Quote:
Originally Posted by riverrat55
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I'm not going to beat this horse any deader, but I just wanted to clarify one point:
At $50/annual servicing, a VS 250 is
not a $650 reel.
All-in,
it's probably closer to a $1,700 reel in today's dollars if you discount the value of all future expenditures (say, 15 years), back.
That's a
stupendous amount of money for a fishing reel.
I am arguing that you'd be better off, or perhaps financially indifferent, by going with a reel that might be a little cheaper than $1,700 and doesn't require factory servicing and round-trip shipping.
These costs add up over time.
If the new ZeeBaas reels have design improvements and better durability vs. Van Staals, then all the better.
Having said that, I'm not going to run out and grab a ZeeBaas right away, but I am giving a seriously hard thought to divesting the rest of my VS collection. At some point, service will go to $50 (again) when VS makes up its mind that it doesn't want to lose money on servicing.
Can I blame Van Staal for trying to raise prices? No! They're not in it to lose money.
But I'm making a huge stink about it because at the same time, I feel the added service cost makes it less worthwhile in my mind to own one.
To each his own, I am NOT passing judgment on those who are VS fans.
If anything, several good ideas have come up in past discussions, including threads on how to service your own VS reels and money saving tips (dropping off your VS at a show to save on shipping).
My first thought on this was that if you need to get a guitar or a computer worked on it is a minimum 1 hour bench fee of around $65. Difference may be that you don't have to do that every year. Nothing is cheap these days, especially if you want American hands doing the work. I imagine that the profit margin isn't incredible even at the price of those things.
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