I have this Celtic cross inlay on the truss rod cover of my Gibson Advanced Jumbo:
I grew up in the Episcopal church in what was then a very Scots-Irish parish, and am Scots-Irish on my father's side. So that's a motif I'm very familiar with: many of us (including me) wore silver Celtic crosses around our necks, and they're carved in stone there at that church building.
My parish church here in Anchorage, Alaska is very sleek and modernistic compared to the stone church I grew up in, and the congregation is not nearly as ethnically monolithic, but that symbol still resonates with me. Plus I think it fits in nicely with the stock inlays on the AJ, and since I do use that guitar to lead worship music, to my mind it's a nice fit.
On another Gibson guitar I used to own, I had the South Carolina moon and palmetto tree motif inlaid into the truss rod cover:
Something that has surprised me in the past couple of years is how popular that particular motif has become, even with people who have no discernible ties to South Carolina. Even here in the Anchorage area I see it a lot in those giant white decals some people use to decorate the back windows of their cars and pickup trucks.
But it's most definitely a South Carolina motif, which should be obvious when you look at the South Carolina state flag:
That's why I like it and own a truss rod cover inlaid with it, because my South Carolina roots run deep. I haven't lived there in decades, but the Low Country is where my mother's people have lived for centuries, and where most of them still live.
By the way, I admire Bill Nichols' work and have some other things he's made, but both of the inlaid truss rod covers I showed here came from Custominlay.com:
http://shop.custominlay.com/Inlaid-T...ss-VVT-208.htm
Anyway, it's kind of fun to be able to dress up your guitar a little bit, even if virtually nobody else ever notices these fancy truss rod covers. The one and only person to ever notice and comment about the Celtic cross inlaid truss rod cover was my friend and fellow multi-instrumentalist at church who mostly plays bass, but sometimes switches off and plays my guitar while I play something else.
A few weeks ago he finally noticed it, but that was after it had been on the guitar for more than two years!
Which is fine: I take that as a sign that it blends in nicely!
Wade Hampton Miller