Gentlemen,
I think prices are on a seriously upward trend. Having watched the asking prices and sales closely for a long time, I think this Gretsch kit would have been of marginal interest and price not that long ago, given its late 60's era, the Rock 'n Roll configuration and issues that always developed with satin flame finishes.
A price of $1525 at auction is very good in my view, and perhaps 1/3 higher than it would have been just a year or two ago.
Gretsch round badge kits have been gaining some traction in price. Dan, your right, a SF finish has issues but I am seeing them, especially in great shape without a lot of crazing do even better.
Gretsch round badge kits have been gaining some traction in price. Dan, your right, a SF finish has issues but I am seeing them, especially in great shape without a lot of crazing do even better.
If you can find a SF set without issues, you have a very nice set. I like those finishes a lot, but they are usually either already very tired or about to get very tired. Mainly, I was surprised because of the configuration. the Rock 'n Roll kits haven't been big sellers as far as I have seen.
I mainly pay attention to eBay, albeit not religiously. I don't have a large inventory but what I've seen is stagnant sales, depressed prices for mainly Ludwig + Rogers. Said it before, but vintage listings seem down as well (maybe this is an ebay thing; maybe a winter thing, and folks are hibernating).
If prices were on an upward trend it would seem that there'd be more kits listed to capitalize on such a trend.
What's happening generally with the booming stock market just flat out doesn't seem to be "trickling down" on us plebes. I sell books as well and there too the rest is silence.
Chris
When you interpret a "price trend" out of one completed sale you run the risk of underestimating the amount of variation in prices, and extrapolating to a pattern which just isn't there.
[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png[/img]
from my pricing research: http://black.net.nz/old-k/old-k-prices.html#summary
I've seen a few threads started recently about prices coming back up, or being low, or something in between. But these threads seem to share a distinct lack of data. I'll just make a plea for recording a representative sample of completed sales over a reasonable time period before claiming to see a change in the market prices.
This thread also has some useful commentary if I so say so myself:
Zenstat,
You are my kinda nerd.
I love XKCD! Randall Munroe is a genius! His WHAT IF? book is required reading for my AP Physics students.
I am also impressed by your data analysis of the cymbal market, good stuff. I know a guy that sets used car prices for a large CarMAx dealership, it is a company that does not haggle on price, so his market analysis needs to be on point or their bottom line suffers. From what he has told me I think he uses a similar analysis.
I sell Gretsch kits for good money. Almost all the premium kits I sold are off eBay.
I won't dispute that a single or small sample would be misleading. However, I look at the sold records for Rogers gear and am often surprised at the prices. I also make offers that are refused because I think the prices is too high, and the kits do sell at the named price. I haven't made the effort to chart this information, so I could certainly be off base in my views, but I also am not a casual observer of the trends.
I'm surprised at the prices of some sold Ludwigs on ebay, especially with 'buy it now' listings. It's strange to me when a stripped Supra can sell for $180 shipped.
If there is a rare kit in nice shape to me that's worth some coin. Not stupid money like some of the clowns on eBay & Reverb. I just ignore that nonsense. Down the road, I'll be paying more attention to prices as what I'm looking for now is the really hard to find kits. To enjoy for 20 years.
