My Guitar Herd

[ronbo]

Thought I would post some pictures and stories about my current guitar herd. I've been buying and selling guitars since my teens (84 guitars total, so far! - currently 68 years old), but really got into it in 2012 after my son graduated High School and moved out...that definitely freed up some ca$h and time to experiment! I've spent the last 13 years trying out lots of different things to try to find what I really liked and what worked for me and my style of playing. I love all kinds of music (even some hip-hop/old-school rap!) but mostly like to play blues, surf, rockabilly, classic and hard rock, bluegrass, some country and really anything guitar-based. Also dig the various forms of metal, but just ain't that good or quick with my fingers! I've played in a dozen or so bands over the years and currently play in a "classic" rock band with a couple of neighbors and play in a pick-up bluegrass jam band with a couple of former work mates and others, so need both electric and acoustic guitars that deliver the goods.

I found The Fret in 2012 through searching for some different guitar brands and was introduced to Hell Guitars at that time, through a long post (24 pages) from "SYO" (Michael from Hell Guitars) and some posts/demos from Robert. I got into a conversation from Michael for a couple of weeks and bought his Tele style, the No 2, which was a fantastic guitar! After that I pretty quickly purchased the Bender and the Zero Dot, his other 2 models, since I felt that they were a screaming deal for what you got...a decently built guitar with Bare Knuckle pickups in all, for the price of an Epiphone! I even got a buddy of mine with more money and more expensive guitars than me to try the No 2 and he quickly bought one also, claiming it was the best sounding and playing tele-type he'd ever played

I still own all 3 styles and play them regularly at band practice. I haven't upgraded the No 2 at all, since it has Bare Knuckle Boss pickups, which sound great and needed no mods! I replaced the trem on the Zero Dot with a WiIkinson trem for a bit better tuning stability, but the BK Irish Tour and Nailbomb pickups are exactly the tones I want in a Strat-type guitar. I did replace the BK Mules in the Bender (since I had a guitar that sounded almost exactly the same) with The Creamery CuNiFe Wide Range Humbucker pickups, and added locking tuners, a Reverend roller bridge and a Duesenberg/Goldo trem...that guitar absolutely rocks now! The current picture shows it with Railhammer Gnarly 90 pickups in it...I tried a number of different pickups until I fount the Creamery ones, so will need to take new pictures at some point

Anyway, here's a picture of those 3 babies, each with their own strap. At the time I also found some really cool, rockabilly-type straps from Dunlop - the Lucky 13 series that are all based on old-school tattoos (since I don't have any tattoos!), sporting skulls and semi-naked pin-up girl motifs...this is Rock and Roll after all
Each one of my electrics has it's own strap and I've tried to match the colors to the guitar, somewhat...

L-R: Zero Dot, Bender, No 2



I don't believe that Michael is still selling Hell guitars, although I do see his picks, etc still being offered and I've never seen one for sale except on here. He was a really nice guy and had some great ideas, so I hope he's doing well!

Since I have 21 guitars at this point (down from 36 a couple of years ago), I'll update this with more stuff soon...

 

[ronbo]

In keeping with my last post of really good, cheap guitars, I'll add in my Reverends. At same time I was discovering Hell guitars, I discovered Reverends and have owned a dozen or so of them since 2012. Reverends are (by my estimation) one of the best buys out there...well built with locking tuners, good hardware, great pickups and consistent fit and finish. They all generally have Reverend's secret weapon, a Bass Contour Control (BCC) pot, which is a bass cut pot that allows for a cleaner, bitier tone and adds to the versatility of your tone shaping! I've 'upgraded' pickups in them a number of times, but nearly every time I end up going back to their original pickups. Reverend's founder, Joe Naylor, also made some great amps for a while (Naylor Amps) and still makes his line of Railhammer pickups, which are really nice also. I've generally only sold them to buy different Reverend guitars to try out and have owned a couple of versions of the same models just with different color schemes, namely the PA-1 - Pete Anderson Signature P-90 hollowbody (in blonde and silver sparkle) and the Reeves Gabrels I Signature model (in black burst and red flame). They have many signature guitars by newer, current artists and generally arrive setup well and ready to play at home or at a gig!

Here's a pic of my current ones: (L-R) Flatroc in sparkle green with TV Jones Duo-Trons (my favorite TV Jones pickup!), Reeves Gabrels Signature in Red Flame and a Rick Vito Signature in hard to find Ocean Blue. I love the styling of the Vito...I always thought it looked like a Les Paul had a baby with a 1954 Ford Victoria! It also has a really cool bridge pickup called a Dual-Pro, which is a copy of an old Supro style single-coil pickup. Rick is a monster slide player and played the slide guitar in Bob Seeger's classic "Like a Rock" as well as sat in for a number of years with Fleetwood Mac after Lindsey Buckingham left them. I replaced the Dual-Pro with a number of different pickups over the years, but came back to the original because it sounds so good, both clean and overdriven! I recently sold the Reeves Gabrels I, because I am a GAS-y and impatient man and have another guitar that sounds similar and only so much room to store them all. As you can see they all have their own Dunlop Lucky 13 strap...

 

[ronbo]

Next up are my Guilds! I've owned numerous Guild guitars starting with a D-35 sunburst way back in 1982. Great guitars, even though they've had quite checkered past. They've been building guitars since 1952. According to Guild:

"The Guild Guitar line was founded as a quality alternative to the Gibson-Epiphone merger. Alfred Dronge, a professional guitarist and music store owner, and George Mann, a one-time Epiphone exec, formed a partnership and registered the Guild name in October of 1952.

The partners set up shop in a 1500-square-foot New York City loft in the midst of two very important communities: the community of experienced craftsmen from the nearby Epiphone and Gretsch factories and the community of big-time jazz session guitarists performing and recording in New York.

From the former group, Guild hired a handful of seasoned craftsmen to begin the design and production of the original Guilds. From the latter group, the recording artists with whom Dronge was connected, Guild was able to receive valuable professional input on building better guitars"

Over the years they've built some really great archtop-style guitars and I think they excel at the medium-to-large bodied Jumbo and Grand Auditorium-stlye guitars as well as killer Dreadnaughts...and they definitely make some of the best 12-string guitars I've ever played.

They've had factories in the following cities over the years :

New York City, NY
Hoboken, NJ
Westerly, RI
Corona, CA
Tacoma, WA
New Hartford, CT
Oxnard, CA

as well as Korea and China for their more recent Newark Street budget lines. Somehow, throughout all of this change they have managed to keep some of their old luthiers and acquire new talent and make some really great, world-class factory instruments that have a dedicated following of guitar enthusiasts, me being one of them!

My current stable includes (L-R):

F-47m - Maple-bodied Grand Auditorium
Starfire III-P90 - with stock Duncan P-90's...great sounding hollowbody P-90 guitar.
F512 - Rosewood bodied 17" Jumbo 12 string...sounds like an orchestra just strumming it!
Orpheum Mahogany Slope-shouldered Dreadnaught - Custom shop Gibson J-45 type



I will say that I think Guild has some of the prettiest, most balanced looking sunburst finishes of any guitars I've ever seen. And their overall quality has been really good over the years in most of their factories. Both of the acoustics pictured are from the New Hartford facility, which opened around 2008 - 2014 and produced some of the best guitars in their lineup.

In 2012 Guild hired world-renowned Gibson Master Luthier and Production Manager Ren Fergesen to head up their custom shop in New Hartfoed and to design/redesign some guitars for them. In the process they came up with the Orpheum line, which was Ren's attempt to make guitars like Guild would have made, had they been around in the 1930's and 1940's. One of those guitars was a slope shouldered dreadnaught, like a Gibson J-45, in Rosewood and Mahogany, with Red Spruce/Adirondack tops, Ebony fretboard and bridge and somewhat beefy 40's style neck dimensions. Mine is the Mahogany version and is the sweetest sounding, yet loud and growly J-45 style guitar that I've ever played! They only produced a few hundred of each (if that) and are quite sought after in the Guild world, and rightly so...yet generally sell for the price of a Gibson J-45 standard....certainly not approaching the prices of Gibson Custom shop guitars, but with comparable styling, specs, build quality and tone (if not better!)

Ren has since moved on and is bulding custom guitars outside of Bozeman, MT, near the Gibson Custom shop and his guitars now run on the $ Thousands, but you can still occasionally get his Guild Orpheum guitars for much less, with similar quality. I'll keep this guitar until my last days, it is such a joy to play

(Picture coming soon....)

 

[Tynee]

Thanks for sharing the pics, Ronbo. Looking forward to seeing the Dred, and the rest of the herd.

 

[stingx]

Very nice collection! I LOVE those Reverends especially the red one!

 

[Alan]

Good-looking guitars, and I like the coordinated straps.

 

[marnold]

In keeping with my last post of really good, cheap guitars, I'll add in my Reverends.

I love my Reverend too! Classic goldtop/P90s.

 

[Age]

I never play out anymore, so my straps are about as useful as screen door onna submarine. Kinda like my guitar cases and guit-bags that are re all under beds and stuff. Heck I have straps and getbags around here that I haven’t see for years

 

[Alan]

@Age You must have put them in a safe place. (aka: the black hole).

 

[Age]

Now that you mentioned it, there are two guit-bags (for sure) that I have no idea where the heck they are. Prolly the ones I hid that 500 grand in. (yeah right)

 

[ronbo]

Here's a pic of the Guild Orpheum Mahogany Slope Shoulder guitar (finally). One of the things that drew me to this guitar vs a standard J45 was the 25.5 inch scale (vs 24.75 on the J45). I had a Gibson Advanced Jumbo for awhile, which has the same scale length, and really liked the feel and tone of that guitar. The neck profile is pretty beefy (approaching 1.8 inches at the nut) but also quite comfortable. It took me a couple of days to get used to it, but now I can play it without even thinking about the girth since the neck carve is such that it doesn't really feel that big. Guild made both 12 fret and 14 fret versions, in both Mahogany and Rosewood, and I would love to try a 12-fret Rosewood version someday, but they are pretty rare. All have Adirondack spruce tops (as do most of the New Hartford builds) which I like since it seems to give a lot of headroom when digging in. If my house caught fire and I could only grab one guitar, this would be it

 

[ronbo]

While I'm on acoustics I'll post something about one of the most unique guitars that I have...a Martin Buddy Guy Signature J-40. I got this guitar from a friend that passed a couple of years ago and he was a huge Buddy Guy fan. He left me 15 guitars, mostly acoustics, mostly Gibsons (3 x J-180s!) and although they were fantastic guitars, I ended up selling most of them to upgrade my collection. But the one I didn't sell (and may never sell) is his Buddy Guy Sig!

Now if you know Buddy Guy, then you know he loves polka dots, wears them on stage all the time and even has a polka dot Fender Strat Sig guitar. So when Martin approached him to make a signature guitar, one of his requirements was that it have polka dots. Martin makes pretty standard looking guitars and doesn't (or hasn't ever really) veered from the tried and true standard finishes or looks of their traditional guitar styles...clear wood tops or sunburst finishes. So this one is truly a "one-of-a-kind" guitar, and they only made 30 of them with no plans for re-issues in the future that I know of. It's a standard Jumbo J-40 with an Adirondack top, pretty split rosewood back and sides in the D-35 vain and the volume/tone controls situated on the front, much like the Gibson J-160 that was once played by John Lennon. It is loud yet clear and holds its own when I play with my local bluegrass jam band. It doesn't quite have the deep rumble of a D-28, which is a bit overpowering with too much bass for my liking. Like Buddy, I'm more of a blues guy than a bluegrasser, so this really suits my playing style a bit more. My friend had much more expensive tastes in guitars than I do and I never thought I'd ever own a guitar like this! I do miss him but think of him every time I play this sweet guitar!

 

[stingx]

That Martin is amazing looking! Super nice guitar!

 

[marnold]

That's a beautiful and unique Martin! I was fortunate enough to inherit a 2018 Taylor 914ce. Looks amazing and sounds even better.

 

[ronbo]

Sweet looking Taylor! My friend actually left me a 914ce also with the "Cindy" inlay on the fretboard. It needed a neck "adjustment", but once that was done it was a wonderful playing and sounded guitar! Since it was a rosewood guitar like the Martin, I ended up selling that to pay for the Guild Orpheum.

 

[RobGLA]

While I'm on acoustics I'll post something about one of the most unique guitars that I have...a Martin Buddy Guy Signature J-40. I got this guitar from a friend that passed a couple of years ago and he was a huge Buddy Guy fan. He left me 15 guitars, mostly acoustics, mostly Gibsons (3 x J-180s!) and although they were fantastic guitars, I ended up selling most of them to upgrade my collection. But the one I didn't sell (and may never sell) is his Buddy Guy Sig!

Now if you know Buddy Guy, then you know he loves polka dots, wears them on stage all the time and even has a polka dot Fender Strat Sig guitar. So when Martin approached him to make a signature guitar, one of his requirements was that it have polka dots. Martin makes pretty standard looking guitars and doesn't (or hasn't ever really) veered from the tried and true standard finishes or looks of their traditional guitar styles...clear wood tops or sunburst finishes. So this one is truly a "one-of-a-kind" guitar, and they only made 30 of them with no plans for re-issues in the future that I know of. It's a standard Jumbo J-40 with an Adirondack top, pretty split rosewood back and sides in the D-35 vain and the volume/tone controls situated on the front, much like the Gibson J-160 that was once played by John Lennon. It is loud yet clear and holds its own when I play with my local bluegrass jam band. It doesn't quite have the deep rumble of a D-28, which is a bit overpowering with too much bass for my liking. Like Buddy, I'm more of a blues guy than a bluegrasser, so this really suits my playing style a bit more. My friend had much more expensive tastes in guitars than I do and I never thought I'd ever own a guitar like this! I do miss him but think of him every time I play this sweet guitar!

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Wow, that's a really unique Martin. Super cool!

 

[ronbo]

Got a couple more acoustics to show but need to get pictures, so here are a couple of my dream electric guitars by one of my favorite guitar companies...Gretsch!

I bought my first Gretsch in 1981 from the Chicago Store in Tucson AZ - a 1977 (Balwin-era) Gretsch Tennessean. My Grandad was a big fan of Chet Atkins and I remember hearing his songs growing up, so purchased that guitar kind of in honor of him. I was a pretty hard rocker at the time and it wasn't really my style, so played it a year or so and traded it back to them for a Rickenbacker bass, when I decided to become a full-time bass player. But I always wanted to get another Gretsch, specifically a Jet or even better, a Falcon!....the ultimate in a big, hollow-bodied guitar! Last year I realized that dream and picked up a nice 6136 Falcon Players Edition in Midnight Saffire with new FT-67 Filtertron pickups. It is a big, beautiful example with gold-sparkle binding that really plays well and can honestly do everything from Brian Setzer/Stray Cats riffs to AC/DC and everything in between. It looks almost black, but is a deep sparkle midnight-blue with some turquoise overtones that ripple under different lighting...pretty striking actually! For a big semi-hollow, it really doesn't feedback all that bad at band volumes and sounds great both clean and overdriven. Never thought I'd own one, but thanks to my late friends great taste in guitars, I was able to sell a couple of his and trade in my Electromatic 5420 (with TV Jones pickups and 'real' Bigsby trem) andI was able to make this happen! It's really a dream come true and I know my buddy would approve.

In addition I sold a Gretch 6128-'57 Jet with Dynasonics (in basic black) I'd had for a few years and with a bit more wheeling and dealing I was able to acquire another dream - a Gretsch G6129T Players Edition Jet in Light Pearl Blue! It's actually covered in Gretsch's Pearl Blue drum skin, which I've coveted since way back in the 90's, since I'm really a closet wanna be drummer deep down inside I did trade out the pickups for TV Jones Dynasonics because I love the sound of those pickups, but it is pretty pristine otherwise. It's a really fun guitar and looks amazing and sounds great...makes me wish I played out more so I could see it under stage lights!

 

[Alan]

Both are great, but the blue pearl is amazing.