I have two friends that bought DCE-5's, both from Guild forum members. They both love the guitars. They're a tad bit on the heavy side, but theyt sound great and have a nice electronics package.
I think that price is about right.
That's interesting, I always remembered that one as being the one that surprised me that it seemed to have an unusually high percentage of "underwhelmed" owners, way back during my first 2 or 3 years here, and I think the complaint was about
unplugged tone for a couple of 'em.
I'm thinking it was like 3 out of 5.
It made me wonder if possibly the issue was with the arched rosewood back, and extremely unusual combo for Guild and I think the only time they ever offered it in a dreadnought.
Maybe it's a combination with a very narrow appeal, and maybe why they didn't last very long
Now I wonder if your friends got theirs from the guys who weren't really in love with 'em?
:biggrin-new:
Since then, in any case, including your feedback, and according to my informal mental tally, it seems to be about 5 out of 7
liking their DCE-5's now, and still one "indifferent".
But if it really is a narrow range of sonic appeal, it could be part of why they don't seem to be valued the way fuman mentions, and I agree I think $900.00 would be a fair price for one in good nick.
I'm not a dreadnaught guy really, but I've always liked the 90s Westerly-made dreadnaughts. I've noticed used prices for Guilds are up sharply lately, but the prices for Guild dreadnaughts are still pretty low. I routinely see DCE-5s for $800-950. I think these are great guitars and wonder why the prices don't seem to be keeping up with their Jumbo/GF contemporaries. Thoughts?
After all, list price in last year of production as $1799.00, meaning street price was probably around 1200-1300, so $900 means it's holding its value pretty well for a Guild.
From another perspective, what's the Vintage Guitar Blue Book say?
If sellers are taking their cue from that, it could simply be that all that is, is a recap of average selling prices for a period of time and if only one or 2 sold then that's all they've got to go by.
Something else occurred to me, you mentioned "GF"'s:
Those carry a double whammy of Gruhn/ Walker design DNA combined with the fact you
can't buy a new
true F40 from Guild right now; Oxnard's F-40 is actually a 17" lower bout that Westerly called the
F48.
It seems like we saw the same thing with all the Guild models when they weren't being made in Oxnard "yet", especially the D55, the F50, and the F512;
Prices spiked in the used market and settled again when new production became available.
We see the same thing going on with F30's right now.
So maybe that's part of the "imbalance"?