Filbert

Passive-aggressiveness aside, you've had a couple of replies offering some solid advice as to how to get a value for your guitar but ultimately, any valuation given online is basically a finger in the wind and subject to all sorts of variations such as local economy, supply and demand, condition and so forth. If you want an accurate and unbiased opinion then you need to take it to a professional and get it valued as such and any such professional is going to charge for that service. There is no point pissing and moaning about it - speculate to accumulate. I've only frequented these forums for a few months or so but even in that short time there are loads of people posting 'oh, I got left this guitar by my Dad, Grandad, found in an attic - how much is it worth' and honestly, the form answer that could be copied and pasted to all of them is 'depends'. Best you will get is a ballpark figure and if that is not good enough, seek professional advice same as you would for literally any other item of value.

I second the Pedaltrain, I have one and it is very good. that being said, it's just a metal frame with velcro so if you are on a budget, you can knock something up for a fraction of the price. Over on Reddit r/guitarpedals there are a bunch of people who made their own boards out of shelving units and all sorts. I use a Truetone 1Spot CS12 to power my board and it's more than enough for my needs.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have done a lot of these songs already but there are some there that I haven't tried so will give them a whirl!

I bought my Blueshawk and my Nighthawk completely by accident. I bought a Fender Blues Junior off Facebook Marketplace and traveled to the bloke's house to pick it up. He had a Nighthawk there and he let me use it to test the amp out. I was smitten immediately both by the amp and the guitar so when I got home, I had a hunt around for one of my own. Ended up with a '93 Nighthawk of my own. A bit beaten up and well used by still lovely nonetheless. As part of posting my find here, I then stumbled across the Nighthawk's stablemate, the Blueshawk and I figured I needed one of those as well. A search on Reverb later and I found a beautifully intact example from a seller in Germany. I absolutely love it - it screams through my tube amps more so than my other Gibsons or Fenders do; there is something unique about the sound. Every so often, there comes a day when the amp, the guitar and my playing just seem to 'click' and everything sounds great. More often than not, that happens when I am playing the Blueshawk. I love it, it is absolutely right up there as one of my favourite guitars.

The point is I can't play anything more modern than let's say 1980 without being met with indifference. They don't want join in, engage or even attempt to play along because they don't know the songs and don't really care. So short of sitting there listening to the same tired old folk songs I have been listening to every week for the last 18 months, I am and have been trying to play stuff they *do* know. Sadly, I am coming to the limits of popular songs from the 50's to the late 70's that I know, hence why I am soliciting any suggestions. Unfortunately, I only have a limited amount of time to devote to learning new stuff in between everything else that I need to do so obscure stuff won't really work - it'll take me too long to learn the melody off Youtube and the word cadences etc. I've done California Dreamin' and I don't know any other Mamas and Papas stuff, sorry.

Yeah, I have heard of the name and it rings a bell but I am not familiar with any of his stuff.

Don't know John Mellancamp very well so will look that up. I've done Fire & Rain, that went quite well same with CCR Green River and Have You Ever Seen The Rain.

There are a couple of blokes who play the penny whistle (badly) and the ukulele respectively. Their songs are 'Dirty Old Town', 'Black Velvet Band', 'Wild Rover' and 'I'm A Believer'. It all started off as a folk club nominally but no-one really plays 'folk' music - I learned a bunch of Steeleye Span songs to help ease in and that did the trick, they knew those ones.

If you know the model number and date then you would be just as better off doing a search on Reverb or similar auction sites and seeing what similar model/year/condition guitars go for; that will give you a rough idea of a guide price. As with everything, these things fluctuate in price due to underlying economic trends, supply and demand and all that. As for condition, it depends. If the neck is only slightly warped, you might better off selling 'as is', describing it as such and allowing the buyer to make his/her decision over whether and where to get it fixed. You potentially run the risk of getting a sub-par fix that affects the price.

I play at a local acoustic guitar 'club' every Wednesday - I say 'club' because it is really just an excuse for a bunch of people to get together and have a drink and a chat but we do play songs, well, at least, I do. I try and learn 2/3 new songs every week and play them - I now have a box file about 3 inches thick of printed song sheets that I have played every week for the last year and a half. Now, the problem is I am by far the youngest person there by about 30 years or so and if I try and play 'new' songs, say anything written within the last 40 years or so, I am usually met with blank stares. The whole point of the club is for the novice guitarists to join in but obviously they can't do that easily with tunes they don't know so I try my damnedest to learn and sing songs they might know - but I am running out of ideas. If I don't play songs, the others usually fall back on the same 5 tunes that they play every week, without fail. It is a touch repetitive as you can imagine. So please can you list some good go-to, easy(ish) to play acoustic songs that work well at an informal pub setting. No Beatles please (I can't stand them, sorry!) but anything else goes as long as it is popular and relatively well-known. Chances are, I may well have played it before but the more suggestions the merrier.

A little bit of The Lemon Song - Led Zeppelin and Fly By Night by Rush were the first tunes out of it 🙂 So far, only had a quick noodle on my little Vox solid state so I will have a proper go on the Blues Junior and Marshall DSL15C later on tonight

Bought this on a bit of a whim - saw the neck and it really cried out to me. Lovely looking guitar, photo definitely does not do it justice! PRS SE Custom 24 in grey/charcoal quilt. Edit: I should say, it's a 'roasted maple neck' - it's very dark in person and almost looks like it has been played for years already - I guess that is what they are aiming for with the torrefication process.

Next time my wife complains about me buying a guitar, I am going to show her this thread...

I use Martin Retro Nickel Monels on mine and they seem to be good so far.

Yes, a luthier will be able to get it setup properly without an issue. He/she will also know what to do with regard to the truss rod. No, it won't damage the guitar; if the neck is too far back bowed or forward bowed, you will get fret buzz but it is simple enough to cure by adjusting the truss rod. Just bear in mind once it is setup, if you ever do decide to change string gauge, either lighter or heavier, it will probably need adjusting to set it up again for the new gauge.

Unless you are planning on emulating Stevie Ray Vaughan, I wouldn't personally recommend going for heavier gauge strings. You will need to adjust your setup, adjust truss rod and things like that as heavier gauge strings are under more tension and therefore change the neck bend. The truss rod will need adjusting to counter this and unless you are confident in what you are doing, it will need someone competent to carry it out. I have never adjusted the truss rod on any of my guitars a) because I don't use any other than Hybrid slinkys and b) I haven't got a clue what I am doing. Not only that but heavier strings will hurt your fingers more at least until you get used to it. The advantages? Well, thicker strings sound better as simply put, there is more metal vibrating over the magnets in the pickups. Not only that, you can downtune heavier gauge strings more easily so if you are into 'dunga, dunga, squee' type music in weird down step tunings, then you will need heavier gauge strings to accommodate this. The afore mentioned SRV used heavier gauge strings than normal but he also tuned half a step or more down.

Yeah, nice but a shame to see it stuck behind plexiglass. Get it played! Edit: By that what I mean is, lots of museums "own" Stradivarius violins but they loan them out to top virtuoso's to play and demonstrate to the general public. I think the same should happen to vintage guitars.

It's only ever going to boil down to personal preference especially when things like look, feel, tonal quality and the like are all such subjective elements and not particularly quantifiable. Anyone that definitively tries to claim any brand is a 'better' guitar than a similar quality brand guitar is lying. Personally, my absolute favourite is my D45 but my Gibsons all have a well-defined place in my collection.

Just seen your edit - d’oh! Yes, the pointy headed electro-acoustic Strat jobbie. It’s at the menders at the moment having a new nut fitted (old one had Araldite glued in it - don’t ask!) but it is the same as this one: https://images.app.goo.gl/QushPvKcexnk6oyH7 My Dad was a paraplegic and being in a wheelchair made holding certain types of guitar shape difficult, specifically bowl backed and larger acoustic models as they slid off his lap too easily. The Kramer is quite shallow bodied so it was easier for him to hold. He never played it electrified, always acoustic. Anyway, it’s been stuck in a case in the cupboard for a few years so I decided I needed to spend a little cash getting it playable again. It also has a nasty dent in the back that happened when we moved house and that needs stabilising.

As an addendum to this, for those of you, like me, who are curious as to what practical difference scale length actually makes, apparently guitars with shorter scale lengths require less tension to bring a string to pitch. This, in turn, makes things like bending strings slightly easier. I tested this theory on both my Fenders and Gibsons and can confirm the Gibsons are ever so slightly easier to bend strings. Not much of a difference, granted and it isn't something I had noticed independently either. If I hadn't been told, I probably wouldn't have noticed but it isn't a negligible difference either, certainly.

Yes, 25.5 inches, Wikipedia reliably informs me. What this actually means in practical terms, I don't know - I'm not enough of a musician to know the difference. Although I know is it plays beautifully and sounds wonderful.

If you can't get to Chatham, I would strongly recommend visiting the Naval Dockyards at Portsmouth where HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the Mary Rose are all parked. Highly interesting viewing!

Reminds me of a video by a band called 'Walk Off The Earth' where all 5 members play on the same guitar.

It's all very 'Sliding Doors' and stems from me buying a Fender Blues Junior a few months ago. I went to the guy's house who was selling it and he happened to have a lovely Nighthawk. "What's that?", I asked him - it looked like a Les Paul-ish but much thinner and with Fender-like slanted pickups and a selector switch. Well, he told me, I had a go on it to demo the amp and later that day when I got home, ended up doing some research into them. Following that, I ended up buying a Nighthawk of my own and once I had that, I then ended up finding out about the similarly shaped Blueshawks so of course, I had to get one of those too and we are where we are now!

Gibson have recently (as in for this year's serial numbers) changed their numbering pattern so if you are trying to date a 2019 guitar then the online serial checkers may not work. I have 2 2019 Gibsons - my Les Paul serial begins 19 so follows the 'old' pattern of first two digits being year whereas my Firebird, which is newer by a couple of months, serial begins 10. I know full well it wasn't made in 2010 but all the online checkers came back with 'not recognised'. In the end, I emailed Gibson support the full serial with photographic evidence and they were able to confirm the serial and indeed told me their numbering system has changed, hence why the online tools don't work.