Interesting read . Overseas guitars are fine for me because there building better quality.
But I got on board supporting USA built acoustics . I just care more about the acoustic then electric guitars electrics .
One thing is import acoustics mostly are affordable and I’ve not seen a high end acoustic import equal to build quality of the American lines . So if you see a 6,000 Martin what’s import equal ?
I think the main issue is product cost for the average player average worker , it is for me . The Gap between pay scale and inflation are wideing at a constant rate leaving me behind financially.
Product cost vrs income are a problem here if not other country’s as were nickel and dimed to death by the must haves that all the ads and people say we should have .
So Imports are all many folks can afford .
I’ve always wondered why they never tell how much a new car or truck costs ? They’ll tell you what you can lease it for or how much off this one is in rebates/ discounts but they won’t say what the actual price to buy it is .
This is the extreme end of costs , housing is just as bad .
I’m amazed that folks can afford high end guitars but I guess I shouldn’t be because people buy 60,000+ trucks with a 30 yr mortgage all the time like it’s normal , what the heck am I missing ? Oh yeah income lol
So yeah I have a high end guitar or two and I just bought another guitar and now I’m broke no wait been broke but I have great credit !!!
On another note I have a great China Blueridge dread and never played a bad blueridge guitar and they compete dollar for dollar with their American models ! Lol
Now with all that said I find the guitar that I have been playing the most is the Guild Cv-1 , yup the cheapest most worn guitar I have it’s not even close to matching the tonal level of my other guitars but I don’t think about that I just pick it up and play it . Weird huh .