I am going to rant here because I get sick of all the Gibson bashing and don't think they are as greedy as you amature economists make out:
everybody bitches about the cost of Gibsons, but apart from a slight upcharge for name recognition you need to consider that they are an American made set-neck that only come in finicky-to-shoot lacquer finishes. Its Fender USA that is really ripping you off. There is hardly any hand labor involved in a standard USA Fender. They use the same self-levelling modern finshes as import guitars and are entirely CNCed getting just a little hand sanding. Bolt necks require no extra time or hand-work to assemble and if the neck angle comes out wrong for some reason (unlikely with modern CNC routers and rough sanders) its no issue to pop the neck off and shim it. Takes literally 2 minutes of labor assuming you keep shims around and Fender does. Most Fenders have no binding, and on the off chance you get a bound neck its not fret-edge binding so it requires very little handwork apart from some sanding and then scraping during finishing. On the other hand every Gibson is comparatively boutique. They are only roughed in with machines and everything else is hand shaped. Body binding is still hand glued (I think they use CNC routers to cut the channels in the Nashville plant) and the rubber-band the stuff BY HAND to clamp it and cure the glue. Fret nibs are still hand shaped. Neck pockets are rouched in by machine, but the tennons and mortises are hand-refined during the neck setting process. And that gluing process is done by, you guessed it, a skilled American worker who carefully gets it right, applies the correct amount of titebond and then cleans up the extra glue and properly hand clamps it to dry. Lacquer is still applied the old fashioned way by a guy with a spray gun, not an auto-industry machine that's only good for UV reactive, quick drying and self-levelling polies.... you are talking about tons more American labor and American labor is not cheap. And while not everyone doing the labor may be a luthier or even a craftsman even in an old-school guitar factory I will point out these guys are extremely skilled at their one task, are unionized, and make more than you do to set that neck or shape that binding.
Given the weakness of the dollar and that salaries for skilled union labor in the USA are the only non-executive salaries that seem to consistently chase the rate of inflation, Gibson is actually keeping prices relatively low considering what goes into a lot of these models. Now, if you hate Gibsons they will always be overpriced to you because you are too busy looking for different neck profiles and shapes like Boom. But you need to recognize the obvious expense of creating an LP standard. Back before the price hike a few years ago you could grab standard for under $2k new at guitar center. There was a point where the dollar was in the toilet and Gibson was probably not making a lot of money on standard with their labor costs being so high and the average Gibson fan's buying power having plummeted so low so suddenly. With the sheer number they weren't selling coupled with the ever-increasing cost of keeping their staff on I am not surprised they had to hike prices 20-25%.
on your fender scale LP, hardly any Gibsons use 25.5" scale.... a few jazz boxes made in Memphis or at the custom shop and some flat-top acoustics from Montana, that's it.... they are reprogramming and retooling all the automated stuff to produce that guitar or they are doing it all the old-fashioned way.... either way its going to cost them more even if all the materials are the same. Time is money.
Now 70s Norlin-era Gibson is another matter, but modern Gibsons are really pretty decent across the board and they have been since the 90s. They got rid of Norlin in the 80s and started putting their hosue in order. Sure they charge you for all the work put into making a quality product again between '88 and '92, but its a business and this is a capitalist country. They may still be paying off the loan on those PLEK machines for all we know! Guitar manufacturing is not a cash cow, even for the big 2. Go look up the yearly profit margins on Gibson and Fender and prepare to be amazed.
