Posted by Chuck(G) on July 17, 2002 at 17:55:48:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Are Yorks a good investment? posted by Rick Denney on July 17, 2002 at 13:42:34:
Okay Rick, I get your drift--finally. Maybe you should have prefaced your remarks with a clear statement of your premise.
As you state it, it's a complex problem, the more one looks at it.
a) Market forces are quite different today. The number of tubas per capita was probably larger in 1920, I would imagine. So tubas have become rarer.
b) Most tubas are imported from developed countries with far stricter labor laws and unions than our own. Extra costs.
c) Since a tuba's mostly a product of hand labor, its real cost hasn't declined like other commodites that have benefitted from automation and advanced manufacturing techniques. In fact, anything that's labor intensive has become proportinately more expensive than before.
So yes, tubas have perhaps appreciated in the sense that it takes more of a musician's salary to buy one (but then salaries on the whole have been declining steadily since 1967).
Will the trend continue? Will a tuba in 40 years be even more valuable compared to the average musician's salary? Probably, but what's more interesting to me is how many employed tuba players there will be in 40 years. Could be that the high-bidder 4 decades hence is a museum, collector or someone who wants a fancy ornament for their rec room.
And quite frankly, it's not the biggest future-worry on my mind.