The One That Got Away

Got away but with a happy ending. So to speak.

The other guitar that "got away" has a happier story. I bought this one in a pawn shop a few years after the tele. By this time I was living with some buddies who were all string wizards and we had something like 40 instruments kicking around the place. I found this old, filthy guitar case in the pawn shop. Opened it up and there was a mud spattered, dusty, grimy sad sack of an instrument, missing a few strings - a classical guitar. Looked like rosewood sides and back, maybe, if it wasn't painted plywood. I offered fifty bucks and went home with the guitar.

It took a long, long time to clean up. QTips, distilled water, dish detergent, rubbing compound, mirror glaze, all that stuff. When it was finished, I had a hand made Manuel Contreres long scale classical guitar from Madrid. Solid Indian rosewood sides and back, solid Spanish pine top, and a highly checked but beautiful nitro finish. This guitar was a long fingered performer's dream - it sounded one way when you played it, but sounded like ten times the guitar when you were twenty feet away.

Rent time came and I sold it for $300 to a roommate. He later ended up at a college in Florida, teaching music. He still has that guitar.
 
Mine was a white pearl 1987 SE-300 Yamaha with a magical strat like standard whammy that kept the strings in tune no matter what. Awesome guitar. I was her second owner and it was like new when I bought it with a nice "L" shaped luxury brown case. Around 10 years later along a period away from playing and having an evil girlfriend aside I ended burning all my gear and this guitar went together. I still remember that I sold it for a 14 yo boy that came to my place with his daddy. I bet this guitar is destroyed nowadays...

:facepalm:
 
stevieb said:
You'd think I'd learn, eh? Well, think again. Three days ago I saw a Washburn Lyon acoustic in a thrift store, coudda had it for $30- my GF asked me to keep my eye out for a cheap, decent guitar. I "thought it over" that day, went back later the next day, and it was gone.
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I think that this time you had luck. I don't know about acoustics, but the Washburn Lyon electrics are a big load of crap. I had one and it was no doubt one of the worse guitars I touched. I couldn't believe when someone bought it from me and it was one of the happiest days of my life. Should mention that it was in fact one of my worse gears at all: along with this crap axe I had a small Dod cube and a Zoom 505. Man, it was really pure junk!

:rolleyes:
 
Looking back in time I can recall a lot of stuff (not only guitars) that I should have kept. At the time they were only cheap junk that I was in "lucky" to find someone to pay for such stuff. Now they are valuable vintage stuff that I would love have in home.

:(
 
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