What's for lunch
Pay a visit to the Frontier Room, a BBQ place on 1st Avenue. It's a decent lunch and they have some good beer to wash it down.
First, I am happy to announce the nomination for next weeks Lunch Reporter: shawn500. Shawn has already graciously accepted, so I'm looking forward to some cajun mojo next week!
Today no poll. I couldn't really come up with a good one related to today's topic. But lets first discuss yesterdays result. Not entirely surprising for a forum of guitar enthusiasts, nobody seemed to have a single guitar. The poll showed an 1/3 vs 2/3 split of EOP (Equal Opportunity Players) and people with clear favorites. There are also still votes trickling in for Monday's LR. If you haven't voted in that yet, please do.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Questions of the day:
How do you buy your instrument? What process is involved if any?
Do you have instruments that have some interesting history to it, even if it only has relevance to you? Would you like to share these tidbits?
Nowadays, whenever I buy an instrument, quite a number of hours of research are put in. Of course the first decision to be made is whether there is any G.A.S. (budget) left. If so, what model/year/make would be a good addition to the collection. Get the Vintage Guitar Price Guide out to get an idea of the going price and see whether it fits the budget. Then you have to look around to see if one is available. This includes eBay, craigslist, and about any decent guitar store with a website. But beyond that, more than likely there are Harmony Central reviews, magazine articles, other G&L websites (of course with our own Greg Gagliano's (GGJaguar) website taking a prominent place), books, and what not to peruse.
That whole process sometimes uncovers little nuggets or things I didn't know before that truly add to the 'story' of that model or even that particular guitar. Here are a couple of examples relevant to guitars I own:
How many Commemoratives have been built? A question I posed a month or so ago on the old forum. Why? Most of us have always gone by the number mentioned in the Registry and/or Greg's web site, namely about 350. But I was rereading George Fullerton's book George & Leo, How Leo Fender and I Built G&L Guitars, and he mentions that production was halted after about 250 instruments. An obvious misprint: '2' instead of '3'. But I was contacted by our own Buffalo Tim, who happens to have the original manuscript. And the number '250' is used there. Which jibes with the maximum number listed in the Registry which (maybe coincidentally) is S/N 250. Now I'm believing the number '250' to be more historically accurate than '350' unless other convincing evidence to the contrary is submitted.
The story of a little decal and a number. Again this involves Buffalo Tim, another great asset to this board and a source of countless stories. I bought one of the original 20 solid body Blues Boys last month from Buffalo Brothers: the #9 BB (Contour) as printed on the COA. And this COA also reads '1 of 1'. Why was that? Tim related to me 3 different tidbits about this guitar: #9 is his lucky number, it is the only one with a contour (hence '1 of 1'), but also the only one with this little decal. Tim wished all 20 solids as well as 12 semi-hollows would have been adorned by it but alas that was not to be. Unfortunately, the original template of the artwork has been lost (correct me if I'm wrong Tim).
My wife calls this the disco guitar and I guarantee you that is not 'affectionately'
This John Jorgenson Signature caused me to stumble over 2 things I didn't know. First, I learned from reading a caption in George's other book ('Guitar Legends') that the first silver metallic finish for a Fender instrument was produced by pulverizing a silvered mirror and delicate handling of the resulting (glassy) powder! Three Telecasters were finished in 1962 with this stuff, one each for Buck Owens, Forrest White, and George. The other was a recent interview with JJ for Guitar International which is a fascinating read, especially on his relationship with G&L and how the JJ Sig came to be (and not to be). But read it for yourself.All of these things are interesting to me because I maintain a website of my collection. Guitars become more interesting to me when there is some history to them, and than I can write about that.
Checking out. See ya tomorrow.
