Why a lot are selling flutes and few are buying....

Irish Flute
1

This is sort of the big elephant in the room that nobody seems to want to talk about here - so I’ll start.

Am sure that all of the makers who read this forum are somewhat troubled by the number of flutes people are trying to offload here, on eBay and elsewhere. And also noticing that there are few buyers.

I personally am wondering if I’ll have any work in 2011 and beyond if the economy further deteriorates (I have enough of a queue to keep me busy until about February or March). I’ve actually been attracted to the idea of having no queue so that I can start building of an inventory of finished instruments, including some new ideas I’ve wanted to try (such as a low G and low D flute, an octave below our normal ones), and I am well stocked for that eventuality. But what if nobody buys them? This has never been the case in previous recessions otherwise I’d have a big pile of flutes. But this time feels a little different. More like a Depression than a Recession.

Here is an interesting animation of unemployment rates in the US over time - bad economic news:
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

The thing to remember is that when 20% are unemployed (multiply the “official” funged numbers by approx 2X to get the accurate number), the other 80% still have a cash flow, some of it very good. Whether it is enough to keep us flute makers employed is open to question. With bad economic times survival modes kick in after people keep hearing about how things are collapsing, even if their own personal cash flows are very good and not in any danger of stopping. California gets an especially bad wrap as its state’s budget is in a death spiral, foreclosures are the worst in the nation etc. But there are still many industries thriving down there and pockets of economic vitality. Otherwise we wouldn’t have so many new movies to ‘look forward to’ this fall, or the multitude of new iPhone apps!

Nobody needs a flute to survive frankly. But us flute makers still need to make and sell them to keep our roofs over our heads. I guess I am trying to stimulate a certain segment of the economy here. So if you are well stocked with money and are well employed, thinking of upgrading your flute, or going from whistle to flute, be thinking of us soon to be underemployed flute makers.

2

My secret, perverted hope is that no one will be able to afford commercial music or “delivered entertainment” of any kind. Then they’ll have to resort to (gasp) entertaining themselves. Some may even pick up an instrument or two.

Stated differently, I’m hoping for an inverse dynamic — as the economy worsens, homemade music-making (and the providers of needed instruments) flourishes. Naive, huh? :blush:

3

Oh, and if you have some dosh and believe a recovery is coming. this IS the time to buy stuff: homes, stocks, cars, instruments…you name it.

I’m tempted to buy up every sorry Fender and Gibson guitar on my local Craigs List, and store them for a year or two. It could be the opportunity of a lifetime.

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? :smiling_imp:

4

I’m an accountant. I don’t think a recovery is coming. Cheerful lot, us accountants.

5

The Tipple Flute Factory (ha, ha) has been forced to work a reduced work week because of the recession, but luckily I haven’t been forced to layoff any good workers, including my wife, who still cooks for me on occasion. I think that a lot of it has to do with changes in the market. There for a few years, with “Riverdance” and “Titanic” in people’s consciousness, there was a surge in interest in Celtic music in general. A lot of people seeing these shows and listening to the low whistle played on “Titanic” said to themselves, “I think that I would like to play the low whistle or Irish flute”. With time, though, a lot of this enthusiasm has died down and leveled off to the current level. The market has also changed with regard to availability, in my case, of low cost flutes for sale on ebay. There are now so many Irish flutes for sale on ebay that my one ad gets lost in the maze of flutes, and I rarely make an ebay sale. The one bright spot on my sales worksheet is international sales. In addition to the English-speaking countries that you would guess might be interested in Irish flutes, in the last month or so I have sold flutes to Italy, France, the Czech Republic, and Malaysia, the last two countries new ones for me. I attribute these sales to internet buzz, which is strangely different from the hum and buzz on my old AM radio trying to bring in a distant station.

6

put this in your profile.

7

In the ocarina community we’ve seen this downturn hit hard. Sales are up and purchases are down. A few makers have even shut down, one a very well respected and admired one: MapAram. Once they announced they are no longer able to sustain the demand because of rising costs and diminishing profits, a surge of orders came in from the community. We knew that it would be the last chance to order before the doors close.

Back to flutes; I’ve been doing all I can despite being unemployed to afford new instruments. I have 2 fifes (one of which is a custom) and a brand new Irish Flute coming in the mail. That Sweetheart one at the Irish Flute Store someone nabbed before me, so I had to go find a brand new one I liked XD.

Economic downturn and unemployment cause depression, and one of the best remedies to depression is playing a lovely instrument.

I’m currently in the market for a good High D whistle that contains no plastic.

8

I think one of the reasons people aren’t buying is because the sellers haven’t lowered their prices enough, similar to the housing market. We all want to think that our flutes have maintained a value near the new sales price, but, like equity in homes and home values, it’s market-based and fluctuates based on the economy. Could also be true of flute maker prices as well.

9

Casey,
If you could produce a flute that didn’t require practice - I think you’d have something.

10

I tend to agree with the comment above about a temporary “drop” in pricing to stimulate sales, however, having been in sales, its pounded in your head that that’s the worst thing to do, you’ll “cheapen” the image of your product, and that you need to source out the truly “qualified” buyers, and as someone said, they are out there, so there may be some undiscovered marketing tactics for the makers out there. . So I don’t blame the sellers for holding ground on price. But adding incentives, i.e. recently some sellers here are offering “payment plans”, or throwing in some accessories or weekend vacation at your Mediterranean Villa, could help :slight_smile: I would give my right arm for a flute upgrade right now, but with 2 kids in college and a third finishing highschool, and trying to make up for previous periods of unemployment, well…

11

Generally, instruments appreciate in value over time. Look at Cremonese Violins. Today, only hedge funds can afford Strads when they come up for sale.

The danger of lowering prices is that this might start a race to the bottom. A deflationary spiral. Nobody wants to break that ice - including me!

I saw all of this mess coming soon after Bush was elected, and monitored it through alternative financial sites such as SafeHaven.com and FinancialSense.com . They were screaming loudly about the housing/credit bubble as early as 2003-2004 and their current screams are all about the impending collapse of fiat currencies (we had a taste of this with Zimbabwe and Argentina, and earlier, Weimar Germany), especially the highly over-leveraged dollar. They were spot-on as far as predicting the housing, credit and banking disasters.

From a flute making standpoint I responded not by lowering my prices, but by offering a flute model in a lower price range (the Folk Flute) along with my more expensive flutes so that all bases were covered. I studied all of my different flute making activities in detail, and adjusted prices accordingly. I found that making my least expensive flutes (which are the most in demand) in batches gave me the best hourly wage. On the other hand, making and fitting keys gave me my worst hourly wage. The irony is that key making and fitting requires (at least for me) my highest levels of skill and concentration - yet it was paying me the worst! So I adjusted my per key prices upwards and a number of other makers were ‘outraged’ and contacted me asking why I would charge so much. But gradually their prices fell into line.

When times are good I invest in my business by laying in a multi-year supply of wood and other materials, so that I don’t have that overhead to consider when times are lean. This is actually contrary to current trends, especially among some guitar makers, according to my wood supplier (Gilmer Wood in Portland OR). He said that more and more the makers are sending their clients to him to pick out the wood for their guitars, rather than laying in a supply of wood! I can’t imagine how this would work well - as the wood always needs additional time for adjustment and drying and the maker’s eye determines if the wood is suitable or not. It wouldn’t work with flutes. Blackwood these days is riddled with checks sometimes, as a result of agricultural burning which heats up the trees and cracks the wood while still on the stump. Its hard for even me to find these flaws sometimes - and so much wood gets turned all the way to completion and that is when I notice the hairline cracks and that flute part gets tossed into the firewood bin. I like Mopane since its a terrific flute wood and I seldom encounter such fatal flaws at this stage. Same with Boxwood. Its better that I purchase wood in quantity, and make flutes from the best of it. I’m getting tired of blackwood, and may simply stop using it some day.

I am still in the fortunate position of having orders come in at the same rate or faster than I can make them, so it doesn’t make any sense for me to lower my prices. I also don’t think that lowering the prices by 10 or 20% would make much of a difference and heat up the market, based on what I am observing online. This hasn’t worked for houses. So for me at this point the only effect of lowering my prices would be to work just as hard or harder and earn less. I am working hard enough! Offering a new, yet lower cost item or simply something the market hasn’t seen before but needs is what I will do after I run out of orders, and and after I have put up a 3+ month inventory of completed instruments ready to sell. I’ve been planning to do this since the warning signs first appeared yet my queue has remained full!

Housing is also an inaccurate model compared with flute making. Houses are big ticket items that people bought, usually on credit. Then when these appreciated in price, the difference was borrowed off the houses and this credit used to afford unsustainable lifestyles (one element of that was buying musical instruments and other toys). This was expected to continue and people were shocked when their homes all of a sudden started collapsing in value and they could no longer borrow off of them. And that they had allowed their mortgage payments to get so extreme in the process. Now we have an abundance of underwater mortgages where people owe more than their houses are worth, as well as foreclosures.

You can’t really buy an instrument and then borrow off of its appreciating value (unless you are a hedge fund and the instrument happens to be a Strad violin!). You might be able to sell it for more than you paid, especially if the maker hasn’t been around for a few decades and there is still the demand and the instrument is in good shape, and is still one that people want to play. A better model instead of houses would be cars perhaps. There is some depreciation off the lot at first. But the ones that are well made, well designed, are well cared for eventually become classic do appreciate.

It will be a different matter if our currencies collapse, Weimar-style or Zimbabwe-style. There is the apocryphal story about the woman with a wheel barrel load of Weimar currency totaling several thousands of German Marks on her way to the market to buy a loaf of bread. She got robbed. They took the wheel barrel. Real Things will become our currency and I’ll be exchanging flutes for sacks of rice and beans!

Casey

12

Interesting stuff here already but I have a bit to add that is related. With the economic downturn we see a lot of people who thought they would try playing music selling off instruments that were never really learned. Hence the abundance of flutes on ebay people thought it seemed like a good idea to start playing music. Yet probably a lot of these people didn’t have the patience or skill to make much progress and the instrument was left sitting around. Then the time came when there was a choice to be made; either continue trying to play and possibly paying a teacher to do so or feed themselves or their family when the future of their employment looked bleak. Well the choice there is a fairly obvious one and so we see flutes popping up for sale. Yet we also have the dedicated players who own multiple flutes and when cash became tight they had to pick what to keep and what to sell. Now, not surprisingly your orders are slowing down Casey, but how many people who have ordered, ordered flutes that just ended up sitting around not being used? Well we might not be able so say for certain but there is surely some percentage of flutes that end up in a closet or on a shelf instead of being played and now a lot of them are for sale. With the economic downturn there are probably less of these orders. Of course we all need to make a living and less people buying flutes certainly means it will be harder for makers to make a living and I am not overlooking this at all when I say my next bit. Is it all that bad that the only people buying flutes are the dedicated players? Obviously there is no simple answer to this.

My flute teacher likes to say that ‘recessions are great for music.’ Now I think in the next few years we will see a lot more people playing great music now IMO the last decade or so hasn’t seen many great musicians starting up in the trad music scene. Most of the best trad bands around today either got their start in the 90s or in the last year or so. The last decade in Ireland has seen a continuity of the boom times brought on by the Celtic Tiger. Well most of the trad bands are coming out of Ireland. The bands that got their start in the 90s were people who grew up in the 80s which was a very bad time for the Irish economy. Thus instead of having loads of money to spend on unimportant things people who really loved the music stuck to it and did what they could to afford to pay for their instruments. Now we are heading into similar times when parents can’t afford to force their kids to take music lessons because they don’t have the money and the kids who end up doing it are doing it because they really want to and also because their parents can afford it or they didn’t stop begging them and the parents did what they could to make that happen. This becomes a bit of a paradox for the teachers who end up with less more dedicated students instead of a bunch of students who don’t want to learn. Making their job easier in a sense but also lowering their income.

So we still have the dedicated players who are sticking to it and people who are trying to or do play music professionally will probably put investing in an expensive instrument above other things when it is more likely that this instrument will end up making them money in the long run. Now this is a place I am at myself; my final year of college is approaching and I know that after this my parents will not be supporting me any more. I have made a decent amount of money in the past few years playing around Dublin and this money is intended to be used to buy a flute I have on order which is going to cost me quite a bit. Now I know that I should be considering saving this to support myself, but with an upgrade to a keyed flute I should be able to play more things on it and thus be in higher demand for the session circuit around Dublin which means I will be getting more gigs and making more money. This of course does not really apply to most people who won’t be making a living (or trying to!) from playing music. Plenty of people playing music are perfectly content being ameteurs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that; they won’t be the ones spending massive amounts of money on instruments because they are not going to be earning anything else from playing these. And I am sure that the bulk of orders for flutes are not the professionals or semi-professionals who will be making money from them. So back to my point that yes flute makers aren’t getting as many orders, but the people ordering are more dedicated to the music and the instruments are certain to be played.

13

Hello Avery. I just want to compliment you on the improvement in your writing skills. When I first became familiar with you, you were in high school, and I was a little shocked at your attempts to write on C&F. Also, I am glad to learn of your musical history, from learning to play the flute to performing in Dublin. You have come a long way. Congratulations.

14

yeah, what Doug said…an’ turned into one o’dem adult things :smiley: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :smiley:

15

Thanks guys. Sorry for the correction Doug but my name’s Avery, don’t worry about it though I’m always getting called something else.

16

he did exceed the four letter ones :wink:

17

This is a very good point. I know with the antique flutes, the value dropped almost over night. this is difficult if you have bought it at the premium price, like the housing market, you might find yourself “underwater” on the sale. I think quality is still getting the top price.
Such is life… :sniffle:

18

The thing is Jon, I really can’t afford to lower my prices and I suspect this is the case with other makers who depend upon instrument making for their livelihoods. I have a mortgage to pay, health insurance (not cheap as we have to buy this ourselves and I am 55 and my wife is 61 and the premium just went up 20%), medical bills, and a daughter in college.

Also, to what degree would I have to lower my prices to make a difference? 10%? 20% 50%? I figure if a person can’t afford one of my $375 flutes, they still won’t be able to afford them at $350 or $325 or $300.

Fortunately people are still ordering at my current prices so again there is no reason to change them.

One has to draw a line somewhere, and mine is to not find myself subsidizing others’ musical hobbies and passions at my expense by selling my flutes under the cost of making them (which includes a certain amount of value added). It seems reasonable to expect a fairly professional income after doing this 29 years. So it means that many can’t afford my more expensive instruments. But many can still afford the Folk Flute, and I do a brisk business with these usually. Should flute sales stop, I have other ideas up my sleeve that will keep me employed once I run out of queue, such as expanding my wholesale presence, maybe doing a flute kit for wood turners, instructional videos and teaching. Or making bagpipes of various sorts. Or a small handed low whistle. Or something totally different (Ukuleles are really hot right now. See my daughter’s latest song “Young Hearts Young Minds” at www.ukulelehunt.com ). But so far I am maintaining a steady 5-8 months of queue and have been for some time. So I may never get around to these other ideas, unless I want to.

There are some deals out there and I’ve grabbed a few to have, and also for investment. I found a first edition of Ed Ricketts’ classic book on intertidal ecology from 1939 “Between Pacific Tides” for sale for $275. Actually I found two of them and a fellow “Ed Head” got the other. For those who don’t know, Ed was the “template” for “Doc” in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. There is one of these for sale on eBay right now for about $699. A few years ago during the Steinbeck Centennial you probably couldn’t touch one of these and these are the first 3 I had seen for sale anywhere in 20 years! This one was owned by the founding editor of the “Veliger” and probably knew Steinbeck and Ricketts himself.

In the flute world there have been some very interesting flutes on eBay, such as Prattens and Rudalls. These seem attractive until one looks closer at them and sees that they’ll need some restoration and then TLC to play. But its great that this is now a choice for those looking for a keyed instrument. Its surprising that some of these have been going for less than some of my keyed flutes. But then a number of my clients prefer my smaller handed flutes, rather than the finger stretches of a Pratten. So do I, which is why I do not make a Pratten copy. Plus when you get a flute from a modern maker, everything usually works, the flute is pitched at modern pitch, the flute can be tweaked if necessary and there is a warranty besides. Many of the old flutes are Cocus and quite a few react to this, even with an antique instrument. Or they’ll start playing a bone dry instrument to see it open up all over the place. I have seen this over the years.

Such flutes were quite easily available in the 70s and 80s when many of us were just getting started. Then the Japanese bubble happened and I remember a perfect Rudall in boxwood going at auction (Sothebys no less) for around $5K at the time. A few months before I had a chance to buy a similar instrument from Richard Cook, also flawless. But I was only in the 4th year of my flute making and was essentially living flute to flute if that - so the idea of spending $1800 on something was totally out of the question! At least I took careful measurements of it, and my friend Mindy has it, should I ever need to look at it again. But even though such flutes were available and common (Artichoke Music in Portland had 7 or 8 of them, and Lark in the Morning down in Mendocino had dozens), I found that people were still interested in new flutes made to modern specs. Thus in 1981, during one of the worst recessions in the Pacific Northwest (“Would the last person to leave Seattle, please turn out the lights?” said one billboard near Boeing’s plant), I started my instrument career and only took a few breaks, once a “sabbatical” when I went to work at Dusty Strings in their harp making department before their holiday rush, and once for a few years to build our house. With the Internet I was able to go global and business has been good since.

There are a few flutes I would want to have that may be lurking out there. Some of the boxwood Firth, Hall and Ponds etc. in higher pitches such as F, G and A. Someday if I am lucky.

This is an enjoyable discussion for once. Nice to see something other than “Flute For Sale, Cheap! Prices Lowered!”

Casey

19

Boeing…

20

I dont think so.
Exorbitance (in prices as in house prices) is market based
and needs to fluctuate with the economic situation
whereas the baseline cost of hand made flutes is not (relatively)and cannot.