About a year ago I spec'ed out my dream guitar and then sent quote requests to a bunch of different luthiers. Most of them didn't want to (or couldn't) do what I wanted done... but one company in England accepted the project and I accepted their quote.

Then dumb ol' me realized the number in the quote was in sterling pounds, not US dollars. The exchange rate was highly unfavorable. To make it worse, I also had to pay an import tax that was high enough to buy almost any of the guitars hanging on the wall in Guitar center.

Exchange rates and international trade.. gotta love it.

the one bright spot in the story is that I paid for it all up front instead of the usual 50% down and pay the balance on delivery. The exchange rate got even worse by the time the guitar was finished, so by paying at the previous exchange rate, I ended up saving about enough to pay the import tax.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ey71h8ep047758h/AAC12jNM0Hz9Q8zsh5iDeqNHa?dl=0