Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

If you look at Mucusian's Fiend, the Princeton lists for like $600. That's kind of misleading, because the 2005 Princeton is not the same amp as the 1968 Princeton.

You should be able to find old catalogs with prices in them somewhere on the intarweb. Using an inflation calculator, and you can probably find several different ones other than the one I posted, you can see the relative cost.

The 1968 Fender Twin Reverb cost 499.50.

The 2005 '65 Twin Reverb RI lists at $1,499.99.

Roughly comparable amps.

The 1968 person would be forking out the equivalent of $2763.72 to purchase that amp.

If the 1968 person could purchase the 2005 Twin Reverb RI, it's relative price would be $271.10.

 

[Armotron]

Re: Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

Thats pretty eye opening. One other interesting thing i've noticed is that wholey, Marshall hasn't changed price wise, and in some cases, as in the SG Custom, it has gotten more expensive? :dunno:

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

If you look at Mucusian's Fiend, the Princeton lists for like $600. That's kind of misleading, because the 2005 Princeton is not the same amp as the 1968 Princeton.

You should be able to find old catalogs with prices in them somewhere on the intarweb. Using an inflation calculator, and you can probably find several different ones other than the one I posted, you can see the relative cost.

The 1968 Fender Twin Reverb cost 499.50.

The 2005 '65 Twin Reverb RI lists at $1,499.99.

Roughly comparable amps.

The 1968 person would be forking out the equivalent of $2763.72 to purchase that amp.

If the 1968 person could purchase the 2005 Twin Reverb RI, it's relative price would be $271.10.

I think that the key factor here is technology. These new amps are PCB made on an assembly line as fast as possible by as few workers as possible. The 60's Twin Reverbs were all handmade and hand-wired, and the cabs were pine(?) and jointed well. People were paying for the price including wages for those skilled workers that did the finger jointing, etc. Now the fender factory just needs to hire a few dudes to test the amp and pop in the tubes and the machines do the rest.

I still think that the prices could be lower nowadays. With all the tecnology and ease at which they could make these things, they could easily keep a big chunk of profit if the Twin listed at 1200 and was 850 street. I know it's a long shot, but it's similar to computers-a few years back, having a Celeron at 700mhz was the ****. Now you can get a P4 or equivalent AMD at 2.4ghz and up for the same price-technology reduces total cost, increases profitability, and ultimately price goes down.

 

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

Quencho, thank you. That's been my hang up with guitar gear pricing. It's not high tech stuff. It's not like guys are having to spend years of R&D to figure out how to make an amp...all the homework has been done. For amps you just have to gather the parts and put them together.

I think music gear may be in the same category as scientific products. Buy a Pyrex measuring cup at the store for $5. Buy a Pyrex beaker for lab use for $20. anything having to do with laboratory or scientific use gets a higher price on it just because it's science. I think that guitars and amps see that same sort of pricing effect.

The reference site at the beginning of this thread showed list prices. What were the street prices, 25% off list? And that 1968 Princeton Reverb, how much did it go for used in 1972?

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

I think that the key factor here is technology. These new amps are PCB made on an assembly line as fast as possible by as few workers as possible. The 60's Twin Reverbs were all handmade and hand-wired, and the cabs were pine(?) and jointed well. People were paying for the price including wages for those skilled workers that did the finger jointing, etc. Now the fender factory just needs to hire a few dudes to test the amp and pop in the tubes and the machines do the rest.

I still think that the prices could be lower nowadays. With all the tecnology and ease at which they could make these things, they could easily keep a big chunk of profit if the Twin listed at 1200 and was 850 street. I know it's a long shot, but it's similar to computers-a few years back, having a Celeron at 700mhz was the ****. Now you can get a P4 or equivalent AMD at 2.4ghz and up for the same price-technology reduces total cost, increases profitability, and ultimately price goes down.

This is evident in the pricing- they're not the same amplifier anymore.

Referring to my last post:

The 1968 Fender Twin Reverb cost 499.50.
If the 1968 person could purchase the 2005 Twin Reverb RI, it's relative price would be $271.10.

A difference of $228.40 in 1968 and $1263.73 in today's money.

 

[rinse_master]

Re: Amp Prices from the 60's in Todays Dollars

I think that the key factor here is technology. These new amps are PCB made on an assembly line as fast as possible by as few workers as possible. The 60's Twin Reverbs were all handmade and hand-wired, and the cabs were pine(?) and jointed well. People were paying for the price including wages for those skilled workers that did the finger jointing, etc. Now the fender factory just needs to hire a few dudes to test the amp and pop in the tubes and the machines do the rest.

True, and at the time this was all state-of-the-art technology, today's state-of-the-art stuff is expensive (think of the likes of Bogner etc.).

Strange how most of them are quite close to their list price now (to the nearest equivalent at least), although the Marshall prices are a bit crazy, how much would say, a Plexi RI be at the moment?.