The Steel Guitar Forum

Make believe you were relaxing at your favorite fishing hole, a bottle floated by, and you grabbed it. You opened it up, a beauteous genie escaped, and said you could have three guitars of any description (acoustic, electric, steel, Spanish, bass -- whatever). What would you select?

Only 3, how about a mid 60's Gibson Humminbird, a late 30's Gibson EH 185 and maybe a early 50's Fender Dual Pro 8...dream on.

Jimi Hendrix Guitar
Segovia's Guitar
Stevie Ray Vaughn's Guitar

All which would be auctioned off so I could buy as many damn guitars as I please.

Given the fact that I have all the steels I've ever really wanted -

1. Mike Bloomfield's '59 Les Paul Sunburst (assuming it's more-or-less intact - if it's not, I'd take Jimmy Page's #2)

2. Danny Gatton's or Roy Buchanan's '53 Tele

3. An early 1940s herringbone Martin D-28 I played at George Youngblood's shop in Guilford CT in the late 80s that I should have bought. $10 grand seemed like a lot of money at the time, but I should have bought it.

OK, I'll add #4: a '63 seafoam green Strat I played in Jonathan Rose's shop in Hendersonville TN in the mid-80s. Probably the last time I let my wife talk me out of buying a guitar, LOL. I think it was $1400 - just before the first Stratmania kicked in big-time. I was still in grad school, but I coulda' cobbled the money together somehow.

OK Jack - what are your choices?

Tim built Scheerhorn Reso

Toss up between Mullen G2 D10 Black lacquer w/ MOP 9+8 or Martin vintage D28 Herringbone.

Schild Uni 12 or 14 if he builds one.

Off the top of my head ...

Brian Jones's '64 Firebird

A Black Franklin S-10 3x5

A Ross Shafer custom D-10 Sierra

I want to PLAY these guitars, not worship them.

Dave Mudgett wrote:OK Jack - what are your choices?

Okay, I'll bite.


1) Early to mid '60s Gibson EB-2 or EB-2D, sunburst

2) Mid to late '60s Ric 330/12, 360/12, or 370/12, fireglow

3) Prewar Ric A-22 (short-scale frypan)



As of 6-21-23 -- One down:

Going with the premise of the question, the choices I made are for guitars to play, not to flip. I have excellent Les Pauls, Teles, Dreadnaughts for bluegrass, and Strats already. I need nothing. But these particular guitars (and in a couple of cases, the players) kind of define the sound of their respective models for me.

Dave Mudgett wrote:Given the fact that I have all the steels I've ever really wanted -

1. Mike Bloomfield's '59 Les Paul Sunburst (assuming it's more-or-less intact -

Funny Dave as I chewed on this question, that was the first one that came to mind for me also. But it would drive me crazy to listen to “Albert’s Shuffle”, or “Stop”, or East-West, and wonder why it doesn’t sound the same . I drove my parents crazy playing Bloomfield over and over in the house…….

My 66 P bass I bought with my paper route money when I was 14 and foolishly sold when I was 19, my 65 D18 I traded for my upright bass. I guess #3 would be a prewar D28. I am in great shape in the steel department with a Mullen RP and a 51 Dual Pro!

I would want a very high end ukulele, possibly a Chuck Moore beauty.
I’d like my 1937 Epiphone Broadway back.
I’d like my 1929 National Tricone back.

The Sigma 12-string acoustic I bought in 1973 with my summer construction job money.
An Emmons D-10, or hmmm… A Ross Schafer Sierra S12
Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run Telecaster. For worship AND play.

(Edit)
Changed my mind.

The Blade, the original Blue Darling and Trigger.

The ones that got away:

1968 Gibson ES-335 #916155

1971 (ca.) ZB S-10 #0248

1860s (ca.) Martin 2-1/2-17(?)

(Then, Weissenborn Style 4, Weissenborn Style 2, 1974 Martin D-41.) Dozens more got away, but these are the few that obliterate my sleep and torture my every waking moment. Bloomfield’s Les Paul, Clarence/Marty’s Telecaster and Clarence/Tony’s D-28 don’t keep me up nights because what I do have is so far beyond my abilities and any reasonable standard of justification for ownership. And I actually have some that have come back.

John Denver's Guild acoustic 12 String

1957 Telecaster my elder brother owned for many years

'60's era Silvertone electric bass with light gage strings.

Ok, I'll play..
1- Harrison's Ric 12
2-Marty Stuart/Clarence White "Parson White Tele"
3- Prince's "Cloud" built by Paul Rusan
4- If any of those is unavailable, I would take McCartney's Hofner bass..
Then like everyone else, I would greedily cash in, and run out and buy stuff I really wanted...
wait the stuff I wrote is what I really want right?
Not sure how this works........ anyway, I won't hold my breath.... bob

My 1952 Sears Silvertone Electric (first electric guitar), My $10 pawn shop accoustic bought in 1961 that I reworked and had the best tone I could ask for, and my yard sale electric no name that was more fun to play than all my presently owned guitars.

Cheap but wish I still had them.

Should be easy for a genie..........

Sam

A Fender Coronado, my Gibson J-45 and Rickenbacher 360/12 I'd want these two back.
I'm superstitious: I would like to have a Hendrix guitar but then I wouldn't touch it.

For me, it'd be my Jackson Blackjack Custom, a new Gold Tone Paul Beard Signature Series squareneck dobro, and, if there was another steel, it would be an Emmons ReSound '65 and possibly a steel played by Sonny Garrish because Sonny Garrish is one of my steel heroes, and possibly the Emmons D-10 Teddy Carr played with Ricochet in the video of Ricochet's song "Daddy's Money" and it's possibly the same steel he played when Ricochet performed "What Do I Know" and "Daddy's Money" on the Prime Time Country show on TNN in 1996-I have no idea where the Emmons Teddy played is now, but it sure would be cool to sit down behind it and play some songs

1. Jules Ah See's Magnatone D8...except one of the two of them is currently owned by Alan Akaka (given to him by Benny Kalama) and I wouldn't want to take it from him, so maybe the "other" one Jules owned!

2. Chris Squire's Rickenbacker 4001.

3. Ustad Imrat Khan's Hiren Roy surbahar. I held it once (as his student), never played it. It felt so amazingly light and resonant (unlike my much cheaper surbahar that is much heavier, and doesn't sing out in the same way)

With the caveat, in all these cases, that whoever has these instruments currently has a much better claim and right to hold these instruments for sure, so I would only want them if, say, a copy of them was materialized out of thin air.

Joachim Kettner wrote:A Fender Coronado

Why do we sell these rare guitars? What should have been a terrible gui was the best lap steel sound I ever had.

My Danelectro convertible

A Moyo pedal steel.

I've strangely reached a point in my life when I'm not coveting specific instruments anymore. Whatever I've got on hand is what I want to play. I have a beautiful Clinesmith but a reach for my humble MOTS Magnatone more often. I think back to my first $60 Yamaha acoustic; that guitar took me far. It feels good to be more Zen about the whole instrument thing and work on owning less stuff. Now that I said that, I'll probably develop a jones for some new instrument 6 months from now.

1. Gibson SJ-200 in Black (doesn't matter the year)
2. Ibanez Steve Vai Universe 7 String (one of the original dipped swirl finish ones from the 90s)
3. Williams SD-12 Extended E9 Pedal Steel

I think back to my first $60 Yamaha acoustic; that guitar took me far.

Yup - my first (decent) acoustic was a $60 Yamaha, bought upstairs in the musical instrument department (yes, they had one) at Jordan Marsh on Washington St in downtown Boston in 1970. I used that for 15 years as my primary acoustic. Actually, it was quite a good guitar.

Dave and Andy, I still have my 72 Yamaha. Never been in a case and still sounds and plays great. And still have my 67 Fender Coronado too,lol.