Yeah: "the one that got away"...
I'm still haunted by a Kalamazoo-made Epiphone Riviera that I picked up during the early 1970s. It had started life as a "Royal Tan" (kind of a non-metallic, transluscent, goldish 'burst) 12-string. Somebody must have dropped it and busted the headstock, because it came to me as a 6-string. Thing was, I didn't realize this immediately because the repair/conversion had been professionally and seamlessly done by a master luthier (Satterly & Chapin in S.F., CA): the joint in the cut-down headstock was hidden by book-matched, mahogany veneer on the back and sides and was also undetectable on the "face" of the headstock (which retained the pearloid “Epiphone” logo). Original Kluson tuners tuners had been replaced with Grover Rotomatics, but there were no extra screw holes because the Kluson screw holes were hidden by the mahogany veneer. After repairs were made, the neck and headstock and back of the body had been refinished. He must have also touched up, feathered in and buffed out any dings, because the guitar looked brand new.
Only later, when I examined the headstock closely (because I wondered why the headstock outline was a bit wider than those I’d seen on other Rivieras and why the Tailpiece was a Gibson-style trapeze instead of an Epiphone “Frequensator”), did I realize all this.
But that was all cosmetic. Part of what actually made this guitar so cool was the chunky, 12-string neck profile, which survived the "conversion" intact. Ever pick up a guitar whose neck falls into your hand as if it was custom shaped just for you? That was how this one was for me.
The pickups were the Epiphone-style “Mini-Humbuckers” which meant they had a bit more clarity and articulation than full-sized, darker, Gibson Humbuckers. Ran it through a matched, minty 6G6B Blonde Bassman head and cab.
Like an idiot, I sold this guitar and that amp (albeit, the guitar for twice what I’d paid for it and the amp for four times what I'd paid for it) a few years after I’d bought them, probably to finance some guitar I thought I had to have at the time but can now no longer even remember.
Sometimes, you don’t realize how good something is until you’ve let it slip through your fingers…