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For sale: Guitar formerly owned by…..


onewilyfool

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Would this make any difference to you??? I mean, maybe if …formerly owned by Keith Richards…..but NOT if formerly owned by the back up guitarist for the Michael Buble band…..that kind of thing…."formerly owned" means NOTHING to me really…does the guitar sound good or not…is my criteria!!

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I've always thought it would be cool to own one of the guitars passed-around at Johnny Cash's house for the legendary "guitar pulls" that were held there. The lists of names is a "who's who" of folk/country/rock history, but beyond that the guitar is just an old guitar. Interesting to me, but not worth the price that the words "vintage" or "formerly owned" would attach to it.

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Would this make any difference to you??? I mean, maybe if …formerly owned by Keith Richards…..but NOT if formerly owned by the back up guitarist for the Michael Buble band…..that kind of thing…."formerly owned" means NOTHING to me really…does the guitar sound good or not…is my criteria!!

 

Oh man I would go crazy for Keith's HBird he owned during the Let it Bleed era and that blonde Bird on Exile . [drool]

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"formerly owned by" would be an interesting novelty, but would in no way influence my decision to buy (or not) any specific guitar, especially at an inflated "celebrity owned" price.

 

Through my long friendship (and business dealings) with one the major "guitar dealer to the stars", I have had many a chance to buy so-and-so's this-or-that (at least one of which is now on display in the R&R HOF). I also had the opportunity to play many guitars and amps before they were shipped to their new celebrity owners, and had some of my "for sale" pieces played and inspected by some pretty famous people.

 

The problem with the "formerly owned by" guitars that come up for sale to the general public is..... these are never the celebrities "main" guitars, or "stage" guitars, or even necessarily a brand or model with close or direct association. They always seem to be some oddball, in which case provenance is always questionable, and the prices are usually ridiculous.

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I think L5Larry nails the important bit: owned by is very different to being an iconic instrument associated with. People see Clapton's Blackie or the Crossroads 335 sell for a huge premium and assume a beat up Martin 12 string that he might have strummed on a few album tracks in the 70s is going to have the same value, where in reality the two things are totally different. Ebay ads for celebrity owned guitars are often a hugely enjoyable source of creative writing examples though!

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Claptons two auctions saw his guitars go for vastly above the asking price,in fact on the second auction the auctioneers didn't put up an expect to get price. Many of these guitars were bought by dealers who then sold on for more. Clapton did say of one of his Strats that it was worn out so you wouldn't want to buy it to play but as an investment you might.

 

I have seen guitars at auctions of 'owned by' and they are all well played as you would expect but if the providence is good they are investments.

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"formerly owned by" would be an interesting novelty, but would in no way influence my decision to buy (or not) any specific guitar, especially at an inflated "celebrity owned" price.

 

Through my long friendship (and business dealings) with one the major "guitar dealer to the stars", I have had many a chance to buy so-and-so's this-or-that (at least one of which is now on display in the R&R HOF). I also had the opportunity to play many guitars and amps before they were shipped to their new celebrity owners, and had some of my "for sale" pieces played and inspected by some pretty famous people.

 

The problem with the "formerly owned by" guitars that come up for sale to the general public is..... these are never the celebrities "main" guitars, or "stage" guitars, or even necessarily a brand or model with close or direct association. They always seem to be some oddball, in which case provenance is always questionable, and the prices are usually ridiculous.

 

I could always put a 'ridiculous' price on mine!!??!! It was a tongue-in-cheek comment. L5 Larry, You da man!

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We generally are interested in sound, and not who owned or played a guitar. We also have very little interest in dead sea life -- if you buy plain guitars, you can own more.

 

But then we said maybe we ought to have a celebrity guitar or maybe an old guitar with lots of inlay. So we desided to kill two birds with one stone -- so we traded with the celebrity below for this guitar.

 

DVDBLAGT22.jpg

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Of course, it is an exceptional guitar -- which I guess is why Norman played it so much.

 

Here it is in a jam session.

 

Here are our other videos in which it has appeared in various ways.

Let's pick,

 

-Tom

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