This is why some people whine about custom shop pricing

[shreddermon]

Given that guitar was recently shown at Winter NAMM - and there are many pics of it there - I am assuming the seller is an authorized J/C dealer. (Maybe I'm assuming too much, though.) If so, his Buy-it-Now price is the minimum advertised price (MAP), as set by FMIC agreements with their dealers. If he wants to remain a J/C dealer, he can't advertise below that price. So don't blame the dealer for some kind of "NAMM mark up". However, as it is unlikely he'll ever get that much for this guitar, he's got the "make an offer" thing going, too. That's the best he can do, and still live within his contractual dealer agreements with Jackson.

[PowerTube]

A guitar that's been shown at NAMM is worth exactly zero upcharge to me. Why would I care that it was shown at a trade show? :dunno:

Exactly. To me, that only means that more people have handled it.

[toejam]

A guitar that's been shown at NAMM is worth exactly zero upcharge to me. Why would I care that it was shown at a trade show? :dunno:

+1. They don't take any extra care when making them. The amber 7-string archtop was a NAMM guitar, and that thing had all sorts of problems and got sent back to the dealer after being bought by a member here.

[Jack Napalm]

I agree in some respects that NAMM guitars shouldn't be worth any more but I think its cool if you have a unique piece that was a NAMM guitar. My Matrix Camo is a pretty cool guitar and I would have bought it even it hadn't been at NAMM but having it been a showpiece adds to the coolness factor. How much, well that's all subjective I guess.

[Newc]

What about the import models that were shown at NAMM? Do those command a higher price as well? I don't think so.

As for the guitar in question, if it was built by the regular USA Select crew and not the Custom Shop bunch, then I can't see any justification for the Custom Shop serial number or the higher price. Gold bevels isn't an option on the USA Select KE2? Still doesn't justify the upcharge when it's an internal decision. If someone wants to place that order, then fine, it's Custom Shop even for that small change. You'd have to be a complete moron to do that IMO.

[neilli]

I'd suggest that's just a seller being wildly optimistic - from the most recent price list, after my discount that's a 2700 (max) custom order.

And frankly IMO you'd be a fucking moron to order a standard spec guitar from the custom shop...

[shreddermon]

And someone else gets ambitious...

http://cgi.ebay.com/2009-Jackson-USA-SELECT-KELLY-KE2-UNPLAYED-MINT-Rare_W0QQitemZ300413232968QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item45f2062748

[toejam]

:ROTF:

[Jason1212]

So was there a small run of these? If there are 10 or 20 out there how will yahoo number 1 prove his was at NAMM?

[RacerX]

but, but, it's a METAL MONSTER!!

[pro-fusion]

+1. They don't take any extra care when making them. The amber 7-string archtop was a NAMM guitar, and that thing had all sorts of problems and got sent back to the dealer after being bought by a member here.

I was just going to bring that one up. If anything, that guitar would make me scared as hell to order a NAMM guitar. It's been documented that the custom shop gets a little rushed at NAMM time because they have to complete a big load of guitars to hang on the walls at the booth. Based on that 7-string, they are apparently willing to cut corners that aren't justifiable on an expensive guitar. If I'm going to spend $4000 on a Jackson, I want one that isn't built in a hurry so that it can get ogled at a trade show.

Oh, and $3,500 is ridiculous for that Kelly. I am in complete agreement with the OP. Jackson's lack of a "semi-custom" option is a problem for people who simply want a USA Select with minor changes, rather than a pimp special.

[shreddermon]

To be clear: that's not what I'm saying. It's Jackson's choice on what is "custom" or not, and how to apply custom shop pricing accordingly. They then appropriately leave it up to the customer to decide whether a small change is worth it to them or not, price-wise.

My point is only addressed to these non-customer guitars, NAMM or otherwise. Jackson seems to have a trend of occassionally taking standard USA Select guitars, and throwing only a minor option or two (examples: gold bevels, a graphic, reverse headstock, etc), and then sending them out to dealers at full custom shop pricing. Many become dealer stock "peg warmers", because dealers have such a hard time selling these kinds of guitars at full custom shop pricing levels. And, in the course of the guitars getting advertised, some people (read: potential customers) develop the misperception (which is not correct) that if such small changes are very expensive, then many/big changes on a full blown custom guitar of their dreams would be totally outrageously expensive, and out of reach. In other words, it may be somewhat self-defeating for Jackson's objective of promoting the custom shop.

IMHO, if they're going to build USA Select guitars with minor custom options for "dealer stock" purposes, then they should be smarter about how these are priced to dealers (and advertised to customers). And/or they should, instead, simply do full-blown customs for dealer stock to better justify the higher pricing and better avoid the misperceptions about custom shop pricing.

Hopefully, that makes more sense as to what I meant.

[McD]

Something's not right here, Chris and I scratching our heads thinking WTF!? You guys know me good enough to know that this is the opposite of the way I would do it. I've hooked up plenty of you guys with custom colors for just the price of the paint - which is the way it should be, right? Let me look into this...

[Oblivion99]

Yeah this is a bit ridiculous. I have paid for my fair share of NAMM guitars and honestly, the price for most ( that's the key word) NAMM guitars are pretty fair, as far as Jackson CS pricing goes at least.

Most of the top dealers treat the NAMM guitars just like any other Jackson CS and will give the same discount off list price as for a normal CS.

Then there are always the few dealers, and bunch of resellers on Ebay (which I believe both of these guys ARE resellers), who will push the price up big time and use the "from NAMM" as a way to charge far more than normal CS Jackson pricing.

[McD]

It was one of the things I wanted to fix when I got this job and I think we've done a good job about making sure it all makes sense.