Why Korea?

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This discussion isn't about legal and profitable business decisions. It's about class warfare and free trade.

Both are political in nature.

Please stay focused on guitars or I'll have to lock the thread.
 
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Boogeyman said:
First, Thank you all for not flaming me! I didn't really get my thoughts across like I intended. I have much respect for Paul the man and I know he worked his ass off to get to where he is today. The rich SOB i was refering to was my ex-CEO who I would like to have a few minutes alone with. I was trying to use him as a comparison as to how US coorporations couldn't care less about the employees as long as they get theirs. Not saying thats what PRS is doing, but the main reason A LOT of companies go the overseas route. Which is the reason I'm so against outsourcing. My other point was, PRS already has the land, the facility, the employees the materials the knowledge..why be like every other company? I wouldn't be on this site if I didn't love PRS guitars, period. I have 2 US made guitars and 1 US made amp, which for someone like me is a huge accomplishment in itself. I worked hard to be able to afford them and have traded in/up with every instrument I've owned to get to this point (and lost a lot of money in the process). I think PRS makes the best guitars on the planet, I just wish the company could have somehow remained purly American. That is all...
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When the SE line was introduced, PRS DIDN'T have the facility to produce them here. In the old factory, everyone worked ass to elbows.

The offices were in trailers, so they could have more production space. It wasn't until the last 2-3 years, that they expanded, right as the economy tanked...

Your assumption that they could make them here is just flat out wrong.

As is your assumption that PRS is a rich CEO like your old boss. Discussion about what others make is tacky, at best, boorish, at it's worst.

Many of us have been around long enough to have witnessed the trials and tribulations PRSH and the company went thru, just to keep the doors open. And all the while, he took care of his employees.

He has my utmost respect as a businessman...


Jamie
 
My response is just about guitars. I build a couple of acoustics a year if I can. As a hobby and for friends or a friend thereof, sometimes less. Not counting my extensive labor, tools, and supplies to finish a dreadnought guitar I spend an easy grand on quality wood alone (neck, top, back and sides). I am not including hardware! There is no way a company in the States can cover overhead, be profitable and make a quality instrument for under a grand. Cannot be done and perform to the standards a musician would expect. I said in another post we are living in a great time here. A true Master luthier is making the fine electric guitars we are playing that he has a hand in making. Mr Paul Reed Smith will be known as the reknown Master Electric Guitar luthier. PERIOD! Even surpassing his peer Mr. leo Fender and rivaling his other peers such as D'Angelico, D'Aquisto, C.F. Martin I and Stradivari. To buy one of his guitars in his time (our time) from his factory is a luxury for me. Generations from now we will be looked upon as the lucky buggers who own a PRS Guitar made in Mr Smiths lifetime. Especially if we/you went to the PRS Experience and witnessed what he has and is accomplished first hand. Truly, a great time for electric guitar making at it's finest. For so long I could not pay the cost. Now I can buy a few. SO I will, and yeah it is pricey, but let me pay the man. Hopefully I hear Private Stock calling my name in a few months. I think Giddy Up is the word! How's that for a positive spin on this thread!!! PEACE! GIDDY UP Mr Smith. How much do I make the check out for!!!
 
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Audie said:
My response is just about guitars. I build a couple of acoustics a year if I can. As a hobby and for friends or a friend thereof, sometimes less. Not counting my extensive labor, tools, and supplies to finish a dreadnought guitar I spend an easy grand on quality wood alone (neck, top, back and sides). I am not including hardware! There is no way a company in the States can cover overhead, be profitable and make a quality instrument for under a grand. Cannot be done and perform to the standards a musician would expect. I said in another post we are living in a great time here. A true Master luthier is making the fine electric guitars we are playing that he has a hand in making. Mr Paul Reed Smith will be known as the reknown Master Electric Guitar luthier. PERIOD! Even surpassing his peer Mr. leo Fender and rivaling his other peers such as D'Angelico, D'Aquisto, C.F. Martin I and Stradivari. To buy one of his guitars in his time (our time) from his factory is a luxury for me. Generations from now we will be looked upon as the lucky buggers who own a PRS Guitar made in Mr Smiths lifetime. Especially if we/you went to the PRS Experience and witnessed what he has and is accomplished first hand. Truly, a great time for electric guitar making at it's finest. For so long I could not pay the cost. Now I can buy a few. SO I will, and yeah it is pricey, but let me pay the man. Hopefully I hear Private Stock calling my name in a few months. I think Giddy Up is the word! How's that for a positive spin on this thread!!! PEACE! GIDDY UP Mr Smith. How much do I make the check out for!!!
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Well spoken ... Very well spoken.
 
I can't even get my living room painted by an american for the MSRP of an SE.

PRS has tried to make a cheaper guitar in Maryland a few times, and I believe they lost money on every EG model that left the factory... Greedy businessmen?.... Nah.
 
I do sympathise with the OP and understand where is coming from. I have had my job changed and been laid off a few times and it hurts. BUT, and with respect to him, this just isn't the place.Since I worked and saved to get my first PRS, a fairy used '06 CE22, I haven't regretted it. As an unexpected bonus I have found the PRS community, and it does seem to come down from the very top, to be so welcoming, inclusive and un-elitist that just being here makes me smile even on a bad day. If the SE line has helped to put quality in the hands of people less able to pay for the US products and helped to keep PRS going in tough times that can only be for the better. Interestingly I believe that Manson and Fret King are already having guitars made in the Czech Republic so I'm sure there is room for one more!
 
RichardJ said:
Interestingly I believe that Manson and Fret King are already having guitars made in the Czech Republic so I'm sure there is room for one more!
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The Manson Czech Guitars are outstanding, (I bought my SE from Mansons shop) however they are in a different price bracket again to the PRS SE range about £800-1000 uk compared to the SE's at £450-800 uk.

One day I will be in a position to own a USA PRS but having an SE does make me feel part of the brand (does that sound a little odd??) if you know what I mean?? and in choosing my guitar a tried many others including US made Gibson's and Fenders and the PRS SE was still better in quality.
 
Jon van derlim said:
I bought my SE from Mansons shop
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You bought a PRS SE from Manson?

Ummmm... I confess I really didn't know they were making them here (I haven't heard of the brand until now), so I'll have to check their roof pool.

Btw. around MY pool, the clothing won't be exactly optional. Unless it's mainly used by the masculine guitar builders - in that case, it DEFINITELY won't be optional. In fact, I'm gonna write down some strict rules about it right now and hang them in my preliminary Chief Tester office.
As for the Louis Vuitton car... I tried hard to come up with some funny reply, but no... every time I think about it, my mind goes blank. I already put that thought in my list of favorite koans.
 
Albrecht Smuten said:
As for the Louis Vuitton car... I tried hard to come up with some funny reply, but no... every time I think about it, my mind goes blank. I already put that thought in my list of favorite koans.
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I was thinking of a paisley wrap for the car. Only appropriate for a PRS Chief Tester. (That's all I got. :dontknow: )
 
Didn't Manson make the guitar for Matt Bellamy from Muse?

I had no idea guitars where being made in the Czech Republic. We briefly made some in the UK back in the 60's I think. Burns and Vox guitars. Both made a comeback but are built in the Far East. There's some smaller luthiers but nothing major.
 
Matt Bellamy's guitars are made by Hugh himself I believe. We took our teenage daughter to see the 'Resistance' tour at Wembley Stadium in the UK, WOW!

Let's not forget Patrick Eggle, some very good guitars and basses made in the UK in the '90s. Some suggest our (British) own equivalent to the hallowed products here. I had a '93 New York for a while, nice piece of kit traded (as they always seem to go) for something I thought was better that I no-longer have.

Apologies to the OP, kind of rambling off topic.
 
I love my PRS Custom 24. I have a Korean step son who's a great kid so I had no problem buying an SK manufactured guitar. However, I also purchased a Fender American Special Stratocaster for less than $800, same general price range as the PRS Custom 24. We can argue which guitar is better....but I can't because I think they are equally good for guitars in the category of $1000 or less. So, I also see no reason why quality affordable guitars cannot be MADE IN THE USA!

US12195846-body-l.jpg
 
Hope I don't get the thread locked, but I just wanted to tell a similar story to Boogyman - only this affects a whole town. My family is originally from a little town in northern Maine where back in the 80's everybody owned new cars, houses were paid off. Nobody lived above their means. It was a very humble, very Americana type town. Just an awesome awesome place to live or visit. The reason: the town came into existence due to a paper mill and prolific logging community.

Well thanks to NAFTA a Canadian-based competing company came in and bough the paper mill. And then they shut it down putting 1000's out of work. Without the income of the paper mill, every other supporting business up there has suffered. You drive through now and there's vacancy signs everywhere ...all the young people have moved away to find work. It looks like a welfare town up there now. All because a Canadian company was able to just come in, buy the mill and shut it down - so that they could grow their Canadian-based facility. So I'm with you that America needs to start protecting American jobs and stop shipping production or whatever overseas for the sake of the almighty dollar. There has to be enough Americans out of work that you could find some people that would be great Luthiers or guitar craftsmen or whatever. I think it'd be FCKN AWESOME if PRS opened a new facility (like maybe in my mom's hometown of Millinocket) and maybe started making a new model somewhere in the middle of the SE $$'s range and the higher end American made models to see if they could make a guitar that people will buy AND breathe some life back into OUR economy.

Whenever I visit, I bring a couple of guitars up there and have a great time playing guitar while camping out in the woods or sitting around a "campfire" in the backyard of one of my relatives. (There I'm talking about guitars so hopefully the thread doesn't get closed ; )
 
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