I was playing my newly acquired 2008 CV50s p bass last night and it got me thinking about this.
That bass feels and plays so well, that if it were in a store listed around the $700-$900 mark I wouldn’t be surprised. But, when it was new (if memory serves correctly) these retailed for about $350. Adjust that for inflation, and it’s equivalent to about $493 today. So, about the same as a new CV still costs.
I know I am not alone in believing the CVs play above their price tag, and are comparable to the MIM Fenders at the very least. I also know that I am not alone in thinking that the level of quality of the CVs declined slightly when they moved production to Indonesia.
To me that paints the picture that the company was able to create a product that was of high quality, but low input cost. They priced it accordingly, and in doing so, pulled back the curtain on themselves regarding their other products. I.e. their higher priced, similar quality, products are overpriced. I am not saying that MIM or MIA Fenders are necessarily making a higher profit margin, rather only that they could produce instruments of the same quality for lesser input costs by changing elements of production.
The other side of this coin is that once the company realized the tremendous value they were offering, in such a way that it was undercutting themselves, they reduced the value to the consumer, presumably to increase the marginal profit. I.E. moved production to a less expensive place, reduced the time and materials involved, but kept the price the same.
So, as I see it, there are two ways to look at this. Either the low cost/high quality product was underpriced to begin with, AND/OR the higher cost/comparable quality product is overpriced. It’s simply a matter of perspective. Neither is necessary correct, and both can be true simultaneously.
