Pipes- how is value determined?

[Ceann Cromtha]

It has happened that a customer re-sold a new set within months of recieving it and made 150% of his purchase price..... and that hurts !!

I've bought and sold around six or seven different sets of UPs, just looking for the right one, and never made a profit on them. I always felt the uilleann pipes were just a little too sacred to be trying to do that.

Amen to that! That's definitely bad juju. I have never made a profit at selling uilleann pipes and have often reduced a price so that the right person could get it. I've never regretted doing this either. I look at this as a contribution to the music and I always calculate value (pleasure or valuable lessons) I took out of whatever set or component I was selling. I think that last element is often forgotten.

[rorybbellows]

If people are making a profit off of a pipe maker's reputation and talent, why shouldn't the pipe maker do the same.

Why dont pipemakers forget about the waiting list method of doing business and just make pipes. When a set is finished put it up for sale to the highest bidder ?

RORY

[glands]

[/quote]

For the record, David wasn't taking any liberty. I asked him, "What do you think," and I asked Ben the same thing. I made it their business because the price was high. David and I talked for a while about the ethics, and in retrospect, it was a good lesson.

I'm pretty sure if you asked David to comment on your transaction, he would've. If not incurring a loss was important, I'd venture to say that if you waited, got the chanter fitted with a nice reed, K., Q., or someone in Ireland (or the rest of the world) could very well have purchased the chanter w/no loss.

What's done is done, though.[/quote]


in fact, it had two Koehler reeds. They weren't right. One was bad. The other was, say, 90%. The chanter sold to a man who lives 500 miles away in CA. He knows what he is doing. The reed that was 90% did not work in his climate! His is different than my "similarly Irish clime of SF. He was able to make it good with some sanding etc but only after a literal microscopic examination. Such is the way it is with the very best reeds!! What plays here will play neither there or even there....and vice versa.

[BzzzzT]

It has happened that a customer re-sold a new set within months of recieving it and made 150% of his purchase price..... and that hurts !!

I've bought and sold around six or seven different sets of UPs, just looking for the right one, and never made a profit on them. I always felt the uilleann pipes were just a little too sacred to be trying to do that.

But, I want to tell you Geoff, that I felt the same way when I was building custom houses for people. It kind of hurt to see people live in one of those houses for a year, then sell it for twice or three times as much as it cost them (for construction). I couldn't afford to buy their finished house! They had regular "other" jobs too. Of course they'd purchase the land, do improvements like landscaping, drapes, fencing, tool sheds, etc., and house values kept climbing, plus there was inflation. But still, it was mostly just the fact that the house was finished and marketable that they were able to do so well.

So, I stopped building houses for other people and started building them for myself. I'd live in one, make it my residence (for tax purposes--capital gains), and then every couple of years I'd put one up for sale and build another. And what a relief it was...being able to set my own hours and not go through the headaches and red tape of hiring employees and bookkeepers, license and insurance, sub-contractors (for speed), and trying to please some potentially difficult customers. All of the stress and tension disappeared and I finally started to LIVE and maximize the profits off of my labor. That was years ago and I've never looked back!

If people are making a profit off of a pipe maker's reputation and talent, why shouldn't the pipe maker do the same as I did with houses and put every finished product directly on the market? It use to be that a product, like musical instruments, needed a retailer as an in-between source, but not nowadays. I realize that it's still possible for someone, like the world's best violin maker, to charge seemingly maximum prices, and then have collectors take over and drive the values up once again. And maybe that's what's happening in some cases. I see Pat Sky still has his Rowesome set FS for $20K USD. But living pipe makers can fight back.

As someone who has run and owned a business I could not agree more. To Geoff; YOU have put a lifetime of work into learning your craft; having sold plenty of sets at reasonable prices to deserving pipers. A price has to be put on your knowledge, skill and the time it has taken you to acquire it. I think Lorenzo hit the nail on the head. You should be accepting offers for a period of time on the new sets coming out of your shop and sell them at what the market will bear. If no one will offer more than the asking price for a new set, then sell to the next person on the list. In regards to your waiting list; I say “to hell with it.” People are not living in your shoes. You have put plenty of sets out there already to pipers who deserve them. Time to cash in on all your hard work. You are not some martyr to a “list.” The people on it, will get on with their lives; if they cannot see past this, well..... I see absolutely NO moral objections to this. The piping community does not govern morality, nor do the practices of your peers. As long as your living as an honest human being, doing what you need to do, to make it possible to support yourself in an honorable fashion; you have no cross to bear. IMHO

Sorry if that sounded heavy! Money equals potentiality. You need the potential to live your life in a manner that is satisfactory and healthy for you.

People often decry how much something costs. Every person who owns a business or crafts something experiences this. The person who complains of the cost for visiting their doctor, does not see the cost and time spent on education, payroll for staff, insurance, time etc. The person who hires the plumber does not see their material cost, time, scheduling, insurance, wear and tear on their body and tools. The price of something reflects this; but, people often just look at the price tag, not the intrinsic cost of supporting any profession or craft.


- Jason

[Brazenkane]

It has happened that a customer re-sold a new set within months of recieving it and made 150% of his purchase price..... and that hurts !!

. I see Pat Sky still has his Rowesome set FS for $20K USD. But living pipe makers can fight back.

That asking price is another topic-

regarding that:

There are many prominent pipers I know who have an issue with this asking price. "What player can afford this?" is usually the question I hear. Much of the chatter I've heard is that these "master sets" are gifted to active players with the agreement that they will be played; a sort of lending for a lifetime, and then that is passed on again. Much like JOBM's Colgan, or Ronan Browne's Kenna, etc. Or, sold at an affordable price, so that the instrument gets played and doesn't become a museum piece.

As far as living makers "fighting back," I'm not so sure what that means......?

[MTGuru]

People often decry how much something costs. Every person who owns a business or crafts something experiences this. The person who complains of the cost for visiting their doctor, does not see the cost and time spent on education, payroll for staff, insurance, time etc. The person who hires the plumber does not see their material cost, time, scheduling, insurance, wear and tear on their body and tools. The price of something reflects this; but, people often just look at the price tag, not the intrinsic cost of supporting any profession or craft.

Not disagreeing with your comments, or with Geoff's. But what you're describing is true of everything in life, no?

I am the end product of a million-plus dollar investment in my own education, study, experience, books, resources, etc. So whatever I do, whether flipping burgers at McD's or moderating the Chiffboard, should reflect adequate compensation for all that, because those things inform everything I do. But the invisible hand doesn't necessarily work that way, and it has decided that those activities are worth what they are paid. In the case of the Chiffboard, that is exactly zero. Heck, I still haven't even received a golden key to the ChiffCo. executive washroom.

So either I accept it, or creatively game the market (à la Lorenzo), or do something else. A maker like Geoff might make a better living by using his skills to carve wooden plaques of Miley Cyrus twerking and selling them on Etsy. But in the choices we make, adequate compensation for investment is often only one factor.

[An Draighean]

I see Pat Sky still has his Rowesome set FS for $20K USD.

FWIW, it sold long ago.

[Lorenzo]

I see Pat Sky still has his Rowesome set FS for $20K USD.

FWIW, it sold long ago.

Hummm...they're still listed on UilleannObsession #34.

[Lorenzo]

So either I accept it, or creatively game the market (à la Lorenzo), or do something else.

Do you have a 15 year waiting list?

[glands]

I feel that this topic needs a pipemaker's perspective. So here is mine:

I am often asked to 'Value' my work, most usually for Insurance purposes but sometimes when an owner wishes to sell. For insurance valuations a 'replacement cost' has to be given of course, but for making an asking price when advertising a set some people want to use the current New price or even above. I have no objection to this if the instrument is of recent construction . It has happened that a customer re-sold a new set within months of recieving it and made 150% of his purchase price..... and that hurts !!

When someone wants to sell a set that I made many years ago, which does not meet my current standards, at a price that sits on the shoulders of a reputation that took years to build... I do get ebarrassed. In defence of those early instruments, they were as good as I could make at the time and I had to learn all this somehow and the selling prices were very low. When someone has a set that cost $1500 in 1980 and they sell it for $15,000 in 2013....!

I usually try to advise a seller of one of my older instruments by suggesting a price that reflects how much I think it might cost to bring the old set up to my current standard , as enevitably the sold set will arrive here for service work,... this could include making a new chanter and changing all the consumables ( bag, bellows, reeds etc.). I think this is a fair point.

Nowadays things are a little different, because I try to set my prices to reflect the real cost of living . Try this simple calculation;
I have just spent 6 months making a Full Set (ordinarily it should not take me so long but lets take out a month for Summer, holidays and visitors etc... and another month because I am still not up to full strength after suffering a Stroke last year)... so I am able to produce 3 full sets per year ( at the finnest quality I can manage). This would suggest that my selling price should be 1/3rd of a year's salary.

So, what is your yearly income ? Are you prepared to pay 1/3rd of it for a Full set ?

Living from hand to mouth, for the love of the instrument, etc.etc., is begining to wear a little thin

Geoff Wooff.

Truthfully, it doesn't/didn't take you three months to make that set. It took you 50+ years. You deserve what you want for a set.

[Lorenzo]

As far as living makers "fighting back," I'm not so sure what that means......?

...fighting the collector value, retailer's profit, middleman...getting all of the potential profit made off of one's talent and worksmanship directly, now, while living, and using it to keep living.

[geoff wooff]

So either I accept it, or creatively game the market (à la Lorenzo), or do something else.

Do you have a 15 year waiting list?

25 years actually!

Thanks for the ideas and advice Lads,
I have heard these things before and have pondered how to go forward for quite some time. Currently I am staying with the Waiting list BUT...... I have short listed it to something that might be manageable in the years left to me. The Short List comprises all the people from the original list that I know can play well... the Young ,the well educated (in Piping), those that will benefit from and make nice music , those that deserve........ so fundamentally the waiting list is Dead and Closed... forever! I'll be making sets for those I want too.



In the end it is still about the Music and the Instrument.... Hand making a set of pipes is a very personal process... they are all made to the same standard and can all sound like Mikie's... just a matter of Learning how to play them.

Prices; .... I get what I ask and nobody has quibbled for years... I have wonderfull customers but perhaps I lack the Gall to ask the price that I really need.... although many here would think it already over the top.

[An Draighean]

I see Pat Sky still has his Rowesome set FS for $20K USD.

FWIW, it sold long ago.

Hummm...they're still listed on UilleannObsession #34.

Ask Mr. Sky...

[Brazenkane]

in fact, it had two Koehler reeds. They weren't right. One was bad. The other was, say, 90%. The chanter sold to a man who lives 500 miles away in CA. He knows what he is doing. The reed that was 90% did not work in his climate! His is different than my "similarly Irish clime of SF. He was able to make it good with some sanding etc but only after a literal microscopic examination. Such is the way it is with the very best reeds!! What plays here will play neither there or even there....and vice versa.[/quote]


Again, if you got the chanter fitted with a good reed from Ben, or whomever, and it was important to recoup your investment and waited, there is no doubt the instrument would have sold for what you paid for it. K/Q instruments keep their value. In fact, until your report... I've never heard of a K/Q instrument loosing value on resale!? Odd!?! Over the years I've known everything from late 80s to 90's through until now... instruments K/Q, flat and concert alike, going for new prices.

[geoff wooff]

Sets are getting expensive. That's for sure.

K&Q and Woof sets are Ferrari sets. Not everyone can afford to "drive them." But that doesn't mean that they should be devalued so all "drivers" could afford to own one.


I do not own a Ferrari but I do have two Fiats ( who are majority share holders in Ferrari)... and one of my Fiats is one of the most fuel efficient cars currently available, with an engine that is good for half a million miles with minimal maintenance.....

My point ?... Cars are Tools for transport... Musical Instruments are Tools for Art....
Cars deprieciate..... Good Pipes don't!