Clearly I'm tardy to this party discussion, but I just have to comment that I would have rejected it too. Wait six months in anticipation for a $2500 guitar (guess price), I would have been pretty let down too. Someone buys in your shop they see that flaw, and I do call that a flaw even if being purely cosmetic as it's just too obvious to ignore, and they either accept it or negotiate for a price consideration, but waiting ...AHH! Six months suggest that Eastman had no back stock and had to add that into their making mix. That is kinda their flagship acoustic right, so I'm surprised that QC didn't squelch that early on like at wood selection. I own an Eastman T58V electric hollowbody and am quite happy with it, great tone and look. Being a solid wood hand carved archtop with a vintage finish is quite different from high gloss nitrocellulose and does evince a certain roughness or unevenness that's acceptable as 'aged'. But having said that ... I still see minor 'flaws' in the making that while don't affect playabillity are none the less curious to me. Well I hope your customer is happy anyway, oh - did he get his replacement yet I wonder?

It's a beauty spot, I bet your soppy customer wouldn't have turned down Cindy Crawford....

I'd take the guitar over her at this point.

oh ! i was thinking the same. Hi five !

cindy crawford? eww yuk,shes ugly as fuck.

Actually, good comparison, Cindy was actually rejected at several agencies when she was young because of her beauty mark! Call the guitar Cindy!!!

@@bigmike9527 Different folks, different strokes I get that. But seriously, I can't imagine any red-blooded man would of kicked her out of bed in her prime...

TBH the irony here is that some of the most overpriced and hyped guitars are the bashed and battered ones Fender et al have realised they can dupe idiots out of tens of thousands to buy - so, yeah for a substantial chunk of the market looks do matter (although not necessarily good looks) - And you'll note that brands know that bright pretty colours attract people on a low or no budget. Obvious example here is that the AZ premiums tend to look pretty (or at least stand out more) than the finishes on the AZ prestige. But there's an obvious quality difference between them that makes the prestige the better instrument. The prestige is the better guitar to play. But Ibanez know that people will buy the premium and rationalise that the colour is nicer - people who buy cheaper things need to kid themselves they have a better deal than the expensive one. Same as people who buy an expensive item need to make sure that buyers remorse doesn't kick in - so they need to know it's better than the budget model. A blemish is going to stick out more. You often see people commenting on this perhaps not realising that the garish bright finish is there because it's being sold on looks. Even Vai, who has a lot of garish Jems has tended to find one that he really likes to play and it's a plain white - that should tell you that even the most egocentric, showman virtuoso guitarist cares about playability over looks. But most Jems are sold to people who care about the looks - and the audience is wowed when Vai does one song with some fancy pants garish Jem model. The other side of the coin is how much you're paying. The trouble is making a guitar in some parts of the world is significantly cheaper because Cort et al can get away with mistreating staff and those staff don't cost as much. But the problem is the difference in resulting price doesn't reflect the difference in quality. i.e The difference between, say, a USA select Charvel or a USA made PRS and the Mexican Charvel or Cort made PRS SE isn't several hundred percent. Maybe the expensive ones are 10-25% better but simple economics means to get a 25% improvement you need to pay 5x more. But once someone is paying more they expect it to be perfect and because how much money you have isn't reflective of how good a guitarist you are, for a significant number of people paying a lot of money for a guitar they only really have looks to go on. They don't need a £3k+ guitar or a £10k guitar, but they have the money for one and the desire so they buy it and they want it to look perfect. Same as 99.999% of the people buying high performance sport cars will never explore or experience the performance of the car but they'll be able to look at the paint work and the trim - and the more they pay the more they'll expect perfection. Whereas the highly skilled guitar player would probably pick a guitar blindfolded (and I'm not talking about those buffoons on Andertons wearing blindfolds) but there aren't many highly skilled guitar players. I mean you wouldn't set up a business selling musical instruments to highly skilled players. When you set up a business selling instruments primarily you're going to get people who can't play at all and want to learn (and, often as not mum or dad are buying something and are more concerned that it doesn't cost them much because they expect Johnny or Sally to be wanting a skateboard in 2 months time and they'll never touch the guitar again) or very average guitar players with money to waste - and these people are the ones you can oversell a guitar that's bashed or got a brand name on it. The rest are average guitar players who buy an instrument based on their budget - they'll have some idea of how well an instrument feels but their playing really won't be good enough to make it worth paying £5k rather than £500 even if they do. The number of really skilled guitar players walking into your shop is going to be an insignificant percentage - not enough to form a business around. Hence why you have to fret about how the guitar looks. You ask but most people strum a few chords and do a few cliched pentatonic riffs they can't play their guitar so yeah they're looking at it. I don't know how many signature models Guthrie Govan has sold but the only ones being played to any extent are his - with a couple of exceptions. There are a few Jem players who can bash out decent copies of Vai songs but the vast majority of Jem owners may as well have bought a GRG model ibanez in terms of playability and their level - and a more significant number are the 'collectors' people who buy guitars because they think they have value as objects. Lastly, of course, in the modern day it's become pretty difficult to make a guitar that sucks. In the 80s if someone had a les paul copy or a cheap guitar they were absolutely useless instruments. Unplayable. Now it's harder to find a instrument that you can't play because of the way its manufactured. Mass produced guitars in the 21st century are light years ahead of the best instruments from 50 years ago. It's the same thing that the average people in the UK now live better than the king did in the middle ages. When it comes to the sound they make there's a bigger difference still although for electrics that are put through amps or an amp modeller and a lot of effects it becomes a bit moot. That means an even bigger proportion of your potential customer base has no reason to spend more - but it also means if they are convinced to spend more they are going to be more critical - as I say to avoid buyer's remorse - especially if he spent £2k when there's an £800 guitar that's more or less the same spec and plays more or less exactly the same - but the reality is the difference in price is simply because the only person who cares about Indonesian and Korean workers is Tom Morello. The bulk of your extra money isn't going towards making the guitar better - it's just a family in the USA or UK or Japan need to be paid more - but, yes, to make that worthwhile they will spend a bit of time and effort to make the instrument better, albeit mostly what they are doing is selling expensive guitars to wealthy people and how they look and the brand etc is more important than how they play. You look at PRS video where Paul gives one of his guitars to Lee Anderton and it's as meaningful as if Paul had handed his guitar to a chimpanzee. Lee can't play guitar. And Lee is only interested in his Les Pauls - sold entirely on his feelings. So Paul hands him a great crafted instrument (for free) and Lee is nonplussed. Well Lee is closer to your average guy who is buying a really expensive guitar than, say, Guthrie Govan is. It's mostly people who can't play instruments that buy them.

Yeah, Bravo Pete.

@Sylvester McArthur You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

LOL more though tha t Elaine realised George got it on the cheap as a result of the red dot

As the satisfied owner of an Eastman, Gibson is falling rapidly behind the curve when it comes to pricing and product quality. While manufacturers are better off going up than down, data shows that, on average, 86% of consumers are willing to pay more "if" excellent products are accompanied by great customer experience. However, one should be careful not to charge too high a price as it will turn potential buyers away. Eastman is offering products with significantly better quality, for considerably less, hence value. Gibson's current focus is on branding and making the purchasing journey more enjoyable. The company firmly believes that customers will also be willing to pay for that experience. Unfortunately, by rehashing the same product (with well known design issues) simply based on "pride of ownership," creates another generation of dissatisfied customers who will vote with their wallet, as other have done in the past.

Nah, I'd have lived with that, slight flaw. Would this flaw have been produced out of Gibson, Montana? Guild? Nevertheless, I'd never buy a guitar, even a perfect guitar from a CCP Pariaha, communist country. Good analysis, bad politics.

@@Calatriste54 Gibson has had it's fair share of selling over priced junk at times in history, like when they couldn't source rosewood and started with the baked maple fingerboard to look like rosewood...um if I wanted a maple fingerboard I would buy a maple fingerboard...

Also an identifing mark if it were stolen etc

This defect area will likely be stronger than not (NPI).

That's exactly what I said . Because that's exactly where the button's supposed to be.

That is a good point. about him not wanting a blemish that can be made fun of for being a chinese made guitar. But unlike Japanese automobiles that had no precedent. Most chinese made guitars are garbage man. I just retu8rned an all solid mahogany wood fender paramount that is raved about online. po-220e. And sure it did sound decent. But the frets needed leveling out the box and the whole thing had jagged edges everywhere, even the body was cutting into my arm. Tha action was at 6/64ths, but still just brutal to play compared to my old Martin DX1 with same action so I returned it. It even smelled like toxic glue, not the nice spanish cedar in my martin. And I'm so shell shocked I'm not ordering anything from china without taking a fret rocker and straight edge to it. The Fender even smelled like toxic chemicals. But again, the guitars get nothing but good reviews from reviewers and commenters online. But I feel duped and feel like I should of known better. Disillusioned with the whole industry so when someone tells me to buy a chinese made yamaha or eastman. I think their either industry shills or insane.

Glad to hear you say that. I keep hearing what great value Eastmans are, and certainly they are handsome instruments, but I've never been excited by their sound. There's a guy who has an Eastman at an open mic that I go to, and every time he gets up to play, I think, That's a good looking guitar. Then, when he strums it, I think the same thing: That's a good looking guitar.

I guess it depends on point of view. I bought both an Eastman E40OM for the overtones. The overtones are so prominent that the tuner has trouble differentiating, but love those overtones sounding like a symphony.

@@VikingPadre I'm not sure if this is what you were hearing but some Eastmans have the strings so low that they fret out when strummed hard, which is typical at open mic situations. For open mics they need a bluegrass settup. With low strings, play them gently in a quiet setting and they just sing.

😂.

Indeed. An interesting dilemma. I can totally understand why someone would consider it "not right", as did the Director of Eastman. We all loved it so much we just didnt consider the "other view". Never mind. The customer will however get a guitar that they consider to be right for them.

Don't sit on the fence on this Rich. Tell me what you really think. lol. Appreciate your feedback - thank you.

I should have also mentioned that the guitar is drop dead gorgeous besides the unfortunate blemish and it sounds positively glorious. @@RichardsGuitarshop

I don’t agree with you at all. Since when is wood supposed to have no character? It’s where a branch grew. Jeez.

@@richfiryn ahhhhh balance restored!

That's not a blemish to me. if you buy a computer monitor, 5 or less dead pixels is acceptable. You buy a car, there are already swirl marks up the ying yang. etc etc.