900 range rather than mid-high 2's, it would be a far easier pill to swallow.

[Robert Hendrix]

While I would love to own another custom shop guitar, and I drool over pictures of them all the time, In todays economy, I have to be practical.

The prices for a custom shop are just too out of reach for the average guitarist leaving them doomed to only sell to a collector or a pro musician who is making enough money playing his guitar to justify getting that "special" axe.

On the other hand, I also realize that, if the prices of the custom shops came down too drastically, there wouldn't be anything special about owning one and the custom shop would be slammed with orders making the wait for a CS guitar even longer than it already is.

[dannyr]

Most of those new Charvels that are on ebay are priced at MAP pricing. If you are interested in one then contact the dealer directly and you can probably buy it for alot less $.

[dg]

Agreed. Without getting into specifics, the pointy & strathead that I have fell into the price range Big D posted above. They were limited runs rather than one-offs, though.

I was pretty sure demand for the CS guitars would go down with the introduction of the production models. There are a lot of factors involved imo, but one thing that has made me hesitant to order another one is that resale value has clearly been hurt by the glut of cheap stratheads. I usually buy a guitar & keep it, but this still has to be a consideration for me, and it has driven me to look harder at Suhr, GMW, etc. for my next guitar, even though I don't love the headstock shapes they offer.

[AK47]

I would buy one of each of those CS Charvel Teles on Ebay if they were priced around 1500. That is around what the base Fender USA CS teles are priced at.

[Joe_Steeler]

i own a few and i still stand firmly by my following statement...they're priced quite a bit too high to sell, even in a good economy.

-Mike

+1

[Robert Burns]

All true about being $1000 too high...imo...if you have $2800 to spend,
then your better off with having Lee Garver of GMW build you your
custom. Private builders are going to beat the Jackson/Charvel custom
shops nowadays...

[Strat God]

I think the '$1,000-too-high' pricing started with the EVH models.
They are great 1600 guitars, but not great 2600 guitars.

In this economy builders need to adjust price-points with the times to move units. Sadly, I don't think that's gonna happen.

[KBRR]

i own a few and i still stand firmly by my following statement...they're priced quite a bit too high to sell, even in a good economy.

-Mike

+2

[darrellm]

Thanks guys, this could be good news for me.

I'm from the UK, we haven't got the Production series over there yet and any of the Stratheads are extremely rare (I've been looking for 20 years!).

I'm unexpectedly in the US for a few days on business, the pound/dollar is really poor and we have to pay a lot of import tax, but if there's room for a deal then it just might be worth me picking one up....off to the local dealer this morning, and flying back to the UK tonight.....here's hoping