Some good news for existing Ric owners!
I don't know many of you check on current retail pricing these days from various Ric dealers.

Ric (themselves) has never gouged on their MSRP. In fact, they haven't raised it since 2009 and even then it was modest increase and hadn't been raised in years.
But feature this: The discounted price i paid for my Ric 330 brand new from "The Friend" back in 2006 has close to double!

And its been substantial also for the 325C64 product which I also purchased new back in 2006 (from a different dealer.)
This illustrates still on-going "high demand" for the Ric product even in this severe recession.
The same thing doesn't appear to be happening for other brands. Witness "the deals" being offered on these non-Ric brands.

My point is, there is no advantage of waiting to place a new Ric order.
Demand demand remains high. This can be a comforting thing. But, not the only reason in itself to want own a Ric to be sure,
So why wait?

I'm afraid I don't understand the entire point of your topic...

I will say that a "recession" has prevented many people from buying luxury items, but not everybody.

My point is quite clear in my post.
Here in California we have with one of the highest unemployment, taxation rates and foreclosure rates in the nation. Even the well to do have trimmed back, are holding onto their cars longer, are dining out far less and "looking for deals" when they do as well as laying havoc on the fine wine market with now over-supply and forcing product pricing lower. The value of their assets and investment assets have fallen greatly

This proves how strong and rightfully revered the Ric brand truly is.

*Shrugs* Alright... People still buy luxury items in any economy, though.

All I can add is that the company has just completed the two best years in our 81 year history, with significant increases in revenue. The state of the economy has had almost zero effect on our business, except that a few already marginal accounts have finally gone by the wayside. We quite literally have all the business that we can handle.

I have no explanation for this but wish I did, so I might know specifically that we either did something right or there were some external factors that played in our favor.

What I do see is that our dealers actually, finally, do have some visible inventory, some selection to choose from, the first time this has been true for maybe 15 years. At the same time, those stores have continued to order goods and gladly accept items which have been on order previously, suggesting they have little doubt about future sales prospects. My concern, even though it's a positive business situation, is that this is like a snowball rolling downhill, gathering more snow as it goes; this inventory is going to generate further order increases that will strain our manufacturing capacity further.

Well, if that's the case, are you going to increase list prices again to decrease demand, or consider adding additional workers or factory space?

I know you want to stay away from the latter because it can hurt quality, but don't you think under the Hall family's eyes, you can regulate that?

There are no plans to change prices. We will continue to increase production in the same controlled fashion we've been doing.

Groovy.

I always chuckle big-time when "outsize amateurs" all seem to know what's best on how to Run Ric and/or imply that Mr. Hall and team know nothing.

Be grateful for the extremely high quality. -Suggested "wait times" for product often can be severely shortened by simply being pro-active with Ric dealers. It's happened to me with the 360/12C63 that one dealer had on an old back order and a few "not spoken for" units on this back order which I took full advantage of, got a very reasonably short wait time and got a great deal on it, to boot.

Making fine instruments isn't exactly the same as manufacturing pencils. Craftsmen are always in finite supply and can't be increased by a simple snap of the fingers.

Oh, come on. They obviously have no clue what they are doing! If they'd all go out and get MBA's they'd be sure to see the error in their ways and be headed for bankruptcy just like a lot of other companies...