First post, trying to find out about a Sweetwater "Dalbergia" neck and fingerboard... I've recently joined "the club" buying two, new hollowbodies with the piezos. I'm not sure I'll buy many guitars in the future that don't include piezos, since they add so much to the "hi fi" attributes you can pull out of them and manipulate. Anyway...
It's hard for tool-users seeing the collectors' points of view and vice versa. I guess, as more tool-user than collector, it strikes me as mildly sad when an exceptional tool of specific utility, purpose and original meaning is sometimes literally put under glass, or even more bothersome, kept unseen and invisible until retrieved. So why do glassed displays of utilitarian objects, i.e. museums in general, exist? Because the objects have multiple values, and appearance, perceived rarity, even their cultural cache or "sexiness" etc., are regarded as generally legitimate. Authenticity is among those values and virtues, and in the case of guitar woods, stains, lacquers, etc. a "knowing" fraud is a fraud, misrepresentation is misrepresentation. It might not mean as much contemporaneously, but for example, Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments have skyrocketed in value over centuries for many reasons, all linked to a variety of perceptions beside the most objective and enduring, and for a tool-user, the most critical: how they perform. (BTW, they sound pretty exceptional in the right hands; do some searching and listening...)
Would that our PRS guitars have similar lives and perceived values, 200 years and more from now. PRS isn't Stadivarius, although some of his guitars may well play and sound great a long time from today. He's not aiming for each instrument being the best, possible one he can make or have made under his name or brand, unlike those venerated, violin makers. More's the pity, and testimony to a variety of deficiencies with cheapening artist's tools for filthy lucre, a.k.a. designing and manufacturing towards wide "price points." One would assume, or at least hope, some PRS guitars will sound as glorious or even better, 200 years from now, as do uncommon historic instruments. Legally however, now and in the future, people trust vendors of goods accurately representing whatever they choose to identify, such as the maker and materials made in their use. If they say "as is," then, "the buyer beware." If they say anything specific however - and saying, for example, a very expensive guitar's neck and fretboard is "Dalbergia" is not very meaningful, though it does have a broad, taxonomic meaning - it had better be what the seller claims. Is asking for that honesty too much, especially when extra $$ are in play for authenticity?
It's hard for tool-users seeing the collectors' points of view and vice versa. I guess, as more tool-user than collector, it strikes me as mildly sad when an exceptional tool of specific utility, purpose and original meaning is sometimes literally put under glass, or even more bothersome, kept unseen and invisible until retrieved. So why do glassed displays of utilitarian objects, i.e. museums in general, exist? Because the objects have multiple values, and appearance, perceived rarity, even their cultural cache or "sexiness" etc., are regarded as generally legitimate. Authenticity is among those values and virtues, and in the case of guitar woods, stains, lacquers, etc. a "knowing" fraud is a fraud, misrepresentation is misrepresentation. It might not mean as much contemporaneously, but for example, Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments have skyrocketed in value over centuries for many reasons, all linked to a variety of perceptions beside the most objective and enduring, and for a tool-user, the most critical: how they perform. (BTW, they sound pretty exceptional in the right hands; do some searching and listening...)
Would that our PRS guitars have similar lives and perceived values, 200 years and more from now. PRS isn't Stadivarius, although some of his guitars may well play and sound great a long time from today. He's not aiming for each instrument being the best, possible one he can make or have made under his name or brand, unlike those venerated, violin makers. More's the pity, and testimony to a variety of deficiencies with cheapening artist's tools for filthy lucre, a.k.a. designing and manufacturing towards wide "price points." One would assume, or at least hope, some PRS guitars will sound as glorious or even better, 200 years from now, as do uncommon historic instruments. Legally however, now and in the future, people trust vendors of goods accurately representing whatever they choose to identify, such as the maker and materials made in their use. If they say "as is," then, "the buyer beware." If they say anything specific however - and saying, for example, a very expensive guitar's neck and fretboard is "Dalbergia" is not very meaningful, though it does have a broad, taxonomic meaning - it had better be what the seller claims. Is asking for that honesty too much, especially when extra $$ are in play for authenticity?
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