Local store closure announced

[merlin6666]

11 years ago I moved to this city of Regina which is in the middle of nowhere with about 600km to bigger sized cities. I had not played much guitar for years but when I found my guitar with a popped off bridge I discovered Sawchyns Guitars a local luthier and guitar store who fixed my guitar. I found out that this was a major hub where musicians meet and all sorts of events originated from and this rekindled my interest in playing. Peter Sawchyn has built guitars and mandolins for 50 years and he took good care of my four guitars and three ukes and I also bought a uke that he built. They hosted local uke circle for many years. He is certified Martin repair shop and Guild dealer. Yesterday they announced permanent store closure in May and they only accept instruments for repair next week. They sure deserve retirement from super busy business. But this is a huge loss for the music community here and I have no idea who to turn to for luthier work now. I better get my Orpheum Jumbo in for a last setup this week.

 

[walrus]

It always sucks when local music stores close. It sounds like this one was extra special.

walrus

 

[richardp69]

Sad. like you, I live in a remote area with zero local music stores of any consequence. Nearly all my purchaes are made on line or on this forum because of that. But, I have a lot of love for the smaller family owned brick and mortar stores. There's a lot of good things that come with that. It's sad, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think you'll be seeing more and more of this over the years.

 

[ReevesRd]

It is sad. The big chain stores have put a lot of brick-and-mortar stores out of business. I'm lucky that I still have a couple of music stores in town. And only one of those seems to thrive. I support them every chance I get. Before I retired from teaching music, I would buy student guitars, strings, amps, keyboards, and sound systems from them. I use them for tech purposes and set-ups, but they don't carry the types of instruments that I want to purchase. So I must go elsewhere to locate what I want.
Luckily, I'm about two hours from Nashville and one hour from Memphis.

Support Your Local Music Store

 

[Steelman]

We have a couple of GCs in the area . . . but quite a few smaller shops. Check out Empire Guitars / Providence for cool old guitars (not all are pricey, either). There are usually a few Guilds for sale, too.

 

[Rich Cohen]

11 years ago I moved to this city of Regina which is in the middle of nowhere with about 600km to bigger sized cities. I had not played much guitar for years but when I found my guitar with a popped off bridge I discovered Sawchyns Guitars a local luthier and guitar store who fixed my guitar. I found out that this was a major hub where musicians meet and all sorts of events originated from and this rekindled my interest in playing. Peter Sawchyn has built guitars and mandolins for 50 years and he took good care of my four guitars and three ukes and I also bought a uke that he built. They hosted local uke circle for many years. He is certified Martin repair shop and Guild dealer. Yesterday they announced permanent store closure in May and they only accept instruments for repair next week. They sure deserve retirement from super busy business. But this is a huge loss for the music community here and I have no idea who to turn to for luthier work now. I better get my Orpheum Jumbo in for a last setup this week.

Swahcyns is obviously an Indian name. Can you tell us more about the owner?

 

[merlin6666]

Swahcyns is obviously an Indian name. Can you tell us more about the owner?

I don't really know much more about him than is publicly available but he is good friends with the local musicians that have grown up with him.

Meet the Members: Sawchyn Guitars — Regina's Warehouse District | The Soul of the City

Welcome to Meet the Members, our series where we profile different businesses from around the Warehouse District and chat with the folks who run them. This week we sat down with Peter Sawchyn who owns Sawchyn Guitars with his wife, Kendra Walker.

www.warehousedistrict.ca

 

[merlin6666]

They are having a big sale that may be of interest if you live within reasonable travel distance. I will take a morning off to drop off the jumbo for a setup and see if I will buy something.

CLOSE OUT SALE STARTS TODAY!!

First of all Kendra and I would like to thank everyone for the heartfelt messages and congratulations. They mean a lot to us and we love every one of you. Thanks...

Now on to business!

Starting today;

ALL Martin Guitars 20% off.

ALL Sigma, Eastman, Cordoba, Guild, Rover, instruments 30% off.

ALL DEERING Banjos 30% off.

ALL Ukuleles, Uke cases, Uke bags, Uke straps 50% 0ff

All Accessories ,straps, strings, stands etc.. 30%off.

Need a new case? we got em 30% off.

All Mandolins (except our BeaverTails) 30% off.

So.. Some deep discounts on some very high end instruments. Martin Guitars are RARELY on sale so check these out.

We will also be giving away a few great prizes to some lucky customers, another way to say THANKS! Enter to win a GUILD JUMBO JUNIOR Guitar, A very nice C.F.MARTIN TOTE with lots of swag inside, and a collectable?? Sawchyn Shirt. Three chances to win!! Stop in , take advantage of these great prices, Kendra says she's not taking anything home!!

 

[chazmo]

Merlin, I'm really sorry to hear about your local store closing. Bummer. But, as you said, they deserve their retirement (I'm kind of sensitive to that these days ) and running mom and pop retail of any kind these days is very hard, especially music stores where you have to have lots of inventory and skilled staff. Best wishes.

 

[Bernie]

Here too (Western Europe), many shops have been closing down, not so much because of big chain stores, as we haven't much around, but more because of online stores ; smaller shops doing repairs are doing okay still, (or were before covid 19) as many of those online stores are selling instruments that are not properly set up I've been told... The others I don't regret so much, as guitars were being sold 19% to 30% more !!, (strings selling for about up to twice as much at the time too). Actually I even kind of regret those days as now, prices have become about the same everywhere, and on the upper side of the scale, of course (3 months + wages for a Martin D-28 or 3 months -, for a Guild D-40 Traditional - it used to be more like 2, 8 years ago -)...

But the shop you've been telling of seems quite different. No one to carry on the work and music facilities, too bad. . Hope someone could buy back the shop and keep it alive then...

 

[kitniyatran]

I'm familiar with the name Sawchyn from the mandolin s being mentioned on Mandolin Cafe, so it's apparent they were an excellent customer service outfit

 

[Canard]

Sad. One hopes someone will step in to fill the void.

In the British Columbia lower mainland there is an embarrassment of good luthiers, almost too many.

Talk to Mr. Swahcyns. If he is not being reno/devel-evicted from his shop, he might be able to reach out to the community here to see if someone is interested in taking things over.

It is very, very costly to live here. Housing prices are insane.

A young luthier might be tempted.

But then .... we don't really have winter ... do we? I mean ... um ... like not real winter. The rest of Canada laughs at our expense when we panic at a snowflake on the road.

 

[merlin6666]

Sad. One hopes someone will step in to fill the void.

In the British Columbia lower mainland there is an embarrassment of good luthiers, almost too many.

Talk to Mr. Swahcyns. If he is not being reno/devel-evicted from his shop, he might be able to reach out to the community here to see if someone is interested in taking things over.

It is very, very costly to live here. Housing prices are insane.

A young luthier might be tempted.

But then .... we don't really have winter ... do we? I mean ... um ... like not real winter. The rest of Canada laughs at our expense when we panic at a snowflake on the road.

Thanks, the winters here are brutal and this may be a reason that they didn't find an outsider to take over business. I had hoped that he might find an apprentice to take over and though he always had well known musicians as staff I think they were in it for the short term to get through rough spots in their careers. I will ask him if he had networked and advertised to sell, but if he did it was not on my radar. Yeah young luthier from BC would have been great.

 

[merlin6666]

I dropped off my guitar and picked up a set of strings. Lo and behold there was a news crew in the store and I did not have much opportunity to chat. I tried to stay out of the way but they got me at around 1:38 in the background. Also a few Guilds still hanging. Apparently all Martins went on the first day of sale.

 

[merlin6666]

I got my Orpheum Jumbo set up and cleaned and she is in top shape. Picked up a few small items. But I am in Germany right now and can't pick up the Guild green neon display, but maybe someone here is interested

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0zngbdo9YjJvr4mBdMGJZidBqjDBQ3AxbR1LZgXQRzW2fE1nhWaNCAbCmArpnwcwal&id=100057256158316&sfnsn=scwspmo&mibextid=VhDh1V

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0zngbdo9YjJvr4mBdMGJZidBqjDBQ3AxbR1LZgXQRzW2fE1nhWaNCAbCmArpnwcwal&id=100057256158316&sfnsn=scwspmo&mibextid=6aamW6

 

[SFIV1967]

But I am in Germany right now and can't pick up the Guild green neon display, but maybe someone here is interested

And I guess that is $100 Canadian, not US! So that is about US $75 only!

They are US $149 at Guild:

Guild Neon Sign | Guild Guitars

The Guild Neon sign fits standard American outlets and glows green when turned on. Comes with window pads and chain for hanging.

shop.guildguitars.com

Ralf

 

[merlin6666]

They are $149 at Guild:

Guild Neon Sign | Guild Guitars

The Guild Neon sign fits standard American outlets and glows green when turned on. Comes with window pads and chain for hanging.

shop.guildguitars.com

Ralf

Thanks for posting the pic. These are Canadian $ so about $74US and I think he's open to negotiation.

 

[OlyDave]

A sad story. I'm going to lose my excellent guitar tech soon. Brady is almost 80 and has been setting up and repairing guitars for almost 50 years. He's ready to hang it up soon.

 

[ReevesRd]

A sad story.

Sorry, Dave. It's hard to lose a tech that you trust and will do quality work. Welcome to LTG! There are a lot of great people here.