Archive for the 'Other Guitars' Category

At the end of last month, a vintage guitar auction in Dallas sold a collection of 409 lots that raised over $1.5 million in total. At the forefront of the bidding action was a rare and sought after guitar, a guitar that caused frenzy. In fact the lot in question, a 1949 Bigsby vintage guitar, sold at auction for $266,500, with head-to-head bidding by two determined parties propelling the price upwards.

The vintage guitar wasn’t just any old guitar though. It was a 1949 Bigsby birds-eye maple solid body electric guitar, and it was the forth instrument to be made at this famous old guitar shop. For their quarter of a million dollars, the winning bidder isn’t only buying a stunning example of a prestigious guitar, they are also buying a piece of music history.

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While taking a break from a rehearsal session in Los Angeles last week, five vintage guitars worth around $100,000 were stolen from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, guitars that included a 1967 maple 12-string Rickenbacker and a 1967 Epiphone Sheridan. However, thankfully, Tom Petty’s stolen vintage guitar has been returned, along with the other four famous instruments after a tip-off about a suspicious sale to a pawn shop in Hollywood.

Petty and his band filed an official complaint with the Culver City Police Department on 12th April and, less than a week later the prized vintage guitars were back with their rightful owners. According to E!, Culver City Police recovered one of the missing guitars from the pawn shop, where it was sold for just $250. This led to a search warrant being issued against 51-year-old Daryl Washington, who was a private security guard at the rehearsal venue where the guitars went missing from. A search of Washington’s residence led to the recovery of the other four missing guitars, which have now been returned to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

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While a British guitar maker and restorer was searching for abandoned instruments to return to their former glory, he made, what he described as the ‘find of a lifetime’. Shaun Newman had discovered a 100 year old Ibanez vintage guitar in a dump and, after paying a nominal £5 charge, took the battered piece of musical history to his workshop to begin the restoration.

This rare vintage guitar was in a sorry state though, with numerous cracks and chips that were accompanied by a crack that run the entire length of one of the ribs. However, being a time served guitar craftsman, Newman managed to restore the vintage Ibanez to its former glory following hours of painstaking work.

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There’s a custom guitar manufacturer in New York who is offering his customers the chance to own a brand new, vintage sounding and feeling guitar, a guitar that is also a piece of history. 62 year old Rich Kelly makes custom guitars using reclaimed wood from famous building in New York, and these handmade custom instruments carry a modest price tag too.

Kelly has been making custom guitars in New York since the late 1960s but recently he has taken to using reclaimed timber from some of New York’s most famous historic buildings to create his works. Chumley’s Pub, the old Lincoln Hotel and the famous Hotel Chelsea are just some of the buildings that Kelly has used wood from to create these unique custom guitars.

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Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead are two of the best known names in rock, with cult followers and a string of classic hits to their name. And, as a part of the ‘Visions of Garcia’ auction, two of Jerry Garcia’s custom guitars are to be sold, along with oil paintings and airbrush originals created by Garcia, handwritten set lists, sets of drums and even his 1983 Harley Davidson motorbike.

Unbelievably, it has been nearly 17 years since we lost the late great Jerry Garcia, the man who didn’t favour one single guitar model or manufacturer, instead using around 25 individual guitars during his 30 year career. Garcia is known to have used a variety of popular acoustic and electric guitars including a host of Gibson Les Pauls in a number of different colours, a 1969 Gibson SG and a Sunburst Fender Stratocaster.

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Last August we told about a proposed custom guitar auction that was to be held in Christchurch, New Zealand in a bid to raise money for communities that were devastated during the 2011 earthquakes. Well, we are pleased to tell you that the guitar auction was a success and the seven handmade custom instruments fetched a staggering sum, with a total of NZ$111,000 raised in the charity guitar auction.

Last February Christchurch was hit by one of the worst earthquakes in its recorded history. A quake of 6.3 magnitude ripped through the New Zealand capital, leaving 181 people dead and thousands without homes. The ‘Earthquake Guitars’, as they have been dubbed, were handmade by Christchurch residents Bruce Pickering and his son Jason Pickering, using woods reclaimed from buildings that were destroyed during the quakes, with the intention of creating some lasting good from a terrible occurrence. And good they have done, raising a huge sum of money, which will be used by the Christchurch arts community.

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Hollywood actor Richard Gere is to sell his vintage guitar collection on October 11th to raise funds for humanitarian charities. The task of auctioning the collection of guitars has been given to Christie’s auction house in New York, with the 110-strong lot of vintage and custom guitars, along with a selection of amps expected to achieve $1 million or more when they go under the hammer.

Gere, a self-taught pianist and guitarist, originally started his musical enthusiasm as a youngster, studying the trumpet before turning his hand to the guitar and other instruments. Gere has been building his collection of guitars for over the last 20 years but, the movie star didn’t intend to build a collection, saying “I just bought ones that I liked, the ones that sounded good and played well. Some are very special.” But a collection of guitars is exactly what he has assembled and, with reluctance, he is auctioning the lot.

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On Friday night, Bon Jovi lead guitarist Richie Sambora played a concert with a difference. He wasn’t playing in front of just any old crowd, the Bon Jovi guitarist played a gig for Marines at Camp Pendleton in California to thank the troops for their valued efforts around the world. Not only was Sambora treating the Marines to a selection of classic rock tracks but he was also there to give away a number of folding guitars for Marines who won a competition.

Back in the spring, thousands of marines entered a contest to win folding custom guitars that were paid for and customised by Sambora himself and, on Friday night the Bon Jovi guitarist handed out these special instruments to the lucky winners. The guitars have been designed so they can be folded in half and fit into a special rucksack, allowing Marines to take them around the world without the hassle that a full size guitar bag would bring.

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