If you could bring that guitar back

[david]

As I sit here trying to develop flat picking chops, I remember a couple of guitars that I would love to have back: #1 Santa Cruz OMPW; and #2 Santa Cruz OM Cutaway.

The OMPW could do everything. I don't know what I was thinking.

The other I sold to a fellow with the stage name "Jason Wyatt," who was then playing with "The Lost Trailers." The Santa Cruz OM Cutaway needed more drive than my finger-picking fingers could deliver. He came to my house, visited and played it, bought it and used it on stage.

Here is my last email to him:
Jason,

What a nice treat to come into my office on Monday morning have two emails from you with great music. I visited your website and saw the American Beauty video with the Santa Cruz in it too. I couldn't hear the guitar on that track, but it LOOKED fantastic! Great vocals.

I am very happy that you are putting the guitar to good use. I think that I have mentioned to you that I bought the guitar in Portland's then premier guitar store, Pioneer Music. The walls were filled with Taylor's, Martins, Gibsons, Collings, some Bourgeois, Lowdens and Goodalls and two Rosewood/Spruce Santa Cruz OM guitars, one an Engelmann top non-cutaway, and the other the Sitka top cutaway that you now own. I had already put money down on a used Collings OM that was having some re-finish work done. When I went in to check on the finish work of the Collings, I played the two Santa Cruzes and fell in love. I spent about an hour playing them and having one of the employees play them in front of me. I ended up thinking the cutaway sounded just a little bit better. I really did not care if it had a cutaway or not, I was simply hearing better sound. The owner of the store let me apply my Collings payment to the Santa Cruz and I took it home.

Anyway, this was at a time we just learned that my mom was dying of cancer. The weekend after I got the guitar she became bedridden and
needed care 24 hours a day. She was at her home with my father, about 70 miles from my house. For the next two months, until she passed away, I would spend Friday night through Sunday night giving my father and brother a break from her care. She was asleep much of the time, and I would sit a play guitar for hours on end on the Santa Cruz. It was a great comfort to me to have that guitar, with its sweet warm sound. It helped me get through a tough time.

Wish I had it back.

[Cosmic Wonder]

Bitter sweet.

Mike

[Marshall]

Thanks for that remembrance.

The one I’d like to have back is Ernie.

[millring]

Thanks for writing that. It's the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to the Soundhole.

[Marty]

My 59 Les Paul Special and 67 Firebird II.

[Shannon]

Thanks for a great post this morning, David!

For me, it would be a Martin Shenandoah D1832. It was the first decent guitar I ever bought, and I saved up my own money as a teenager to get it. The Shenandoah line was a little weird for Martin. Solid tops, but laminated back and sides, they were partially assembled overseas then finished in Nazareth, PA. These measures made one attainable by a hard-working teen like me.

The one I had was an excellent guitar, despite the laminated parts. It just had the magic, and I still contend that the D18 sound is the essential acoustic guitar sound. I took it to college, played it everywhere, got my future wife's attention with it. It never let me down. I sold it eventually, thinking the grass was greener with some other guitar I wanted to buy, and I sure wish I still had it.

[majorminor]

I have more "in hindsight I should bought that one" memories than regrets. I happened to be in Gryphon several years back on the day they hung a Martin D-28 Authentic Aged on the wall. Distressing an acoustic was a relatively new thing and I wasn't wild about the concept. It was ridiculously great and powerful sounding and was head and shoulders above the other 20 top tier guitar on the money wall. I don't remember...like 7K. Just balked at the thought of paying that for a modern guitar with fake wear no less.

The only one I occasionally look for and regret selling was a 2001'ish Martin HD-28VS. It was a custom shop order with an adi tope and 1 7/8" x 2 3/8" nut and saddle spacing with a full barrel neck. Probably the best sounding guitar I've owned and I brought it to a Rose Jam back in the day. Just a little stiff feeling and tougher to play. I was buying and selling a lot and sold it to fund and Santa Cruz brazilian because it would be "better". It wasn't.

[kenlarsson]

I can't think of any. I like what I've got.

[Marshall]

I walked away from a 1956 Southern Jumbo at a Vintage Guitar show that was perfect. Sounded and played fantastic. They wanted $3k for it. I didn’t need another guitar. But that one rang all my bells. I sighed, and turned and walked away out the door.

Couldn’t touch it for twice that now. And this one was as perfect as I will ever see.

[millring]

I didn't want to spoil a wonderful opening post by too soon reminiscing my own guitars. But now that the better part of a day has passed, I'll just add:

I have all the guitars that are the musical story of my life. The Soundhole/Marty Harmony tells the best story, but only by a little bit because vying for that spot is the Shenk Dar bought me for an anniversary gift. And the growth in playing I experienced with the YA AHA reminds me that a lot can be done with a very humble guitar. The Gibson is outrageously good and if I only had one guitar to PLAY, it would still end up being that one ... but I'd sob while saying goodbye to the others.

I play the Farida OT62 and OT22 most often these days and almost pinch myself at my good fortune at the gift LJ gave me -- my dream guitar style I doubted I'd ever buy myself, and the heads up Steve gave me that ended in my landing the 22 -- already wired for sound and $100 under list.

I traded a very nice OMV28 for a nice HD28 and though I'm glad I got to own them and enjoy them for what they were, I don't miss them.

There are two guitars I'd probably like to have back. My Larrivee and the first guitar I ever learned on. The former because it was utterly unique and beautiful and sounded wonderful and in the long run probably more suited to what I play ... and it had a cutaway -- something I don't have in any other guitar. The latter -- my first guitar -- I would like to have back because I'm really curious now as to what it was. As I remember it, it was a classical size steel string utterly devoid of any ornamentation. As a 10-13 year old I would regularly polish it with Pledge just because I enjoyed doing so. What I remember was a natural top with wide grain and not much else. I don't even remember if it was peg or slothead, though I'm inclined to remember the latter.

[millring]

Look at this (it's no longer listed). As far as I can remember, this is exactly like mine was.

reverb.com/item/57316420-larrivee-c-09-maple-1992

[drlj]

I have gone through a few guitars.
There are two I wish I had back. One was a 1984 Gallagher Doc Watson. I don’t recall what I sold it to get. It was a great guitar and, when I sold it, I told myself I could always get another. I played several others over the years but never found one that compared. And, of course, they got more and more expensive.
The second was a Martin 00028-EC that I also loved. I sold it because a well-known Nashville guitarist got an endorsement deal with Gallagher Guitars, which was now run by Don Gallgher’s son. I think his name was Steve.
Anyway, my friend let me know he had the endorsement deal for a new model with a slope shoulder J-45ish shape and that, if I wanted one, he would get it for me at a very reasonable cost. I was going to get a mahogany B&S with Adirondack spruce top, a compass rose inlay at the 12th fret and lots of other features I won’t go into because it was a long time ago and I have forgotten what many of them were. I sold the 000-28EC because I knew it would go fast and, besides, I could always get another🙄.
After many months of waiting, false starts, lack of communication, etc. etc., the entire endorsement deal fell through. The model, which had been announced but never produced beyond the prototype my friend had, was discontinued and simply disappeared. My friend was very apologetic and embarrassed by all of this but it wasn’t his fault so I understood how he felt. I won’t go into details of why it all crashed and burned but it did and my 000-28EC was long gone to AZ. My friend offered to sell me the Gallagher prototype because he no longer wanted it but I was not too happy with Gallagher at that point so I said no. I think he did sell it later on. I probably should have bought it. Who knows?
Today, Gallagher Guitars is owned by a husband/wife team. They have moved to a different town in TN and are producing wonderful guitars again. Elderly is handling them now and they have a Doc Watson in stock. H’mmmmm! Maybe I could finally get another. I will ask Barb.

I remember playing John’s Larrivee. It was a honey, as I recall.

[Russell Letson]

Nearly every guitar I've let go needed to be let go, and my threshold for needing to deacquisition is very high, so if I were given to regrets, I'd regret not selling off some of the guitars sitting in cases in the basement when the market for them was stronger. I suppose it would be kinda cool to still have my bright red imitation-Vox teardrop eeelecterick with the whammy bar and flip-up mute--though it was a thoroughly mediocre-sounding guitar and really hard to hold onto, physically. And in a perfect world (which means one in which I have near-infinite storage space and life expectancy) I would have kept my Deering D-6 banjo, but who really needs two six-string banjos? I'm not even sure I need two Cloutier guitars.

[John B]

Maybe the 1947 0-18 with a five-digit serial number - 99xxx, but I can't remember what those missing digits were. The 1906 Gibson L-1. The Morton small-bodied stainless steel resonator. The 1979 Larrivee L-09, like John's above only no cutaway and rosewood back and sides. The only fully-koa Knusten teardrop harp guitar. The 1955 Gibson CF100E.

All great guitars. But no memories attached to any of them like David's Santa Cruz or John's family Gibson. I had decent-enough reasons for selling all of them when I did, either from financial need, or the guitars had something about them I didn't like (neck shape, dead spots, strange dissonant resonances, etc.). Of all of them, maybe the Martin would be my choice to keep as it did have quite the distinctive beauty - odd, non-bookmatched bearclaw (quite the flaw in 1947), pretty heavy runout, etc. And almost 20 years later I think its tone would suit my ears better than in the mid-oughts.

But mostly I think I (infrequently) long to have some of them back because of how valuable they might be in someone else's eyes (or possession). A 40's Martin! An early Gibson! One of the first cutaway flat tops! But the thing is they're more valuable to someone else than to me. So I guess that's that.

[aquaduct]

Mar 8, 2024 11:11:45 GMT -5 kenlarsson said:

I can't think of any. I like what I've got.

Me either. Of course I really never get rid of guitars at all.

[John B]

Mar 8, 2024 22:31:32 GMT -5 aquaduct said:

Mar 8, 2024 11:11:45 GMT -5 kenlarsson said:

I can't think of any. I like what I've got.

Me either. Of course I really never get rid of guitars at all.

Step one: find a really good guitar.

Step two: don't sell it.

Repeat every decade or so, but only if needed. And it's probably not.

[Russell Letson]

In my day I have deacquisitioned a '45 L-7, a '29 Gibson L-0 (the "Robert Johnson" guitar), a '60s Martin 0-16NY, several desirable Guilds ('59 F-40, '59 M-30, '65 M-20, '70 F-47, '78 F-30), and a Dell'Arte Sweet Chorus. Of all of them, the one that I might have kept was the L-7, except whenever it was time to take out an archtop, it was the Epi Broadway, and it seemed selfish to leave the Gibson in its case unplayed. I sold it via Willie's, and Nate told me that the young guy who bought it was tickled to have it. And I was pleased that it was going to be played and enjoyed.

[amanajoe]

My old Larrivee C-19 (C09 with C10 appointments).

The person that has it still lives local and I see her out and about with it on regular occasions.

[drlj]

Mar 9, 2024 1:26:38 GMT -5 amanajoe said:

My old Larrivee C-19 (C09 with C10 appointments).

The person that has it still lives local and I see her out and about with it on regular occasions.

My Larrivee D-10 is the one guitar I would never part with. Barb gave it to me when we got married. It’s the guitar I like and play the most. It is played every day.

[howard lee]

I can't say that  there is any one guitar I wish I had back. The ones that I am care-taking now are the ones that appealed to me the most, and have remained here.

Guitars I sold without regret, largely because after x-number of years with each, we never bonded, or I used them to leverage subsequent purchases:

1973 Martin D-18

1980 Asturias Classical

1970 Guild M-20

1998 Martin D-18V

2002 Collings CJMhA

2011 Collings D-1A

2014 Collings SJ Custom

The SJ was a real sweetie, but I did not grow attached to it after three years of having it here.