This thread is a fascinating time capsule. In 2012, someone asked the question, “Why don’t Yairi guitars hold their value?” In the intervening ten years, the thread has been revived every couple of years, and the answers have been pretty consistent—excellent guitars, poor name recognition (despite celebrity players and samurai-sword-like quality).
It’s not about trying to be #1, it’s about making a guitar that people want to buy at a given price and, more importantly for this thread, when initial buyers decide to sell, there are other interested buyers willing to pay a reasonable percentage of the new guitar price. The ability of a given manufacturer’s guitars to hold their value in the secondary market is driven by a multitude of factors (price, quality, quantity, name recognition. etc.), all of which influence supply and demand.
And it’s not a zero-sum game. The fact that brand x’s guitars hold their value does not take away the ability for brand y’s guitars to hold their value. A case study: Pre-War Guitars Co. was launched in 2016-17, five years after this thread was started. Even with a nondescript name, their guitars hold 90 - 100% of their value. What is it about PWGC guitars that is different from Yairi guitars? One of the biggest differences I can think of is supply—PWGC makes far fewer guitars than Yairi. But PWGC isn’t trying to be #1, and I doubt Wes or Ben ever fabricated a sword in their lives. Perhaps in Yairi’s quest to not be #1, they still managed to make too many guitars?
In ten year’s time, will Hseinmo guitars hold their value better than Yairi guitars? Time will tell.
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