Do you own a guitar formerly owned by a well known pro?

[Tico]

The Guild D-55 I bought new 1977.

A pro is a person who's paid to do the job.
That makes Tico a pro.

... perhaps you meant to ask, owned by a celebrity.

[RRuskin]

I have a custom OO-40H copy made for and owned by Dick Rosmini. Those who don't know the name should look him up.

[Wade Hampton]

At first I thought, nah, I've never owned any guitars owned and played by anyone famous, but then Mycroft posted the clip of Don Ross playing the Beneteau baritone that Mycroft now owns, and since I owned that guitar for two or three years before I sold it to Mycroft, I guess that counts.

My 2001 Gibson Advanced Jumbo was owned by string maker and guitarist John Pearse before his widow Linda Pearse passed it along to me in 2010. So I guess that one counts, too.

As far as I can discern, though, is that the only professional musician that has ever owned the rest of my instruments is me. Of course, unless you're buying a used guitar from a single owner who bought it from a music store, you don't really know who previous owners of a used guitar might be.

So maybe some of the old Martins, Gibsons and Guilds I've owned were owned by Elvis at some point! Or George Harrison!! Or George Washington!!!

But somehow I doubt it....


whm

[darylcrisp]

two of my former guitars are now owned and used by pro musicians, if that counts, in a backwards sort of way-lol

d

[Wade Hampton]

Yeah, I’ve got one of those, as well. I had Scott Baxendale make me a seven string guitar. Not one like George Van Eps used to play, but similar to the Martin HD-7, the Roger McGuinn model with an octave string on the G.

For a bunch of reasons the guitar didn’t work out for me, the most important being that I found the neck on it to be uncomfortable. Scott took it back in trade and now one of the guys who’s in the Driveby Truckers has it and loves it, and has used it on at least a couple of recent albums they’ve released, notably the live in concert album.


whm

[Nama Ensou]

Originally Posted by jpricewood

Do you own a guitar formerly owned by a pro? If so, what’s the story behind the guitar?

Yeah, all of them, and they'll belong to a pro again once they let us start gigging like before.

[thegazza]

Not quite the same, but I did sell a guitar to Iain Matthews of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort. He was very fair to deal with, advising that I’d probably regret selling the guitar and that I should think seriously before offloading it, particularly at the comparatively low price I’d advertised it for.

I had my eye on a new electric and foolishly sold the acoustic to Iain, despite his suggestions. It was an RK RNJ-26 and, within a month, I really regretted selling it. Found one since but it wasn’t as good as the one I sold, which I now understand may have been a prototype.

Lesson learned about selling guitars.

[Mike McLenison]

The first question I'd have is why did they sell it? Inferior? Needed the money? Over the years I adopted the "buy any Martin" -they are all great.

[JKA]

Once owned a '59 Dan Electro Convertible that belonged to Chris Rea. He used it to record slide on his Water Sign album.

Gave it to my daughter who, not realising the significance, sold it for next to nothing. Ho hum...

[The Bard Rocks]

One of my clients owns Woody Guthrie's last guitar, a '63 D18. Woody died in '67 and his doctor use to jam with him when he was still able. And he was friends with the doctor and got it for a large favor rendered. At least this is the story he was told.

Myself, no such story. Hard to own a guitar once owned by anyone else if you tend to buy them new. However, many professionals have played mine as I run (or used to, before COVID) a house concert series here at Rocky Top.

[jklotz]

Own? No. A while back, I did an internship with a luthier. He did setups, fretwork, etc for some some well known touring musicians. So I've had guitars pass through my hands that played in front of very large audiences, stadiums, etc. For me, it was a bit of a disappointment. I thought they would have been amazing gems that would sound like angels singing and could part the red sea. Turns out they were just guitars, nothing special, none of which I'd have bought if I had run across them in a store. None seemed all that great to me.

[zombywoof]

Close as I ever came was a black painted National Duolian which had been played by John Hammond. Don't own any longer though.

[Matts67]

Not owned, but played by Scott Nygaard in a review video, which I think is pretty cool.

https://pegheadnation.com/instrument...lly-torrefied/


I also recently sold my Huss and Dalton TD-R which is played by Ryan Cavanaugh in the following video:

[PHJim]

My '62 D-21 once belonged to Cris Cuddy (Max Mouse & The Gorillas).
I have a couple of instruments that once belonged to Jimmy Bowskill (Sheepdogs/ Blue Rodeo) and he owns at least one that belonged to me.
Willie P. Bennett's mom gave me a few of his mouth harps after he passed.

My friend, the late Don Skuce, owned a music store in Peterborough. Another friend, David Wong, put an old all mahogany Martin into Don's store to sell for him. One day Neil Young came in with his dad and bought David's guitar. He had no cash or cheques, so he promised to mail Donnie a cheque. I don't think he would've done that for many people, but Donnie agreed.
So David owned a guitar that wouldlater be owned by a "pro".

[EZYPIKINS]

I didn't own it, but I once played Smiley Maxadon's J-200. I became friends with his son Mike in the 70's. Smiley was already in poor health. Years later Mike became a Reverend. We were at his church one day, and he was showing me his guitars. He brought out this old beat up J-200, Said this was my Dad's. From what I remember it was very worn and dry. Missing binding here and there. I tuned it up, and strummed a G chord. The tone from that guitar filled the room like a warm summer day. Best sounding acoustic I ever heard.