How Times Have Changed

[Mandoplumb]

Just saw an add in the classified for a KM-5000 mandolin. It stated that the suggested retail was $5000 and you could buy it for $3300, I never thought I'd see a "japan" made instrument have such good reviews and sell for such a price! When I started on this jouney,50 years ago, we made fun of Japanese instruments, if you really wanted to slam an instrument you said it sounded like it was made in Japan.

[Franc Homier Lieu]

I don't think any 'made in Japan' mandolin has ever gone for that much new. Now, made in China....Northfields have been going for north of $3300 for quite some time now.

[OldSausage]

The KM 5000 is made in China, and it sells for around $3,200, with a list price of $4,790.

http://www.amazon.com/Kentucky-KM-50.../dp/B004XXWM24

[Eric F.]

I don't think any 'made in Japan' mandolin has ever gone for that much new. Now, made in China....Northfields have been going for north of $3300 for quite some time now.

Sumi and Acoustic World can cost you north of that. Both are made in Japan. Never played an Acoustic World, but the Sumis I've played have been excellent.

[twilson]

Yeah, times have changed.

[Mark Wilson]

Yeah, times have changed.

wow -

that's a cool clip - thx

if you post that in the banjer forum I'd advise blurring out the phone numbers

[Franc Homier Lieu]

Sumi and Acoustic World can cost you north of that. Both are made in Japan. Never played an Acoustic World, but the Sumis I've played have been excellent.

I stand corrected. I did not realize that Sumi was still making mandolins. I have certainly seen ads in the classifieds for older Sumi mandolins that were asking for that kind of price, but I assumed that they did not command those prices years ago when they were new. And I also meant to imply also that the KM-5000 is not built in Japan, and that it is hardly surprising or new that Chinese built instruments would go for that price.

[Mandoplumb]

I know they are no longer made in Japan that's the reason for the parentheses. I was referring to Asian made which started in Japan then on to China, Korean, or where ever. I'm really not knocking Asian built, I own one now and have owned others in the past just commenting on how times change. If you had said how good Asian instrument would be back in the 60s or 70s musicians would have called you crazy.

[Franc Homier Lieu]

I agree Mandoplumb, it is always interesting to reflect on such developments, i.e. to look back and see how bad we are at predicting the future.

[George R. Lane]

Where did I put my Wayback machine. Calling Mr. Peabody.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I know they are no longer made in Japan that's the reason for the parentheses. I was referring to Asian made which started in Japan then on to China, Korean, or where ever. I'm really not knocking Asian built, I own one now and have owned others in the past just commenting on how times change. If you had said how good Asian instrument would be back in the 60s or 70s musicians would have called you crazy.

In the 70's, Yamaha acoustic guitars took the music world by storm. Regardless that they were mostly laminates. They sounded great and were very affordable.

Here's Arty McGlyn on a Yamha Nippon Gakki Red Label FG-180 and Paul Brady... I bought one of these new in 1973 for 47 pounds.

[wooq]

Yeah, times have changed.

If I knew then what I know now...

[Mark Gunter]

If you had said how good Asian instrument would be back in the 60s or 70s musicians would have called you crazy.

OK, so I was no prodigy and didn't hang out with enough professional musicians to know how accurate this is, but I know that I was duly impressed back then - my Dad had bought an Epiphone in the sixties and extolled its virtues vs. the price point, I remember that well enough, and I learned to play on that guitar in the sixties. In 1970 I bought an Epiphone myself and to this day it was my favorite guitar (nostalgia may have something to do with that), I was part of that early Yamaha craze, too, owning a new Jumbo 12-string, and my experiences with these imported guitars were good enough that I wasn't too slow to try out Takamine when they became available in my area . . . that Takamine was the first guitar I ever owned with a jazz cutaway, and had an awesome sound. Among the musicians I knew back then, quite a few were impressed with some of the imports. My method of buying a guitar in those days was to go the music stores and try what was on the racks, comparing for the quality and price, and I wound up over the years with quite a few really good imports as well as Gibson, Guild and Ovation. My current favorite is a Breedlove Korean import AC25/SR Plus.

[DataNick]

I had a "lawsuit" Takimine EF340 guitar made in 1978. We called them "Japanese Martins"...and that wasn't a slam!

That guitar was a real good quality, close imitation of a D28 I think...

[Russ Donahue]

I had a Tama "Martin Clone" that I recently sold for 3x what I paid in 1978!

And oh yeah. It sounded really good and played wonderfully.

And was always fun to see people try to figure out what the oversized "T" on the headstock stood for, 'cause though it looked like a Martin, and sounded damn close, it wasn't a Martin!

[Ray(T)]

In the 70's, Yamaha acoustic guitars took the music world by storm. Regardless that they were mostly laminates. They sounded great and were very affordable.

Here's Arty McGlyn on a Yamha Nippon Gakki Red Label FG-180 and Paul Brady... I bought one of these new in 1973 for 47 pounds.

You was robbed!

I bought my FG180 in 1971 (about the same time Paul Brady bought his) for £37 10s. I sold it some years later for £65.

[Jeff Mando]

Yeah, times have changed.

They haven't changed that much for me -- I couldn't afford a Loar then, and I can't afford one now!

[Petrus]

I know they are no longer made in Japan that's the reason for the parentheses. I was referring to Asian made which started in Japan then on to China, Korean, or where ever. I'm really not knocking Asian built, I own one now and have owned others in the past just commenting on how times change. If you had said how good Asian instrument would be back in the 60s or 70s musicians would have called you crazy.

It's not a question of geography, it's a question of economics. That's where the misunderstanding comes from (in general, not just mandolins.) Companies don't offshore work because they can't find quality luthiers in the U.S. or UK, they do it when they need to cut costs, so they look for a less expensive but reliable labor market wherever that happens to be at the time. If the country starts to improve quality, as Japan did, then it can compete on the quality level instead of the price level, raising its reputation.

Japan was the go-to place for a while until its economy caught up with (and surpassed) that of the U.S. and Europe, when it priced itself out of the cheap goods market. So now that market has moved to Korea, China, and so on. When China becomes too expensive you will see some other country popping up more often, maybe in Southeast Asia, India or wherever.

When we complain about "Chinese made" stuff it's not that there's something inherently wrong with China, it's just shorthand for stuff that has been offshored by U.S./European manufacturers strictly for cost reasons, so you know that the motivation of both the U.S. owners and the Chinese subcontractors is maximum output at minimum cost. Recently this has started to change in the case of some mandolins and we are seeing higher quality, as with Breedlove, Eastman, and numerous others. So it's a lot trickier now to just judge by the label ... prospective buyers now have to think about the year the instrument was produced (2010 may have been a very different quality than 2015) and so forth.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Eddy - I also bought a Yamaha guitar in the early 1970's,an FG-140 model & it sounded terrific.You might remember that at that time,the most popular affordable acoustics were the Harmony 'Sovereign' & the Levin 'Goliath' - the Yamaha was every bit as good,if not better than either.
The top quality 'Asian' instruments,wherever they're made these days,are usually of high quality,they have to be if they want to sell. I've mentioned many times onhere about the quality, re.both build & tonal of my Gold Star 're-issue' banjo made in China. The build quality was faultless & as for tone,it buried the 2 Gibsons i played it against. The Asian market has realised that players today are very discerning & will pay for quality - so mainly,that's what they're building,although the quality may vary from merely good to excellent,
Ivan

[Mark Gunter]

Ivan, I think that's a pretty good representation, and I would add that there have always been individual luthiers who have had very high standards . . . talent and skill and ethics and principles are not dependent on ethnicity or on the relative cost of goods in national economies. So there has always been the potential, and the realization, of high quality instruments from all corners of the globe, as well as mass-produced, run of the mill stuff.

[Folkmusician.com]

When production first moves to a new country, it takes a couple of years to work out the issues, get a workforce trained, get all the tools together, and maybe most importantly, get management in place that understands the product. Even when the quality is finally there, the country still has to prove themselves to the buyers and buyers are generally not willing to spend top dollar, even if the quality is there. China makers are in a position where they may be able to make world class instruments, but who will be willing to pay for them? The market for them turns out to be value priced. Make a good instrument at a really good price.

2001 was the year fretted instrument production started shifting to China and it happened fast! There were a few Korean hold outs, but it didn't take long for most everything to shift. This was mainly because the Korean factories moved to China. Once the big guys move, you then see many small shops starting up.

If you want to see what China is capable of, look no further than the bowed instrument world. They don't just do well, they flat out dominate at all but the highest price points. Even at the top level, the quality is there, people just prefer to own European. The USA would have little chance of matching the quality level regardless of price. Europe, with their long history of violin making, didn't stand a chance. China first took over the lower end range, then worked up to mid range. Now look at a list of the worlds best violins makers of the past 10 years.

This tells me that China is ready to make world class mandolins (and in some cases are already doing so), anytime we are ready to buy them. Will people buy them? The demand isn't there yet. Top Chinese mandolins are better than many of our US made counterparts that cost significantly more. People still have a preference for the US made instrument. Granted, most of the best brands (excluding individual luthiers) are from the USA. This name recognition carries over to the lower models, and people can and do pay double to get a mandolin that doesn't stand up to the Chinese instrument.

[roysboy]

When production first moves to a new country, it takes a couple of years to work out the issues, get a workforce trained, get all the tools together, and maybe most importantly, get management in place that understands the product. Even when the quality is finally there, the country still has to prove themselves to the buyers and buyers are generally not willing to spend top dollar, even if the quality is there. China makers are in a position where they may be able to make world class instruments, but who will be willing to pay for them? The market for them turns out to be value priced. Make a good instrument at a really good price.

2001 was the year fretted instrument production started shifting to China and it happened fast! There were a few Korean hold outs, but it didn't take long for most everything to shift. This was mainly because the Korean factories moved to China. Once the big guys move, you then see many small shops starting up.

If you want to see what China is capable of, look no further than the bowed instrument world. They don't just do well, they flat out dominate at all but the highest price points. Even at the top level, the quality is there, people just prefer to own European. The USA would have little chance of matching the quality level regardless of price. Europe, with their long history of violin making, didn't stand a chance. China first took over the lower end range, then worked up to mid range. Now look at a list of the worlds best violins makers of the past 10 years.

This tells me that China is ready to make world class mandolins (and in some cases are already doing so), anytime we are ready to buy them. Will people buy them? The demand isn't there yet. Top Chinese mandolins are better than many of our US made counterparts that cost significantly more. People still have a preference for the US made instrument. Granted, most of the best brands (excluding individual luthiers) are from the USA. This name recognition carries over to the lower models, and people can and do pay double to get a mandolin that doesn't stand up to the Chinese instrument.

Very well explained and quite informative Robert . I suspect that there wouldn't be too many serious players/owners who'd disagree with your observations and assessments of the quality and overall value of the Chinese-made mandolins

[Timbofood]

I think the Yamaha's of the mid '70's were some of the best, consistent good sounding instruments for the money one could have asked for.

[soliver]

This has been a very interesting read. I am the proud owner of a Chinese made Eastman and am super pleased with it. Watching this YT vid on them in production impressed me and I had no reservations about buying one.



this one's good too