"The One That Got Away"...

[Michael Ambrose]

Well, we've already talked about the guitars we've owned... how we got our first guitars... all that fun stuff... but what about the ones we don't have? The ones that slipped through our fingers?

My oddball vintage guitar obsession hit its peak back in 2004, when I was working as the Ebay sales dude for Guitar Center. I was a 22-year-old vintage keyboard obsessed punk rocker at the time, and had just started to fall in love with oddball guitars... I'd found my '66 Mosrite Ventures model and my '61 Harmony H78, and I decided I wanted to learn more about the men whose names were embossed on my tremolo tailpieces... especially Paul Bigsby.

To cut a long story short... in one of my Ebay searches for "just guitars," I actually stumbled upon a Magnatone Mark V, the last of the Magnatones designed (but not built, as I would later learn) by Bigsby. It was beat to death, but it was CHEAP... and a resto job on this puppy would have been nothing I couldn't handle (even at that time). Did I mention how cheap it was??

Long story short, I fell asleep at the wheel in the closing hours of the auction and let it slip through my fingers.

It wasn't long before Vintage Guitar or Premier Guitar (can't remember which) ran a BIG story on "the lost Bigsby guitars," and the price tags skyrocketed. That summer while on tour in Cincinnati I found a Mark V with a tag that, well, was a great deal more expensive than a lowly Farfisa-pounding punk rocker could handle...

C'est la vie!!

[cheepaxes]

[ighut]

[Michael Ambrose]

[johnnyb]

[VintAxe]

In the early 90’s I formed a band with several of my students to play local gigs and frat parties. Joe, the guitarist, played an early 60’s Jazzmaster that sounded great for the punk inspired originals we were playing. One semester Joe decided to take lessons from the classical guitar teacher in the university’s music department. Joe apparently told his music teacher that we were in a band together which sparked a conversation about music between his teacher and I the next time we crossed paths. During this conversation the teacher confided that he had stopped playing electric guitar years ago but still had “an old Fender” lying around collecting dust. I was starting to accumulate a few guitars by this time so I asked him if he might want to sell it. He was apologetic saying he didn’t know what model it was and it probably needed a lot of work to be playable but he would bring it in the following week to let me have a look.

Well, early the following week, Joe shows up at my office door carrying a beat Fender case. I asked what was up and he said he had just purchased a guitar from his music teacher. We open the case and there sits another Jazzmaster virtually identical to the one he already owned. Then I ask the inevitable question of “how much did you give him for it” to which Joe replies “a hundred bucks”. I wanted to scream “that’s supposed to be MY guitar” but I swallowed hard and congratulated him on making such a wise purchase.

Joe and I have stayed in touch over the years and a couple of years ago he sent me a picture of the Twins to add to the website. The guitar on the right is the “one that got away”. At least it went to a great guy

[Mgeek]

When I was just starting to learn the guitar as a kid (11), a guy in my class said his dad had an electric guitar he didn't want anymore, and I could have it for 15 quid. At this point I just had an acoustic...and desperately wanted an electric.

He brought it in to school, I checked it up and down like I'd been told you were supposed to, and decided the neck was a little off (might have been, but in retrospect I doubt it), so turned it down.

The guitar ended up just kicking around the school music rooms until some fool chucked it up in the air and snapped the headstock off. Someone stuck a screw through it as a 'repair'...I don't know what happened to it after that.

A short while later I bought my first electric- for £69. A bit more than the other one, but best to spend a bit more and get something that's decent, right?

Guess which of these guitars I bought, and which one I turned down





Still wake up sweating over that one... one day I'll own one! Never seem to see Vista Sonics about...

[Murphguitarfan]

I lost my chance to buy a Messenger. The seller wasn't asking very much, however, I thought I could find another one in better condition. I had no idea how rare they are, so I passed up the opportunity.