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The Most Expensive Guitar You've Ever Played

Wizard of Wailing

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    I don't have an interesting story about this (it's probably just some Les Paul at a Guitar Center), but I thought the people here might have good stories about the most expensive guitar they've ever played.
 
Wizard of Wailing said:
    I don't have an interesting story about this (it's probably just some Les Paul at a Guitar Center), but I thought the people here might have good stories about the most expensive guitar they've ever played.

I've played an early 50's Gibson Les paul gold top.  It was butchered (TOM bridge added, sunk into the top, humbuckers added), but it was still veeeeeeery expensive. 

Neck was warped.  sounded like crap.  Warmoth is better.  :headbang:
 
Pricey guitars abound.  I have played quite a few over the years, hanging out in guitar stores.  A friend of mine, Stevie Coyle (formerly of the Waybacks) owns a high-end acoustic shop in Lafayette, CA  - www.mightyfineguitars.com  - and I have really blown myself away with a lot of his stock.  I find that among electric guitars, even those not hailing from the vintage world, there is often not a strong correlation between price and quality.  The difference between a $2000 guitar and a  $5000 electric guitar is largely attributable to one thing:  How much can we get out of the suckers?  The electric  that really gets me in the naughty bits is usually not gonna be the one on the very high-up display - it will be a fairly ordinary but well set-up instrument that just has the goods.

But in acoustic-land - leaving aside the exorbitant prices pre-war Martins and a few other highly valued antiques command - there is, in my experience, a substantial qualitative difference in what one can expect from an instrument as one moves from, say, $2500 bucks (garden variety Martin, Gibson, Taylor territory) up to some handmade job at $5000 or better.  That said, there is also a tendency for the very most in-demand builders to price their stuff stratospherically simply as a reflection of the iron law of supply and demand.  There's only so many guitars one luthier can build a year in a one-person shop, and if that luthier has some good luck and Pat Metheny or John McLaughlin or someone of that caliber mentions them in the guitar press, boom, their dance card fills up and they can charge whatever they want.  The spec builders, however, have to cover their costs and earn a little profit, and as far as I can tell, guitar-building is just another variation on the theme of genteel poverty.


But to address the question more directly:  I think the most singularly gratifying high-priced guitar experience I've had was a Goodall super jumbo baritone with a koa back and sides and a spruce top.  Damn thing was the most responsive and finely-set-up instrument I have ever had my hands on.  At six grand, I felt it would have been worth it if I'd had the shekels to drop -- and I am fundamentally a cheap bastard.  Y'all really ought to pick up a Goodall sometime just to try it out - and if you can afford it, you are very much in danger of buying it if you play it.

I also harbor a longing for a Santa Cruz F13.
 
I wouldn't say I've played it, but I have held and tried a quick lick acoustically on Steve Vai's Evo. That guitar is well used and genuinely worn.

No idea what Evo would go for if a collector could buy it.

 
Possibly the most valuable guitar I've had a few strums on was a 1930s vintage Gibson L5 archtop acoustic.  :cool01:

Hit a decent chord and the whole back of the guitar would sympathetically shake with the chord and vibrate on your belly.

I was only a kid just starting to play when I was offered the chance to play this. The guy who was repairing my old beater first electric owned it. He wanted me to see the difference in quality. It was bleeding obvious compared to crap guitars I was playing at the time.

I've also had a look at a few Gretsch White Falcons out of interest at stores, impressive. And I've played a couple of top line Martin acoustics a few years back in a shop. One was Clapton Martin D42 (?) and another was a fully embellished D45 or the like.

Those were all new guitars and obviously didn't have the historical mojo behind them like the old Gibson L5.
 
For me it was a really early SG at a guitar show. I don't remember the exact model year but the price tag said 17k. I don't know what it was about that guitar but it just stuck with me. It was like magic, playing it. I played a few other vintage guitars while I was at the show, some even in that price range, but the SG was the one that I remember. Which is weird, because I otherwise can't stand them.
 
Well at our local store I played some Santa Cruz acoustic guitars. Both dreadnoughts. I believe a Norman Blake model and a Tony Rice model. They were some fine playing guitars and sounding. Were they worth the 4 to 5,000 dollar tags? If I had lots and lots of extra money then maybe  :laughing3: but as for now my cheapies will do just fine.
 
Surf n Music said:
Well at our local store I played some Santa Cruz acoustic guitars. Both dreadnoughts. I believe a Norman Blake model and a Tony Rice model. They were some fine playing guitars and sounding. Were they worth the 4 to 5,000 dollar tags? If I had lots and lots of extra money then maybe  :laughing3: but as for now my cheapies will do just fine.


I've spent more than one happy afternoon fiddling about with the stock at Sylvan - I miss that place.  The best Vegas has to offer is chickenfeed by comparison.
 
They are so nice there. I was in the electric guitar room and a worker comes up and hand me cable and say have fun. Play em all, there is a few amps. I love it. Classical room, vintage room, amp room, electric room. Everyone just seems stoked to be there.
 
Yep, very positive vibe there.  One of my most gratifying priced-for-mere-mortals guitar experiences was there, too - a silver-oak Larrivee dreadnought with white spruce back and sides. The thing just sang - for about 1200 bus, hard case included.  Oak!  Who'da thunk it?
 
    I'm envious.  I live in Iowa, which is not a hotbed of collectible/boutique guitars.  I think the most expensive guitar I ever saw was back in the 90's when a store was selling a Strat that once belonged to Rick Derringer.  I didn't play it.  I had no idea who Rick Derringer was, but now that I do, I still wouldn't have played it.  I think it was a 70's model.
 
Bagman67 said:
Yep, very positive vibe there.  One of my most gratifying priced-for-mere-mortals guitar experiences was there, too - a silver-oak Larrivee dreadnought with white spruce back and sides. The thing just sang - for about 1200 bus, hard case included.  Oak!  Who'da thunk it?

You just never know what is going to make that magic sound. Never woulda thought.

I saw your comment about wanting a Santa Cruz 13, That Norman Blake model I played sounded so good. A dreadnought but the neck joined the body at the 12th fret. Something about it felt so good and sounded right to me.
 
Most expensive I have played? I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with a Kevin Ryan Nightingale acoustic. Don't know what the final price of it was, but it was north of 10,000.
 
a friend lent me an old tele his late brother had , it was sublime , offered to buy it , but told him I'd have it appraised ... turned out it was a '59 .. George Gruhn offered $9000 for it .  The most expensive one I own is a Gibson CS-356 Custom shop with an Ebony fretboard ( the new ones have that disgustin "richlyte)
 
Most expensive? Either of the Godin 5th Avenue or Gretsch Electromatic sitting in my living room; they were roughly the same price. That, or maybe my friend's MM bass. How much do they go for?

Either way, how sad am I?
 
I've played some guitars that weren't expensive at the time, but are now. I'm old enough that back when I started out, there was almost no such thing as "vintage" instruments. They were considered old, used, pains in the ass best used as good examples of how not to do things.

As for modern "expensive" guitars, I've played some Martins that went for a pretty penny.
 
Fender Eric Johnson model if we're judging by MSRP. (Though my friend got it at a great deal).
By actual amount paid would probably be a tossup of the two in my signature.
I've had my tuxedo Strat for a very long time and little upgrades cost a bit in the end, but I love her.
 
There are a lot of people around here who have totally crapped-out old Teles and Strats and stuff they bought new, or used in 1965 or 1972 or something. They think it's just funny. It's not like there's strangers cruising the bars looking for stuff or anything, the only time we play for anybody new is if they got lost. I have a friend who keeps a 1959 Gretsch White Falcon under the bed in a spare room, I told him he should get new slats for that bed because John Frusciante paid $80,000 for one and the bed collapses sometimes. The problem is, it's a real, totally- P.O.S.-sounding AND playing P.O.S., so it's hard to take it seriously. Remember how horrible Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young used to sound when they played those things?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqe49_9uvxI
Yeah, like that, only maybe even worse. It absolutely CANNOT be tuned, the strings fall off the bridge saddles all the time, if you raise the action high enough to even get close to cutting out buzzy-the-bee crap you can't even play it except for slide but it has absolutely no sustain so it's like... $4.79 polyethylene plastic nylon-string ukulele slide. Got $80,000? :icon_scratch:

I'm sorry, that was mean. Boy did those guys ever suck huh. As it turned out "cocaine" was NOT the graduate course for which "LSD" was the undergraduate prep course. Around 5:15 is when they're, like, "getting down." Jesus. The really bizarre part is, however, about that 1974 CSNY nonsense being billed under "Sunshine Daydream?" Because on August 27, 1972 a REAL band did some very serious meta-molecular re-arrangement of the nature of being:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftQ0A7SMFuU
That is, unquestionably, exactly how you're supposed to do it. CSN (only) did do "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" GREAT at Woodstock - in 1969 - and around 2004 the whole circus could tear UP "Eight Miles High."

So, $80,000?  :icon_scratch: Of my two own "got-aways" one was a late 70's quilted-maple B.C. Rich Mockingbird. SOLID QUILTED MAPLE.... You see the solid KOA ones a lot, but it's almost like I hallucinated it, except I DIDN'T. There must've only been... one? Two or something? Frick. What's something like that worth? And the other one, a Travis Bean TB1000, they run around $5,000 nowadays.
 
I'm a little late to the party in this thread. My answer is a lot like Bagman67's first post in the thread. If not THE most expensive guitar I've ever played, but certainly one of the most, and one of the most enjoyable little demos I've treated myself to with a guitar - was also a custom Goodall acoustic, which I got to try out in McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. (If you're ever in the LA area McCabe's is a must to visit for their wonderful selection of acoustic instruments). I didn't even ask the price or look at the tag, but that guitar was just amazing. Easily the best acoustic I've ever played, and I've played - and owned - some nice ones.
 
mrpinter said:
I'm a little late to the party in this thread. My answer is a lot like Bagman67's first post in the thread. If not THE most expensive guitar I've ever played, but certainly one of the most, and one of the most enjoyable little demos I've treated myself to with a guitar - was also a custom Goodall acoustic, which I got to try out in McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. (If you're ever in the LA area McCabe's is a must to visit for their wonderful selection of acoustic instruments). I didn't even ask the price or look at the tag, but that guitar was just amazing. Easily the best acoustic I've ever played, and I've played - and owned - some nice ones.
+1 on Goodalls. I love mine. Used around 3K.
But I will say the Ryan I played blew my Goodall out of the water.
 
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