Has anyone recovered an old guitar...

[Caffeine Patrol]

...that they wish they hadn't sold, and recovered it many years after the fact? I often see ads in Vintage Guitar where someone is looking for their old cherished guitar that they parted with 20+ years ago, and I wonder if they ever result in the desired ending.

[jkingma]

I ran an ad like that once. No luck.

[neocaster]

No, but I have sweet, sweet dreams of getting my Antigua RI back.

[Joefish]

marshman has!

[Caffeine Patrol]

I made an attempt to find my '69 Strat that I sold to Strings West in Tulsa back in '87; no dice. It's a sunburst '69 with a brass nut, routed for a humbucker. Sad to say I have no record of the serial number, just a photo of me playing it in my high school yearbook.

[XKnight]

Not exactly, but I did buy a 69 SG recently that is almost identical to my original 69 SG that I sold back around 79. Of course, it cost me about 6 times more in 09 than what it sold for in 79. Lesson learned on that one.

[jitensha]

When I was a student and had to reluctantly sell my gear to eat, I put my partscaster on up for consignment and it got stolen from the shop. Their insurance covered it. I always missed that guitar though, it was the best playing telecaster I think I've ever owned. Anyway, about 10 years later I swear I saw it in a guitar shop in Toronto. Sometime in the last decade, the neck had been swapped to maple, and the bridge replaced with a 6 saddle; but it had all the right nicks and bumps that mine had (plus a few). I was 99% sure and debated asking the clerk to pull it apart to see if it was indeed my old chandler body but in the end decided not to bother. I had no serial number to prove it and without the neck it wouldn't be the same instrument anyway. Plus, as I had been paid by the insurance company 10 years earlier I really wasn't out the money. If guitars could talk eh?

I also sold a late 70's LP special with a bigsby around the same time, which I always regretted... best not to dwell on these things.

[Mike Eskimo]

best not to dwell on these things

The operative word is things.


The '56 Les Paul Jr in the brown and pink case that I bought for $400 and sold at a profit 2 months later for $500 -

If someone offered me that guitar or my mom back ? - C'mon...


They're just guitars.


If ya love one that you have NOW, then don't get rid of that one.

Can't change the past.


As to the OP's question - no I haven't and I think it'd be worth it for a very unique guitar but a generic Strat is a needle in a haystack...

[Dave Hopping]

Not with a guitar,but I did buy back a car I'd somewhat regretfully sold.It's the Cadillac hearse I've posted a few pics of here.Getting it back into the condition it was when I sold it was EXTREMELY expensive,and I was kinda struck by how much more it costs to replace(or recover) something you regret selling than what you made from selling it.

[Dan German]

My first guitar, a 3/4 size Stella. Found it in a music store 25 years after I last saw it, so I had to buy it. (There was a sticker on it that identified it.) I did make him throw in a cardboard case, though.

[marshman]

Yes, I did find my stolen LP copy about 18-19 years after the fact...cost me just a bit less this time than it did the first time, though this time it had some (more) battle scars, a missing knob, a horrible replacement tuner and no strings. Properly set up now and it plays great.

I found the 'missing' knob in a box of random parts on my workbench--too cool!

[Groovey Records]

I bought a guitar brand new that I loved and sold it when I needed $ to buy Fuel oil.

Then a couple of yers later I bought another of the same guitar


only 40 made

its the one in my avatar

[Caffeine Patrol]

Originally Posted by Mike Eskimo

The operative word is things.


The '56 Les Paul Jr in the brown and pink case that I bought for $400 and sold at a profit 2 months later for $500 -

If someone offered me that guitar or my mom back ? - C'mon...


They're just guitars.


If ya love one that you have NOW, then don't get rid of that one.

Can't change the past.


As to the OP's question - no I haven't and I think it'd be worth it for a very unique guitar but a generic Strat is a needle in a haystack...

Things are things, to be sure, and best not to get too attached. I just wonder if people ever find or stumble across instruments they thought were out of their lives. A few months back, a Silvertone electric I'd traded at one shop ten or eleven years ago showed up on the wall at another local shop. One of those rare occasions when the instrument I traded for is probably worth more than the Silvertone. It was fun to take it down and strum it again but there was no "Rosebud" moment.

[morroben]

No, but if I ever have the cash I know where I'm driving to and what door I'm knocking on.

[Octave Doctor]

I came across a non-reverse Firebird V I had in the early '70's--it was red instead of sunburst, but it had the same pups I put on it and still had the POS skinny neck it had before. After playing it for a couple minutes, I was satisfied that I'd made the right decision, picked up my '65 Strat and left the store.

[Muddslide]

Originally Posted by Caffeine Patrol

I made an attempt to find my '69 Strat that I sold to Strings West in Tulsa back in '87; no dice. It's a sunburst '69 with a brass nut, routed for a humbucker. Sad to say I have no record of the serial number, just a photo of me playing it in my high school yearbook.

Oh man, I used to hang out in Strings West all the time. I used to make a Saturday of hanging out in there and then walking next door to check out the bizarro guitars and vintage gear at Golden Pawn.

I know Larry started selling the "good stuff" to famous players, Japanese collectors, etc. No telling where your Strat may have ended up.

I don't know what kind of records the guy kept through the years, but he's still kind of in the biz (or was up to a few years ago) but operating out of Sperry, a Tulsa suburb.