super expensive vintage Gibson replica parts (tuners, stud bolts, knobs, etc.)

[dai h.]

anyone seen these before? Stumbled on this:

http://www.dmc-parts.com/english/index.htm

nice looking but holy expensive!

[spud1950]

Had to get on the currency converter.$592.00 for six tuners or two pickup rings! $185.00 for a set of four knobs! Holy crap! Yeah,pretty insane. I don't get it. The only market I could see for these are the owners of the more valuable vintage Gibsons who may need a replacement part that they can't find an original of and are such fanatics that if they must buy a new part,it has to be an exact reproduction. That would seem to be a very limited market,to say the least. I would love to know how much of this stuff actually sells.I checked the web site of the American dealer listed on the DMC site and his prices are actually a slight bit higher!

[dai h.]

does seem insane but looking at the amp parts market for instance, people will pay 20 bucks for an old stock Philips mustard polyester film capacitor and so on, so there are some things that people will pay lots of money for. I guess things that are really high quality or really authentic (exact old stock parts) can command high prices.

on the japanese version of that site, re: the gtrs. these parts are bought for, according to their surveys/feedback, most bought parts for their Heritage series guitars:

http://www.dmc-parts.com/japanese/research/index.htm

while I personally wouldn't buy those parts (unless I won the lottery or something) I could kind of see that some people would. Vintage Gibsons, Fenders, etc. are the stuff of legend, prices for Les Pauls can be astronomical, etc. so maybe it's not quite so unimaginable especially if the quality is there.

[jrfrond]

Love their "Plice List" (sic)!

[dai h.]

right, lol. BALTOLINI, etc. Basically there is no exact 'L' or 'R' sound (there is sort of but not exact), so in many cases Japanese seem to confuse the two.

[David Schwab]

The name is funny because if they were "dead mint" they would look like new, not old and tarnished!

$183.16 for top hat knobs? What's that saying about separating a fool and his money?

[jrfrond]

And in reality folks, it is all most likely just relic'ed Gotoh hardware.

[dai h.]

they claim they have their own factory, have done research into the manufacturing and materials. They have some pics of what looks like some processes (computer-aided measuring of dimensions? and what do you call that? Injection molds? machine tools, etc.). Is there anything that looks fishy? (I can't tell one way or the other. It all looks pretty fancy to me.)

http://www.dmc-parts.com/english/factory/index.htm

[David Schwab]

they claim they have their own factory, have done research into the manufacturing and materials. They have some pics of what looks like some processes (computer-aided measuring of dimensions? and what do you call that? Injection molds? machine tools, etc.). Is there anything that looks fishy? (I can't tell one way or the other. It all looks pretty fancy to me.)

http://www.dmc-parts.com/english/factory/index.htm

They do show the knobs with no paint, so maybe they have their own parts made... and they still aren't worth the money. Why would they be? There is nothing so much better about the parts that makes them worth that price.

Even if they are exact vintage repros, that doesn't mean the vintage stuff was better.

Unless you are trying to restore a very valuable vintage axe, I don't see the point.

[Rich Rice]

Doesn't do much for me. A copy is a copy, at whatever price.

[dai h.]

I think most people are concerned with quality over whether something is a copy or not. Copy PAFs, copy strats, copy marshall OTs, copy Tube Screamers, copy tweed amps, and so on do sell don't they?

[Rich Rice]

I think most people are concerned with quality over whether something is a copy or not. Copy PAFs, copy strats, copy marshall OTs, copy Tube Screamers, copy tweed amps, and so on do sell don't they?

Yes, they sell, but the point here is that sometimes somebody gets greedy and loses credibility in the process. I'll pay premium prices for premium components, tools, etc., but there is always somebody trying financially molest the public.. smoke and mirrors...

[dai h.]

I wouldn't disagree with such a point but that isn't the point that you made and actually someone else's.

[jrfrond]

they claim they have their own factory, have done research into the manufacturing and materials. They have some pics of what looks like some processes (computer-aided measuring of dimensions? and what do you call that? Injection molds? machine tools, etc.). Is there anything that looks fishy? (I can't tell one way or the other. It all looks pretty fancy to me.)

http://www.dmc-parts.com/english/factory/index.htm

Given the small niche and price of these parts, I am reluctant to believe that anyone, particularly an Asian company, tooled up to produce the parts.

I deal with Asian importing as related to musical instrument hardware. There are MANY companies that CLAIM they have "their own" factories, when in fact, they are really just BROKERS who spec the parts and have them produced by smaller production shops. In any case, no matter how good this stuff might LOOK, it is STILL not original, so to pay THOSE prices is just WAYYYYY off-base!

[dai h.]

I don't know and that is why I asked. It was my understanding that Japan makes high quality machine tools (Toshiba, Mazac, whatever), so I thought maybe (since an apparently high potential for technology exists) that there would be someone applying that technology but like I said I don't know enough to discern if that would be the case or not, hence the question.

As for the prices personally I sure wouldn't pay 180 bucks for some plastic knobs, but we both live in places where if someone wants to, they can. Someone wants to buy a tube screamer copy with a fancy paint job for stupid money, they can, and so on.