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Not necessarily a question, but wanted to see how others feel about and deal with inexpensive instruments and customers. I've had to deal with my share of the "Costco special" acoustic guitars over the years where the bridges are glued right on top of thick epoxy finish and of course, peel up often ripping a few layers of the plywood laminate from the top. I try to talk people out of the repairs as the cost equals or exceeds the new purchase price. Despite that, there's often folks that just want it fixed for "sentimental" reasons.

In addition to repairs, I also build acoustic guitars and mandolins. I had a customer in my shop yesterday that brings me lots of high end vintage guitars to work on. He bought one of my small body L-OO sized guitars this summer and loves it. A good guy and good customer. However, he's always buying and selling guitars. He told me about a builder in China, Hsienmo Guitars. They are building vintage Martin style guitars with German spruce, and Red spruce tops, real pearl inlays etc. Their D18 style offering retails at $1099USD. My customer says he's going to buy one to have a travel guitar for festivals, etc. My customer sent me this YouTube link of reviews of some of the guitars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSv8aCymmJM They seem to look and sound nice. It's frustrating to me as I can barely buy the materials at the prices they are selling guitars at. This business is hard enough to make a living at. The exploitation of labor and people's "Walmart" expectations of price are making it even harder.

Anyway, I just needed to vent. Thanks for reading if you got this far.