fronobulax
Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 24,805
- Reaction score
- 8,932
- Location
- Central Virginia, USA
- Guild Total
- 5
Just for the record when I specifically asked what the production numbers were at LMG 2010 I was told that they were confidential/proprietary. So unless someone can vouch for a number as being direct from Fender, understand that any production numbers are guesses.devellis said:
I figure the plant operates 5 days a week for 50 weeks of the year, as a SWAG. That's 250 work days. My personal guess from LMG 2010 is that the output was maybe 5-10 per day. We were there for most of the day and I never saw one completed. So my high end estimate is 2500/year.
Now the Fender web site lists over 603 dealers. So if the production SWAG is right and the production is split evenly, that's about four New Hartford Guilds per dealer per year. If I am counting models correctly there are potentially 18 different models to stock. Actually 8 is more realistic if the GSR and DTAR versions are counted with the "stock" version, but even that says that it is unrealistic to expect every dealer to have every model in stock. Furthermore since the SWAG is per year it is easy to imagine a dealer getting one Guild every three months so there might not ever be more than one in stock.
If I were allocating production I would first ship to dealers who had a customer who had already put money down on the guitar and only when that backlog had eased would I start shipping to dealers who were buying "on speculation" just to have something to display and demo.
I hear general whining about Fender not doing enough for the brand and I won't address that. But the numbers do speak to the complaints about no Guilds to compare and no Guilds locally. And what they say to me is that production has to go up and the number of dealers has to go down if an average dealer is to have multiple specimens of the same model. If the number of dealers goes down then the none locally complaints will get louder. And we know all dealers are not created equal and for every Union or Elderly or Streetsounds or other flagship dealer that gets a bigger allotment, some other dealer is going to be left wanting.
Fender is aware of this. They discussed increasing production at LMG 2010 and alluded to strategies to weed and rebuild the dealer network. So it seems to me that what is really lacking here is patience. Any way you look at it, it will take time to get all Guilds into all stores. GASsing for a NH Guild does not lend itself to patience.
