Breedlove production moving to China -- Will Weber be next?

[mandobassman]

I think the thing to remember here is that Breedlove, for the most part, is a guitar company. Yes, they have made a very good line of mandolins (I owned a excellent one for 6 years), but they are primarily a guitar company. They have stated that they are moving the mandolin production to China so that they can concentrate more on quality guitars.

Weber, on the other hand, is a mandolin manufacturer. Their bread and butter is mandolins. They have earned a reputation as one of the premier American builders. Moving Weber to China would destroy that reputation. It would make no sense at all for Two Old Hippies to make that kind of move. It makes perfect sense for Breedlove. They will be able to make mandolins cheaper, sell at a lower price point, and if they are able to make mandolins that even come close to the workmanship of the USA made models, they will do just fine. I have yet to play a Crossover model but have heard recordings of two of them and they sounded terrific.

[Petrus]

lt always seemed to me that Breedlove, more than most companies, emphasised the fact that there was something special about their part of the world and that this influenced their products. The suggestion that the people who worked for them had a lifestyle where music and nature were important was an attractive image, as this bit of blurb on their website shows:

Most of that blurb is probably salvageable. They just need to replace "Oregon/Northwest" with "Zhengzhou Industrial Region" or whatever.

BTW the Crossover is already made in China.

[allenhopkins]

Not good news -- not at all. The reason for relocating manufacturing to Asia is to reduce production costs, pretty much period. The fact that you can reduce those costs, even after tacking on trans-Pacific shipping, says all we need to know about the lower wages, looser regulation, and sometimes exploitive labor practices in China and some other South Asian countries.

I think about the luthiers and shop staff that'll lose their jobs; bet they won't be picked up in the "burgeoning domestic instrument-building industry." If we want to continue to have a domestic instrument-building industry, other than a half-dozen or so firms -- only four of which, Gibson, Big Muddy, Collings and Weber, even make mandolins in the US -- we need to stop hemorrhaging instrument production to lower-wage countries.

We'll always have "small-builder" mandolin shops here, but we have to be honest and realize that this is sort of "boutique" production, with relatively expensive instruments made for committed aficionados. Breedlove listed 38 dealers in my state, NY; probably many of them didn't stock mandolins, but that's the kind of brand coverage that can put a US-made instrument in front of a large number of prospective buyers.

I have nothing against Asian-made (or European, African, Australian, or Latin American-made) instruments per se. Own a bunch of Eastmans and Gold Tones myself. But I don't want to see American instrument production wither away.

[Seattle]

Thanks for that update, Bruce! I love my 2006 Weber Bitterroot F5, and like so many of my Mandolin Cafe colleagues, would hate to see Weber moved to China, with a corresponding loss of employment to the Portland staff. I am much relieved by your reassurance.

Many of us are looking very warily at the business machinations of Two Old Hippies. They came in, nominally, as "rescuers," but promptly oversaw the demise of Aspen's fine music store (The Great Divide). And now look at what's happened to Breedlove. As Tony Pires commented, this doesn't seem like the kind of business behavior one might expect from "two old hippies" from the '60's. I guess we all change with time. Maybe they should change their name to "Two Outsourcing Entrepreneurs"? Yeah, it's a lot less catchy. But perhaps more accurate?

Weber isn't in Portland. It's in Bend.

Don't blame Two Old Hippies for business conditions. Especially for shutting down a music store in Aspen. If it's economically feasible for a music shop to operate in Aspen they wouldn't have shut it down and someone else would open one in any event which apparently hasn't happened.

The market has changed just like it has for everything else. No TV's are made in the U.S. anymore. Those people lost their jobs too and had to find jobs in businesses that were still profitable in the U.S. High end mandolins will still be made here and really all else probably should be made in China.

[DHopkins]

I own two Breedlove mandolins. The workmanship is impeccable. I never found a single flaw in the finish or construction in either of them, not even a tiny speck. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain those high standards.

Not only is the workmanship great, they sound great.

[George R. Lane]

I own two Breedlove mandolins. The workmanship is impeccable. I never found a single flaw in the finish or construction in either of them, not even a tiny speck. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain those high standards.

Not only is the workmanship great, they sound great.

Not at the price they now sell for.
The quality will be decent, but not to the same standards as Weber or Collings.

[Petrus]

My Crossover is great for the price ($259) (they recently modified the design and newer models are around $500 which is probably still a good deal.) Personally I would love to see an intermediate / entry level Weber along these lines, maybe something in between the BL Crossover and the Weber Hyalite (love the Celtic teardrop shape) or the Y2K at the sub-$1K level. (Though it'd be preferable to come up with a name that's not associated with long-obsolete turn-of-the-millennium data processing bugs.) Would it have to be made in China or Indonesia? I dunno.

[Cerise]

Hi, Brett,
Well, I was laid off almost a year ago, and now its the final bell for a fine product. The finish job you did on "Cerise" still garners compliments. I may have the only "Breedweber" or "Weberlove" in existence. Hope all is well with you. Mike, in Bend

[Cerise]

sblock - actually that's Bend, OR, in the central part of the state, not Portland. I worked there. (On Breedlove mandos.) The Weber crew, from the founder to the sander, are great folks, and I hope that brand stays here in the U.S.

[LadysSolo]

Mr. Weber, thank you for the information - when my "MAS" kicks back in, my next purchase will be a Weber, thanks for keeping your mandolins "made in the USA!!"

[j. condino]

I have some very strong memories of being the sole person building mandolins in the back room of the original Tumalo workshop, surrounded by sagebrsh and sitting under an ancient old juniper tree playing music at lunch on an old frankenmando made up of rejected shop parts. Where else would your boss teach you an alternate version of Whiskey Before Breakfast while waxing stories of his boyhood days skipping school and going surfing with Bob Taylor, the two Breedlove brothers, and James Goodall....Kim was a wonderful, gentle man and an exceptional craftsman; my memories of the rest of the company are not so sweet....

Ironically, at one point there was a poster up on the shop walll from an old episode of the Simpsons, with an image of a Chinese factory worker and a guard hoovering above them that said, "Work harder = less beatings".

I made $7 an hour in a town where the average realestate price was about $450,000 and More than once I had a very serious strategic meeting with management about switching from a guitar factory to a casket factory because the margins were better and there were better forest industry tax reliefs. The move to Chinese production has been their slow goal for almost 15 years.

J.
Www.condino.com

[brunello97]

Not good news -- not at all. The reason for relocating manufacturing to Asia is to reduce production costs, pretty much period. The fact that you can reduce those costs, even after tacking on trans-Pacific shipping, says all we need to know about the lower wages, looser regulation, and sometimes exploitive labor practices in China and some other South Asian countries.

I think about the luthiers and shop staff that'll lose their jobs; bet they won't be picked up in the "burgeoning domestic instrument-building industry." If we want to continue to have a domestic instrument-building industry, other than a half-dozen or so firms -- only four of which, Gibson, Big Muddy, Collings and Weber, even make mandolins in the US -- we need to stop hemorrhaging instrument production to lower-wage countries.

Well put, Allen. The only way this trend might be reversed (if at all) would be for consumers to willingly pay more for a product (which might be made by their neighbor) given that the extra cost might be part of a communally shared investment in wages, environmental regulation, benefits etc that we might collectively benefit from as a society. But of course that flies in the face of many, if not, most American value systems.

These are a couple of provocative and well researched / written books that helped reshape my own thinking on this broader (and mando specific) subject.

"Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture" and "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things."

The horse may be long out of the barn on this viz mandolins. These books are obviously not going to make much of a dent in those who've got to have the $1500 F style Kentucky. Now. They have a point which I don't have the broader perspective to argue against. The writers of these books do, however.

Scott, Mike and Jamie do a great job in shutting these kinds of threads down when they get out of hand. Let's stay on our toes and keep the discussion civil and on-point.

Mick

[Marcus CA]

The market has changed just like it has for everything else. No TV's are made in the U.S. anymore. Those people lost their jobs too and had to find jobs in businesses that were still profitable in the U.S. High end mandolins will still be made here and really all else probably should be made in China.

High-end mandolins will still be made here unless they start being manufactured in China and people buy them. Northfield is already testing the waters of the pricepoints above the top of the Eastman line. So far, they seem to be pretty successful with this. Of course, every Chinese-made mando that they sell represents an American-made mando that Collings or Weber or Gibson or some smaller non-boutique American builder doesn't sell.

[Petrus]

I made $7 an hour in a town where the average realestate price was about $450,000 and More than once I had a very serious strategic meeting with management about switching from a guitar factory to a casket factory because the margins were better and there were better forest industry tax reliefs.

People will always need caskets so I suppose that's steadier work ... and I'll bet had you gone that route, those would have been some of the nicest caskets anywhere. Solid spruce lid, figured maple back and sides ... and tap-tuned to boot!

[Ivan Kelsall]

From Bruce59 - "The International Capitalists arguing that because components and production happens all over the world that there really isn't any "made in" anywhere anyway.". Well,the Capitalists are wrong !. We could all name a product of 'some nature' that we associate with a particular area of the world. If that product was made anywhere else,it might be similar - but it's not the 'same as'. Some countries such as France ,Italy & even the UK,have food products which are protected under European law & which it's illegal to produce anywhere else under it's ''proper' name ie. Champagne,which can only be called Champagne if it's produced in the Chamagne region of France. Even the UK's humble ''Melton Mowbray'' Pork Pies can only be called Melton Mowbray pies,if they're made within a given area of the UK. We make a UK version of the French cheese 'Brie' in the UK,but the name Brie has to be qualified by stating 'where ' it was made ie. 'Cornish Brie',made in Cornwall. Even the guitar maker Fender qualified the 'area' where certain models were assembled ie a ''Mexican'' Fender,the parts of which were made in the US,shipped to Mexico & assembled there. There must be dozens of instances of an ''association of location'' of certain products,regardless of what the International Capitalists say,& to suggest that there isn't a ''made in 'wherever'' is pure BS !!!.
Many thanks to Bruce Weber for entering the fray & letting us know 'up front' about Weber's plans - i'm pleased & more than a bit relieved to know that Weber is going to remain US based,
Ivan

[Dagger Gordon]

" We could all name a product of 'some nature' that we associate with a particular area of the world. If that product was made anywhere else,it might be similar - but it's not the 'same as'. "


Scotch Whisky!!!!

I mean I know other countries make the stuff (US, Japan) but if you want the real deal.....

[Bertram Henze]

We could all name a product of 'some nature' that we associate with a particular area of the world. If that product was made anywhere else,it might be similar - but it's not the 'same as'.

Single Malt Scotch!

These are typically products that depend on local resources and climate conditions and can't be made identical anywhere else. The attempts to detach food from location and standardize it have even created their own recognizable tastes (MacDonald's hamburger). Cars and other machinery, OTOH, are indeed totally international.

You'll have to decide which end of the spectrum you want your instrument to belong to. I guess everything is possible, from the homegrown to the intergalactic, whatever each get their thrill from.

P.S. Dagger beat me to it

[Ivan Kelsall]

A question to all the Gibson owners - If you bought a new Gibson 'whichever' model,& it had a label stating '' Made In China '' inside it,would you really believe that it was a 'proper' Gibson ?. Personally,even if one sounded like the finest 'Lloyd Loar' out there,for me,it would simply be a great sounding mandolin,but never a ''Gibson'' mandolin. So much for the no ''made in'' scenario.
I will however state for the record,that having eaten Donuts in many parts of the world,they all tasted exactly the same !. How does that happen ?. Do we have a 'world Donut conspiracy' ?,
Ivan

[Bertram Henze]

Do we have a 'world Donut conspiracy' ?

They're all imported from PN G329.0+01.9 (Shapley 1)...

[Dagger Gordon]

Local provenance is an increasingly important thing to a lot of people. You could say that food tastes the same etc, but there is more to it than that.

When this subject comes up, I always think of the Cape Breton instrument maker Otis Tomas who makes his instruments from a tree he cut down from just behind his house, as this rather delightful little video explains.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZnKpP-...le&hl=en&gl=GB

It seems to be important to him that Cape Breton musicians (who do indeed tend to play a readily identifiable style of local Scottish-based music) use instruments that are not only locally made but also locally grown. And as Cape Bretoners often are pretty good tune composers you can have a situation where musicians, music, instruments and wood all come from the same place.

I have some admiration for this viewpoint, I must say.

[Bertram Henze]

If you bought a new Gibson 'whichever' model,& it had a label stating '' Made In China '' inside it,would you really believe that it was a 'proper' Gibson ?.

Reputation is a volatile and vulnerable thing. You'd hear people say "I've got me a new mandolin, it's only a Gibson, but it sounds quite nice"...

[Caleb]

Local provenance is an increasingly important thing to a lot of people.

I agree. I took a stab at this subject a while back in this blog entry:
http://thingslearnedinbooks.blogspot...gs_37.html?m=1

Regarding Breedlove mandolins, we have in our house a wonderful A-style built in 2003 and signed by Kim Breedlove. It's the mandolin my wife uses when she plays. The build quality is superb, as is the tone and playability. In fact, it is one of the best playing instruments in terms of feel and ease that I've ever had my hands on.

[Mandoplumb]

Weber isn't in Portland. It's in Bend.



The market has changed just like it has for everything else. No TV's are made in the U.S. anymore. Those people lost their jobs too and had to find jobs in businesses that were still profitable in the U.S. High end mandolins will still be made here and really all
else probably should be made in China.

Why do you think high end mandolins will continue to be American made? When I started this journey 50+ years ago about the worst thing you could say about an instrument was " it sounds like a Japanese guitar, mandolin, banjo, etc." Look at the advances they have made, I see a time when, just like TV's, there will be no instrument companies making them in America.

[Dagger Gordon]

Why do you think high end mandolins will continue to be American made?

Because enough great builders in America will still want to do it.

But don't forget that some of the very best builders are not American.
Gilchrist (Australia), Giacomel (Italy), Heiden (Canada), Sobell (England) etc etc.

[Charlieshafer]

This is nothing more than the old sliding curve of supply and demand. If the price rises, demand decreases; if the price falls, demand increases.

While quality is an issue, not everyone can afford the level of quality they'd like. That's one of the truisms of proper marketing. It's assumed that everyone wants something better than they already have. A better house, car, instrument, Scotch, whatever. I want one of the Giacomel mandocellos on Grisman's website. I can't afford it. But I'll see if I can't save enough to get it. This may sound like an irrelevant side argument here, but it's not.

The vast majority of people in the world can only afford so many expendable dollars, or whatever, on a non-essential purchase like a mandolin. In this forum, on this Mandolin Cafe site, we are the outliers. Maybe 20 or so unique posters have commented here, which is as a statistical sample, not enough to keep the mid-range instrument builders in business. And, it's that middle range that suffers; it's not so rare that it inspires lust, but not so inexpensive that it becomes affordable to the masses.

Hopefully those builders that make the lust-worthy instruments have the customers down the road. The big worry among the smaller instrument shops as that their main customer base is aging out. The acoustic guitar market has seen the decline, and many small shops can;t really make a go of it anymore without broadening their base. A small shop here in town tells me he almost never sees customers under 40, and fewer ones who are older. His main price point is the 2-4k range, with others above that.

Fortunately mandolins are much more of a niche market, so the pinch won;t quite be felt the same way. But no matter how you look at it, the way products are divided now are becoming more extreme. If you want, or need to sell a lot of something, it better be cheap. If you want to make things that are really good that sell at a higher price, there's a healthy market, but you need to be REALLY good. If you're stuck in the middle, a semi-cool product with some respect but no compelling mojo, it'll be a tough road for the next generation.

It's a bummer, but you'll see this in almost all non-essential products over the next decade; it's either value (or price) or extreme quality. It's a Prius or a Tesla.