by stephen » 09 May 2011, 16:17
I'm definitely in the leddo & ecca camp with this one................
I'm 62 now and although I've had an ongoing interest in guitars (& trying to play them!) since I was 14, I've only very recently become 'involved' in this Shadows thing.....for want of a better word. On this forum in particular, there are no shortage of people who will shower disproportionate amounts of cash at anything with a Hank/Shadows connection. Sure, it's a free country and each to their own and all that, but to me, it does smack a little of OCD to me.
It doesn't take a genius ( or sophisticated market research) to work out that the majority of Shadows fans are probably in their sixties and many of those will be retired, probably with reasonable pensions with a healthy disposable income quotient. Hence, the likes of Fender can pitch the price of their Marvin/Shadows derived product accordingly and confident in the knowledge that anything combining Custom Shop/Fiesta Red/Approved by Hank/Limited Run etc., will have no shortage of takers, dribbling into their Horlicks and cashing in their ISA's.
The lure of being able to turn up at their local Shadows club, being the only one with one of these guitars, is just TOO strong...............whatever the cost. It just pales into insignificance.
On a lesser level, I'm also surprised at what people are prepared to pay for the little Hank Marvin decal on a headstock, compared to an otherwise identical American/Mexican/Japanese guitar, kidding themselves, that it is somehow 'better'. Weird......! Wouldn't it be more sensible to just commission a set of HBM decals and apply them to 'ordinary' guitars.
Sorry if the above sounds a tad cynical, it's just the impression I've gained since October last year, when I first discovered this site. Hand on heart, I can truthfully state that I really couldn't contemplate 'lusting after' anything more than a 1956 NOS with a nicely figured AA birdseye neck. There's a s/h one on eBay at the moment. The seller is listing all it's Hank/Shadows kudos and is asking the same price as a new one.......................
Stephen.