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I've been pondering the idea of "investing" in a set or two of BRW. There's a fellow in Canada that has what looks like some decent sets. Not being one with a bottomless well of finances, how much would you be willing to spend on a set? I've played a few BRW guitars in my life and they were nice for sure, but is it nice enough to spend what looks like, the very bottom $300 and up..... and up.......and up. I don't have a commission in mind and I my use it for myself unless a better offer comes along. It doesn't appear that the market on it will change anytime soon so I don't expect the prices to come down. But man, I can't help myself from thinking," It's just a few sticks of wood".

So ya, just wondering what you guys think is a reasonable deal on a descent set. And at what price would you be willing to accept a compromise in the quality of cut, i.e. how well quartered.

Thanks for your thoughts on the subject.


Cheers,
Danny

It's good that you've found a Canadian supplier as shipping this stuff across international boundries is far more trouble than it's worth these days.
If you are buying for yourself, I think you should get as good a set as you can afford considering this stuff will be less and less available and more expensive as time goes on.
If you are buying it for commercial purposes, save your money.
Unless you have a client who simply has to have Brazilian and is willing to spend the appropriate amount of extra money (and BTW these folks are practically non-existant these days in my experience) making and selling a guitar in Brazilian is not worth the trouble.
Most folks today are on a budget insofar as instrument purchases so Brazilian simply does not fit into that scheme. Also as a maker I think there are plenty of other woods out there which provide a better value and a more reliable quality product.
But, as I said if this is for yourself spend as much money as you can to later avoid regret that you should have spent more.
The most I ever spent was the set below for $950. typically maybe $450-$700 so anything decent under $500. is a bargain. I pretty much drew the line at $1000. and at this point I still have a couple of sets and I'm not interested in acquiring more.

I have been thinking a lot about BRW lately. I have seen a lot of sets online ranging from $600 and up. If I am honest with myself, if it weren't BRW, I wouldn't touch the stuff. It is flatsawn, full of inclusions, and just plain ugly. So why not stick to high standards for tonewood regardless of what it is and only buy the good stuff? For $600 you could get a lot of other sets of wood that are better cut and quality. I just don't think it is necessarily worth the money unless you have a great quality set and the money to buy it (hopefully from a paying customer).

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David, that one was quite a bargain I think. Pretty rare to see such nice ones at any price.

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Yes Alex, it was about five or six years ago and I haven't seen anything of that quality
(certainly at that price) since.

Danny, I personally would just ask myself a couple of questions:

1. In a blind test, would I be able to tell a BRW guitar apart from a non-BRW guitar? - for me no...well, on a good day maybe BRW vs. maple
2. If I could tell a BRW guitar apart from, say an EIR guitar, would I be able to fine tune a guitar in the building process to bring out these differences? - for me, again no

3. For the money, are there better options (looks, tap tone, stability) out there? I'm sure there are - $400 buys you a really nice set of Ziricote (ok, scratch the stability), Macassar Ebony, Cocobolo, and all the other Rosewoods (ok, make that $600+ for African Blackwood). I fully acknowledge that I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I would assume that "tonewood quality" (incl. tap tone) within a species follows a normal distribution (bell curve), and that maybe the top 20% of BRW surpasses all the other tonewoods. This is probably a very generous estimate, and I doubt that you'll get one of those premium sets for cheap.
4. Coming back to looks, does BRW really look that great? It's a matter of taste of course, but the sub $500 stuff doesn't really look that good to me. I've seen some nice expensive sets tough.

So rationally, neither sound, looks, etc. would convince me to purchase a set - your mileage may vary of course.

But then again, what about WAS is rational

cheers, Christian

This is an interesting topic, and one which I've thought about over the past couple of years. The other posts are good ones, and David's points are good one's about client's perspective on BRW. And all this legislation (Lacey, et al) promises a huge hassle at best if you intend to sell a guitar with BRW.

For me, I bought a few sets that I just couldn't walk away from because their visual appeal and tap tone were too good, when they were very affordable. (for me, the magic number was under $500) I got three sets, over time, 2 at $450, one at $350 (has a crack in it - easily repaired with CA)... these were really special opportunities for good sets (no "apparent" stump wood) and I was able to buy them at the bottom of the market.

If I come across other sets that are as good as those were, I'll buy them if the price is right. For me, that's under $500. I expect I won't find any, which is fine.

I do think that there are many much better values in terms of tonewood out there - with less gnarly issues. I've bought sets of Amazon Rosewood that were very close to BRW in terms of both appearance and tap tone - maybe just a little more dense. I got those sets at about $200 per set, give or take, and, while I got great deals on those, I do think there are other deals out there. There seems to be a lot of Cocobolo available now, at very fair prices. And that stuff is really beautiful, as long as you don't have an allergic sensitivity to it. African Blackwood seems to have lots of fans, but it's too expensive for me.

Amazon, other Rosewoods (Madagascar's beautiful, but you've got many of the same issues with that as with BRW), and Osage Orange if you don't mind a yellowish guitar. I've heard Black Locust has density which is also close.

I also think the comment about REALLY being able to tell the difference in a blind test is a good one. For me, the jury's out, but I really don't seem to appreciate EIR - either in terms of tone or visual appeal on the other guitars I've seen and played. There's something about the purple/brown-ish hue which I just don't like. But you can get a set of great EIR for $100 - max. Is my building refined enough to make an extra several hundred worth the expense for BRW?? Hmmm - well.... I'd like to think so, but frankly, probably not. On that point, I haven't yet built with the BRW I have - I don't think I'm good enough yet. Maybe guitar 20 will be my first BRW.

Anyway, at the end of the day, as stated before, there's nothing rational about WAS. It's up to you - and dependent on whether you just have to have the wood.

May not be the same guy but I seen a Canadian with some nice sets for sale. I asked if he had Cites paperwork so I could ship into the States. He said that it was bought before Cites paperwork was needed.......and he doesn't list it as BRW when shipping to the States so it doesn't get stopped by customs. So I stayed away from that. Good bang for the buck on the pricing!

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

That's a pretty standard line, true or not. The problem with all of this is that even if you have CITES Paperwork, it becomes illegal as soon as you make a guitar out of it. It's legal in raw form, but when you change the shape or otherwise process the wood, it takes on a new identity as far as CITES is concerned, and the date is the date of the instrument, not the date of the wood purchase. At least that's my understanding.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

There is a lot of nice brazilian rosewood available at reasonable prices. You just have to be willing to glue it back together. Many of the finest logs went for veneer and the off fall from it is still available. Rather than making double sides, one can make triple sides with sequence matched veneers reassembled in the order they were cut. The raw materials for a back and side set will come in under $100 if sourced properly.

"How much would you spend..?"

I'd save up and buy ANYTHING else. So many great woods out there that are more friendly to every aspect of you. Cheaper, easier to work, sound great, look great, etc. BRW just doesn't appeal to me, the same way joining the Marine Corps or climbing Mt Everest don't appeal to me. Too much effort.....

Lots of really good points to ponder you guys. I know it doesn't have to be BRW to make an outstanding guitar. I suppose it's a little, wanting to try it for myself, and probably a little of the ego aspect of having a BRW guitar. Although like many aspects of our craft, like mitred purflings and that sort of thing, very few get it but us. The point David makes about buying a set that's as nice as you can afford makes sense. (that's some particularly lovely wood on the guitar in your photo, thanks) These woods that are on the Lacy list aren't really problematic in Canada so that's not a factor. I guess setting a budget and looking for that
set. And like the ever growing stash of wood I've accumulated since I started building, it's not going down in price. It would be nice to find some kind of a good deal. I think I missed my opportunity on that with this seller. He is selling on Ebay and had a few decent sets sell for $200 range on a bid type auction. He's not going to let that happen again.

Cheers,
Danny

I guess I don't have the zoot gene or something but I wouldn't spend any amount of money on a BRW set (that's not true actually, if I could turn a set at profit I would).

In a lot of ways, I find BRW unappealing mostly because of the attitude of Magic surrounding the stuff. I'm sure it's a great wood but I can't believe it's the "best" out there. It may be (or may have been?) the most desirable.

There's something else to consider - attitudes change over time and what might be a great "investment" right now could turn into fire wood down the road. It may be that a BRW would appeal to most as much as a blue wale oil finished guitar would.

I'd just skip it.

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Pay what you're able and willing to pay, there is no rime or reason to it. A lot of junk is available just because it's Brazilian, and I would stay away from it, but there are still plenty of good sets out there, and IMHO worth it. The quartersawn stuff is definitely getting rare and precious, so compromises have to be made. 4 piece backs rule. Buy in Canada and avoid the legal hassles.
For those not into Brazilian, you just have to keep staying away from it. There's nothing like it, like it or not. If you asked me to replace African ebony for B&S, I'd reason the same way, there's nothing like it.

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