Official Luthiers Forum!

We've had a string of very nice, extraordinarily expensive luthier-built instruments in for work lately, to include the guitar which Mr. Somogyi aptly describes as his masterwork (it is as he has christened it - the acme of his career); however, this morning while perusing the Facebook Marketplace feed, I stumbled across what must be the most spectacularly priced - and thus, highest expression of the luthierish arts - custom-built small-shop instrument of them all:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 123758799/

What I take from this artist's efforts is that, contrary to the doom-and-gloom prognostication of more builders chasing fewer dollars heard from established builders, his Facebook Marketplace post announces a new Golden Era for small shop craftsman. No longer will we be forced to choose between the mundane-but-barely adequate compensation of repair work at $100-$120 per hour, or the purity of artistic expression enjoyed while building, albeit at 1/4 to 1/3 of the repairman's hourly rate. We can boldly price our efforts at whatever seems desirable with complete confidence in the marketplace - at least Facebook Marketplace - beating a path to our workshop or studio door.

Good news indeed!

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I cannot click on the link and get to the site that I think you posted.

It just takes me to the overall facebook market place.

I just got in the shop a classical guitar made by a Bulgarian luthier, Boyan Matev, and I have to say it's one of the finest guitars I've ever played. I love getting stuff in like that.

You'd think at that price you would get a truss rod cover.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

All I got was local crap....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The link just took me to facebook marketplace, with the note the item was no longer available.
I guess I may as well duct tape a banana to the wall.

Sorry! Who would have thought that a $123,456 OOO 12 fretter from an unknown builder would sell so quickly!

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Oh I know what you are talking about now. I've seen that on the FB market place before and thought maybe it was a mistake in a decimal place or something?

Woohoo!
I can quit my day job now and make a good living
Building a guitar a year!


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Wow... after browsing luthier guitars on that page I feel so much better about mine all of a sudden:/


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Who would have thought a banana taped to the wall would sell for $120,000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM2U5bL1lNY

Well worth the $$$. It took 17 years of his life. I wish I could muster up that much sticktoitivness!

Y’all are getting 100-120$/hr for repairs? Perhaps I should up my prices...

I can’t see the post in the link, but if the price really is $123,456, I think that is something people put in the price Geile at marketplace to indicate they are not listing the price. Not sure about that, but I have seen that price listed for several things.

Edit: I didn’t mean this post to spoil the fun, I was really meaning to ask what that price actually means since I’ e been curious.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I think Facebook marketplace is dangerous. A friend was recently scammed buying something by credit card from a company that apparently does not exist.

On a happier note I was just at Jim Olsons place buying some wood. He still has clients actually calling and offering $45-$50,000 for one of his instruments. Some are very well known folks.

If anyone deserves that kind of success Jim does. He is a wonderful person. I played a Cedar topped BZ SJ that was about to go out for over 40K. It was set up perfectly and had spectacular tone.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

40K will only get you about a third of a banana and a little piece of duct tape in the Art world. As luthiers we foolishly spend weeks building things and "performance art" is when someone spends a couple of hours, sweating on a stage playing them.
Oh well! Tough Bananas!

That's funny. We did a gig years ago at a cultural center and there was a painting prominently displayed that consisted of two 3' X 3' squares of canvas. One painted blue with a white stripe across it and the other white with a blue stripe.

The curator proudly talked about how it was the product of a three month grant funded residency of a regional artist. "He 's a minimalist" she proclaimed.

I mentioned that I could do the same thing in my basement in about an hour. It was not well received

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Yeah but its the context, what came before, what has informed the artist, what is it they were trying to say, is it representative of their unique voice and perspective all that stuff. If I took enough art classes and worked hard enough I could replicate the Mona Lisa too, but there's no way I have an ounce of Leonardo's vision or creativity.

Terrence—

My wife is an artist (well, a clergyperson who creates visual art on canvas, in the same way that I am a lawyer who builds guitars), and my daughter works at a decent sized art museum. I made a similar comment to them over a year ago about a modern art collection at my daughter’s museum. I still don’t think I have climbed my way out of that hole. I’ve learned the hard way that I need to apply my attitude about music to visual art. That is: every kind of music has validity and value to somebody, no matter how much I personally dislike it or think it is worthless or contrived or whatever.

It is tough to maintain that attitude, though, when we are talking about a banana taped to a wall.

I dunno... sometimes you just have to be the kid who says the emperor is naked.

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It will probably be alright.

Conor wrote:

"Yeah but its the context, what came before, what has informed the artist, what is it they were trying to say, is it representative of their unique voice and perspective all that stuff. If I took enough art classes and worked hard enough I could replicate the Mona Lisa too, but there's no way I have an ounce of Leonardo's vision or creativity."

The person who taped a banana to the wall doesn't have an ounce of Leonardo's vision or creativity. I can appreciate many forms of Art, both traditional and modern. Some of it I appreciate more than others. It is not so much that someone taped a banana to the wall and called it art, as that someone gave it validity by buying it (for a modest sum by art standards).
Think of the lost opportunities we had as luthiers - instead of "hanging" our failures we should have been taping them to the wall.

I should qualify my comment, I don't mean to excuse pretension or snobbery (is that a word?) and if my wife wanted a painting like some of these modern art things we're referring to, I'd head straight to the garage and slap some paint on a canvas, (If she wanted a banana taped to the wall I'd tell her no, that's weird.) Buying art isn't high on the priority list to spend money on anyway.

But I do feel there's something to be said for the artist's intention. However baffling, dense, or ridiculous it may appear.

And I hear you about the consumption thing, the way people validate and consume art (or anything really) can be problematic. But I don't know that the line is that thick between the person who's hobby is art collecting and feels that buying a taped to a wall banana would bring them status or prestige, (which I assume is what we're criticizing here) and the loaded, hack guitarist that walks into the music store and buys the most expensive guitar hanging on the wall just because its the most expensive.

And Clay, if I can poke the bear one last time, your comment about luthiers hanging failures on the wall implies the banana man failed.

Maybe I should just tape my unsold guitars to a wall, with coloured duct tape perhaps.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

With a banana in the sound hole?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Guitar porn?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.