Pricing Issues for Luthiers

Kathy Wingert

Friday, August 12 • 9:00-10:30 AM

Have you ever wondered how to properly price your work?  Experienced builders get asked that question all the time.  We will discuss the how, the why, and the when to see if we can't sort out some of the problems while keeping an eye on what it really costs to build guitars for a living.

Kathy has been a professional guitar maker for over 15 years and a consistent festival exhibitor since 2001.  She specializes in fingerstyle steel-string guitars but has also gained a reputation for excellence in the harp guitar community. Kathy's passion for mentoring has grown, and with the successes of her daughter Jimmi's inlay business and Isaac "the Super Apprentice" Jang soon to open his order book, Kathy has a keen interest in developing business practices for modern luthiers that foster both sustained profitability and satisfying experiences for customers of handmade instruments.

Through The Looking Glass:
An in-depth look at CITES, the Lacey Act, and
select international laws affecting the movement
of woods and wooden musical instruments.

John Thomas

Saturday, August 13 • 9:00-10:30 AM

John Thomas’s talk will cover the history, background, and ins and outs of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and related laws like the US Lacey Act and EU regulation, “Obligations of Operators who Place Timber and Timber Products on the Market.”  He’ll present specific examples, supply common forms necessary for importing and exporting musical instruments, and answer your questions.  For some background reading, he recommends his article in Fretboard Journal: A Guitar Lover’s Guide to the CITES Conservation Treaty, An updated look at how the CITES treaty affects musical instrument collectors, available here.

John Thomas is a law professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, a freelance writer, and a fingerpicker.  He teaches international law, intellectual property law, health law, bioethics, and civil procedure.  He has published widely on topics such as health policy, politics, juvenile justice, mental health treatment, international law, and, of course, guitars and guitar players.  He is currently completing a book about the women who built Gibson’s classic World War II guitars, Banner Gibsons: The Story of the Flattop Guitars of 1942-1945 and the Extraordinary Women (and a Few Men) Who Built Them (Michigan State University Press).  As a guitarist, he says, “I still aspire to mediocrity.”