About a dozen years ago, maybe more, John Hall said at the Rick Resource Forum that something like 60% of the labor costs of a Ric are in the finishing department. I don't know the figures at Gibson, but there must be an enormous difference in man-hours between spraying a single color coat of nitro over an unfilled body, and the multi-step, multi-day process of pore filling and multiple color and clear coats, all with sanding in between. Whatever the difference is, the retail price is 3x-4x the raw manufacturing cost. The company has to make a gross profit when they price it to dealers.
Think about raw material pricing too. Wood product manufacturers of any size by lumber by the trainload or boatload. They pay x price per board foot for the whole load, but they don't plug that price into every piece. They cost the shipment by assigning more for the more valuable pieces -- e.g. in the case of a guitar, wider or with better figure -- to make up for the lower price the less desirable pieces will bring, and to cover unusable wood.
