Hi, I'm looking for some advice and knowledge from anyone familiar with Veleno aluminum guitars from the 70s.
About 20 years ago I bought a Veleno from a friend for $100. The guitar had 2 broken tuning heads, but it was a totally aluminum guitar and that's worth $100 any day.
The Veleno neck is really thin and long scale. I've always like chunky shorty scale Gibson style necks so instead of replacing the tuners I bolted on an Epi LP neck that happened to fit perfect.
I drilled two holes in the guitar and put on a different bridge (from the same epi LP). Then to complete my crimes I painted the body red.
It stayed like that and was used around the house for 15 years or so. Then I decided to restore it, still without any clue or mind to rarity or worth. In my mind it fell into the $100 toy guitar section.
I took the red paint off with thoughts of bringing it to a chrome like finish. Then I found some other distraction and the guitar stayed like that unassembled for 5 years or so.
Then very recently I had thoughts of using the pickups from the Veleno in another guitar I have so I started googling to see if I could figure out what kind they were...I found out that the pickups are early 70s issue Gibson 't-buckers', but also that the guitar is actually quite rare and sought after.
I found the serial number on the heel of the body where the neck joins. It's number 71 and it also has the distinction "1st black" which made me really question my misguided artistic youth. The body is labeled "58" in two places on the bottom section and the neck is labelled "39" near the bolt holes.
So, did I remove all the value from this guitar? If it has value what steps would be prudent to maximize return?
I'm thinking I should restore it and refinish the body, which includes buying a lost ruby. The actual metal of the guitar is fine and it would be physically as good as new. The neck itself was never used while I owned it and I still have the original bridge and stop bar.
I'm interested any thoughts about this.
Here's a few photos I took of the guitar http://imgur.com/a/0MsbC#0