The Steel Guitar Forum

i know all bigsbys are worth a lot but whose is worth the most i know the speedy west one is probalbly worth a lot

I would say there are five Bigsby guitars that have pre-eminence, and four or five others in contention.

The top 5 are Joaquin Murphey's console (or even more his original lap Bigsby), console recently sold; Speedy West's console, whereabouts unknown; Buddy Emmons console, believed to be in Canada; Bud Isaacs D-8, recently sold; and the guitar originally built for Frank Juricek, which became the guitar played Walter Haynes, Sonny Burnette, and others with Webb Pierce, owned by a player/collector.

The ones in contention, IMHO, are the guitars that were owned by Vance Terry, PeeWee Whitewing, Bob White, Noel Boggs, Ernie Ball, and Maurice Anderson. These because the players achieved notoriety, predominantly with these instruments. The whereabouts of all these guitars is known today.

Herb, if it's not invading anyone's privacy, would you know the general whereabouts of Vance's guitar?

I know the instrument's whereabouts, but as a courtesy, I feel it's up to the owner to reveal himself if he so chooses.

That's fine. I knew both Vance and Bob White back in the day of Vance and Jimmy Rivers, and Bob when he was married to Jewel Faye Smith (before she became Sammi.)

Maybe he's not not quite as famous as the others, but for my money, Tom Morrell ought to be in there, too.

Definately yes, and I know where that guitar is . But, Tom was not the original owner of that guitar, even he didn't know to whom it was originally built for.

another steel that should be mentioned is the mack thomas bigsby t10 it has to be the bigsby steel with the most pedals and the largest bigsby instrument

I'm looking at the rear jacket of Barbara Mandrells' biography, "Get To The Heart", and there is a photo of a young Barbara playing a quad-10 with 9 pedals. Is that not a Bigsby?

I believe that's a Wright Custom you are looking at.

Nice shot of Jimmy Roy's Bigsby. I don't know who this was made for, could have been Walter Haynes, I guess that is what I have heared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSyYyw2SPJA

Correct, Jimmy Roy is the man who is playing the Frank Juricek guitar, later owned by Walter and others.

I'm going to be my usual wise@$$ again and say that that Bigsby in the clip is not the Juricek/Haynes guitar but originally built for Darrell Johnson. Haynes/Juricek has pedals and necks by Shot Jackson, and yes, Jimmy has that one too.

Jussi, I again yield to your knowledge and wiseassdom! I knew JR had Juricek/Haynes.