Probably like many folks here, I enjoy building stuff, but find my myself in the position of: well, how many cigar box amps do I really need for myself?
So naturally, the mind turns to thoughts of selling some of the stuff I build. Otherwise, I will wind up with a house full of little amplifiers.
My question to you guys is: how much do you think is a fair price for a cigar box amp? Regardless of how much I spend to build one, that is.
If a CBamp is small and cute, and sits in a store next to commercial amps of all kinds, at what price point does it become attractive to buy the cigar box amp?
I hope this question makes sense; I get the feeling that I am rambling. Time for coffee!
Replies
I think the mojo factor comes into play on this one. The cold plastic toy amps will never compare to the handmade amp. I unfortunately, spend around 80.00 to build my cigar box amps. The speaker I use is a Jensen that cost 26.00 alone. But oh what an awesome tone/sound. I can open the lid and tilt the little cigar box amp and it adds another beautiful dimension to the sound it produces.
Materials times four was the Old School way of pricing an item for retail but good luck with that. It takes me a day to build one. What's my time worth? Materials and at least $50-80 for labor. That would put it at around $130 -160 retail and if they were selling side by side on the shelf, the kid will go for the commercial amp (Fender) because they don't know any better. Everyone, after reading this, raise your prices, don't be afraid to charge a fair price and don't give them away. Made in America should cost more. It does in Dubai!
There are people here who purchase a $20-$40 Dano Honeytone purely to rip the guts out to place in a cigar box (not that there's anything wrong with that). I assume you are soldering your own circuitry, based on something like the LM386 chip or one of its variants?
The question of pricing one's work for sale, whether amps or gits, comes up here fairly often. General rules I've seen here on CBN go like "cost of materials, plus your time at, at worst, minimum hourly wage, plus 10%," or "cost of materials x3-x5," all the way to "whatever the traffic will bear." I've purchased both custom cigar box amps and numerous small-micro commercial amps; kinda depends on how involved your circuitry is, and your soldering skills, as to how well this would technically compete (which you're probably not really looking to do) with things like the Zinky Smokey, or the Chinese manufactures put out by Vox, Fender, Danelectro, Pignose, etc.
I spent $100 on a cigar box amp that, in retrospect, I could have built myself for less than $30. Why? Didn't have the know-how, at the time, to do it, but worked with the builder to design what I wanted, so it was a good trade-off. You are in the same spot he was in: selling to people who may not realize how easy these are to build, who want something that looks kewl and sounds reasonably good. So somewhere between $30 and $100 would be my answer. Problem is, one can go down to the local GC, and pick up pretty decent little commercial offerings for...the same price range.
But not everyone will want that (see the Honeytone amp "rapists" - not that there's anything wrong with that - example above).