I remember visiting a Guitar Center store in San Francisco and they had a series of Les Pauls on the rack there, ranging from around $1,500 up to $11,500 - at first glance it just was not obvious what they major differences were - all Standards with essentially some form of sunburst finish - I remember my mate asking "Err, so why does that one cost 10 times what that one costs?" - good question!
I would agree with a previous answer - why does Gibson charge this much? "Because they can!" - there are folks out there who want the exclusivity of saying that their axe is a limited edition/VOS/Murphy etc and will pay $10,000 because they can - Gibson's strategy is to try to offer something to most segments of the markets and they do this via an ever increasing price banding. Not everyone thinks that this represents value for money but each to their own, I guess.
Hey ho - Merry Christmas to all the forum members
Mike
