What are your best gear finds?

jp

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Okay, inspired by Daktari's amazing dumpster find, a fun new thread: What's are your best gear finds?
This includes but is not limited to Goodwill, Salvation Army, garage or yard sales, dumpsters, curbside grabs, etc. Although not as gloriously Guild as Daktari's, here are mine.

-- Leslie 910 speaker cabinet -- found in alley behind my house, worked perfectly -- FREE
-- 1981 Reissue Ludwig Black Beauty snare, fully engraved, blue/green badge -- moving sale$ -- $25
-- Optigan -- from my dad via my uncle via his brother who was gonna junk it, came with about 20 discs, fully working and FREE
-- Stereo gear -- classic Marantz late 70s pre- and power amp -- saved from dumpster -- FREE
Most envious moment: A buddy of mine came back from a flea market with two pristine 1960s Gibson ES-175s -- $250 for BOTH of them!
 

gilded

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Re: What's are your best gear finds?

1) I found my wife in 9th grade, in 1967, for free..Top that!

2) About 10 years ago, my friend Rick W (maybe some of you will meet him at the Arlington Show!) went over to a Widow Lady's house to look at a '69 Gibson ES 345 guitar. The lady wanted $1000 for it. After looking at it, Rick correctly identified the guitar to her as '62 ES 335 guitar. He became the woman's agent and sold it for $7500 for her. Not exactly on subject, but I just wanted you guys to know that there is somebody like that still out there.

3) In '73, I bought a '69 Gibson Citation from Gracin & Towne's 48th Street store for $350. It was a 'dry guitar', meaning it had already been built and prepared for finishing when Gibson shipped it to the (Fred) Lifton Case Co. to make a 'mold' for the Citation model Cases. Fred liked the guitar and put it up on the wall in his office. After he died, the guitar was sold in a bankruptcy auction to G & T in '73-4. The store put it up for sale on a Friday afternoon and I bought it the following Monday morning. I had to eat beans for two weeks to get that guitar!

Jimmie DeSerio, John D'Angelico's nephew was going to finish it for me, but he passed away. Carl Thompson's shop put a finish on it for me. Later, in '79, I took it to Gibson in Kalamazoo and had them re-finish it for me. It's in the Tsmura Book, marked as the Citation with no serial number. If you look inside it though, the top and back had the number 4 written with a felt-tip pen. I met some of the guys who put it together when I went to Kalamazoo.

4) Another buddy found a '60's Martin Classical (Willie Nelson model) in the garbage outside a house in NYC.
 

jp

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Re: What's are your best gear finds?

gilded said:
3) In '73, I bought a '69 Gibson Citation from Gracin & Towne's 48th Street store for $350. It was a 'dry guitar', meaning it had already been built and prepared for finishing when Gibson shipped it to the (Fred) Lifton Case Co. to make a 'mold' for the Citation model Cases. Fred liked the guitar and put it up on the wall in his office. After he died, the guitar was sold in a bankruptcy auction to G & T in '73-4. The store put it up for sale on a Friday afternoon and I bought it the following Monday morning. I had to eat beans for two weeks to get that guitar!

Jimmie DeSerio, John D'Angelico's nephew was going to finish it for me, but he passed away. Carl Thompson's shop put a finish on it for me. Later, in '79, I took it to Gibson in Kalamazoo and had them re-finish it for me. It's in the Tsmura Book, marked as the Citation with no serial number. If you look inside it though, the top and back had the number 4 written with a felt-tip pen. I met some of the guys who put it together when I went to Kalamazoo.
Wow, that's pretty cool--resurrecting a little chunk of history.
 

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Nothing so valuable.
A Mike Mathews transist0r amp with a built in phaser and a Silvertone ampinthecase without a guitar. :evil: .
 

Jack FFR1846

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I need to look more.

I found a Vantage hard case that my Godin fits in. It was in a dumpster outside of a Daddy's Junky Music where I had helped a friend buy a nice guitar and amp for his son.

jack
 

Bubby

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This is a fun thread. I put an ad in the paper many years ago that turned up a 20's Gibson L-4 for $ 100.
A friends grandfather died and had several mandolins. One was a 20's Gibson A which he handed to me and said I don't know what to do with this. I know you play and will keep good care of it so you keep it. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I recently had it refretted and it's a great axe. Folks ask me if it's mine and I reply no, but I've had it on loan for 7 years.
I bought a '72 SG in 1974 and kept it a few years then sold it to a friend who live in Fla. After 16 years I visited him and he pulled it out and sold it back to me. It's a great guitar , I don't care what Gruhen says.
dumbest move-sold an old tele for $ 100. and it wasn't even mine.
 

chazmo

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I bought a series I Artwood off CL from a guy in Chicago last year for $100. Not as good as finding something in a dumpster, but still pretty ridiculous. :)

My best gear find, really, is the guitar sites on the web itself -- LTG, ICW, AGF, and UMGF for me. I knew little about guitar design/construction/repair when I learned to play back in the '70s. That all got interesting for me when I got back into the guitar scene a few years ago and found these web sites. Two of my three Guilds came from LTG members. And even when I bought the F512 at a store (first), it was 'Strang who gave me the best and most detailed comparison among the models before I pulled the trigger.

Thank you, guys/gals!
 

Walter Broes

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Actually, my first Guild, (still my favorite too) was my best gear find.

I had a two-tone green 1961 Gretsch double Anniversary guitar that was such a bad guitar that it was un-usable. I traded it straight across for my beloved 1962 Manhattan, and while it wasn't a spectacular trade in money terms, it certainly was in "how much guitar I got"!
 

Bubby

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Walter Broes said:
Actually, my first Guild, (still my favorite too) was my best gear find.

Hey I agree with that, my only Guild is the best find ever, makes me want more of the same. I had to pay for it though. I wish I had found this site before then. It turned out well though, I have a great guitar.
 

danerectal

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I found an old Hammond L-102 console organ on spring cleanup days in Fargo. All it took to get it working was a $7 bottle of Hammond motor oil. To the best of my recollection my best and only find.
 

matsickma

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Ditto for me!

I was driving down town (Coopersburg, PA) one day about 5 years ago and went past an area where an old building was being razed to make way for a mini mart. In the corner of my eye I thought I saw a organ laying on the side of the road. I made the next right turn and came around the block and sure enough there was an organ. I pulled up past the organ and got out of my Explorer to check it out. I expected to find a old Conn or Allen organ. As I got closer I saw the Hammond name plate and couldn't beleive what I was seeing. It wasn't a B3 or C3 but I knew it was similar.

I walked up to the guy overseeing the demolition and asked him what was up with the organ. He said it was inside the building and he laid it on the side of the road with the intention of taking it home for his son. I asked him what he wanted for it and he said $100. I told him I didn't have $100 but would give him what I had in my wallet. He looked at me with skeptism as I opened my wallet and pulled out $57. He said sold. He stopped the guy running the bulldozer and had him come over to help me load it into the back of the Explorer.

As I drove to work I could hear the banging of the reverb pan. It was a Wednesday and that evening I would be taking my son to piano lessons. He took lessons from the local Game Warden, Alex, who in an earlier life was a Medic with the Air Calvary in Vietnam, a music grad of Berkley and a pretty decent Hammond B3 player in a '70's band, looked at it and said I did pretty good.

He told me it was a Hammond A102 which had the same tone Generators and electronic as a B3/C3 but also included internal amplifiers and speakers! My son stopped playing piano but I still got the Hammond in the basement. One of these days I am gonna hook up a Leslie to it and hopefully learn how to play.

M
 

jp

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jp said:
Leslie 910 speaker cabinet -- found in alley behind my house, worked perfectly -- FREE
matsickma said:
He told me it was a Hammond A102 which had the same tone Generators and electronic as a B3/C3 but also included internal amplifiers and speakers! My son stopped playing piano but I still got the Hammond in the basement. One of these days I am gonna hook up a Leslie to it and hopefully learn how to play.
Too bad I didn't know you back then, Mike. I would have given you the speaker, and you would have had a classic setup! When I moved overseas, I ended up giving it to a friend of mine. He still has it today.
 

gilded

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Matsickma, are we Hammond Brothers, too? Not just DE400 Brothers??

I have a '58 B-3, a Hammond PR40 Tone Cabinet and a Leslie. Wish I knew how to play it :oops:

I bought it and had it completely gone through; Leslie too. I heard a voice, kind of like Kevin Costner in the movie Field of Dreams, 'If you build it, they will come'. Funny how that didn't work out! The reality is that keyboard players freak out when they see it and inevitably wander over to the Roland Clone Organ or the Yamaha weighted-action Electric Piano we have set up in the Rehearsal Room.

Younger keyboard players come up thinking a Hammond B-3 is a setting on a Synth. When they see the real deal, they just kind of choke...... I dunno if it's the idea of the foot pedal board, the volume pedal, the two keyboard manuals, the percussion section, the chorus/vibrato section, the draw bars, or what.
 

Guildmark

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A company I worked for until five years ago decided to close a couple of its offices that had conference rooms with an assortment of AV equipment. They were very generous to those willing to relieve them of the surplus. I received 3 amplifiers (2 TOA and 1 Crown). 1 TOA went to church. The other TOA went into my son's DJ rig. The Crown powers my PA. It had been rack mounted so I had to build the rack case to make it portable. Oh, the blue anvil case was also a gift during that same "yard sale". I haven't been this lucky since then.

P1010550b.jpg
 

bighouse

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Best gear I've found is third.

If you're good with the clutch you can start out from a stop sign or light with it and idle around town, and it still has enough headroom for some modest highway driving...
 

Jeff_L

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bighouse said:
Best gear I've found is third.

If you're good with the clutch you can start out from a stop sign or light with it and idle around town, and it still has enough headroom for some modest highway driving...


True, true. But don't you burn up a lot of clutches usin' 'em that way?

Jeff
 

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Not necessarily - it does take a certain deft touch, tho, to keep the clutch healthy.
 

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That's it! It's still over at my buddy's house with the Vibrolux and the Maestro. I'll retrieve it soon, to use on my first album, Legend In My Mom's Basement, to be released sometime in 2016. :lol:
 
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