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Recent visit to Gruhn Guitars


ArnieZ

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Was recently in Nashville for a conference, was only able to get away for about 3 hours and had no car. Ubered to Gruhn and had a very pleasant visit. Was entertained by George himself who proceeded to show me his collection of constrictors and his bearded dragon. He also showed me quite a few drool worthy guitars:D. Some of the more interesting news came from the ground floor. While BS'ing with a couple sales type people they mentioned that Murphy of Gibson relic fame brought in a prototype to show them. apparently he intimated that the R... Lesters are history and that all will be based on this prototype. They both agreed the guitar was incredibly good and that the projected price was through the roof! Each of them wanted to buy it on the spot, but Mr Murphy was not selling. That's all the gossip I got, maybe Jay knows a little something?

ArnieZ

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The first time I visited Gruhn's a couple of years ago, my girlfriend was chatting up the service manager while I was looking around. He invited us to the second floor, where we met George and he gave us the same tour of his snakes and reptiles. I think we talked to him for about an hour where he filled is in on his history. It was an unexpected treat. 

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George is a great guy. So knowledgeable about just about anything stringed. Back about 20 years ago I asked him to find me a Martin D28. Not just a D28, but a 'great' D28. It took him about a year and finally he called and said, I got one. This one is a must have. I bought it sight unseen, without a question. I still have it and it is amazing. Love that guy!

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When I was in Nashville a few weeks ago, George spent some time with me too.  I was looking at the pictures in the little hallway on the left hand side of the main showroom and he came up and started telling stories about them and showing me different ones he especially liked.  I was wondering if that was him but I didn't ask - I just Googled him when I left!  As I walked around, it seemed like the only guitars that caught my attention were high dollar stuff ($15-20,000 and up) and as I was looking at one of those, a salesman sidled up and said "Take it down and play it!"  I told him I wasn't the $25k-guitar buying type and he said "You don't have to buy it to play it."  As I was leaving, I asked the guy at the accessory counter if they had any Gruhn's picks I could buy as a souvenir and he gave me three.  As I was going out to my car in the parking lot, George was throwing a couple of bags in the dumpster - I thought that was really cool that he wasn't "above" taking out the trash.  Really good experience.

I also went to Carter's Vintage where the price range actually got down to purchase level for me.  I was extremely tempted by a cherryburst '73 LP Deluxe but ultimately let it go.  They also were extremely friendly and encouraging me to try something out.  That was my favorite store I visited.

I also checked out Rumbleseat which has a whole pile of '50's Les Pauls with the prices you would expect, and a left-handed original Zemaitas for $35,000.  I joked with the salesman that they must be waiting for Paul McCartney or Elliot Easton to stop by and he said he thought the guitar they had was built for Paul.

I hit Corner Music too, which reminded me of the Mom and Pops we used to have around Richmond, VA.

 

 

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As soon as the wife throws me out after my next, last one, next guitar shows up, i'm headed to Nashville to for some sightseeing. As the Les Paul, I have mine and i'm tickled with it after Jay helped me out with some karma. 

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On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 9:52 PM, santellavision said:

George is a great guy. So knowledgeable about just about anything stringed. Back about 20 years ago I asked him to find me a Martin D28. Not just a D28, but a 'great' D28. It took him about a year and finally he called and said, I got one. This one is a must have. I bought it sight unseen, without a question. I still have it and it is amazing. Love that guy!

Yes, he is very professorial. He was very impressed with some Martins he said were made out of 100 year old wood. He referred to them as sinkers. I gather the wood my have been immersed at one time. He thought they sounded exceptionally good. I couldn't disagree, they played quite nicely as well. He said martin had enough wood to make 80 of them and he was taking them all

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Of course they will be history. Like with Fender, Gibson needs to escape it's own used goods. The best way to do that is to stop making them, and make something newer, better, etc somehow. Fender rolled out the American Professional line with pickups by Tim Shaw and some other big names in pickup history, so now Gibson will do the same for their Historic Reissue... or was it TRUE historic Reissue?

Next is I guess REALLY TRUE Historic Reissue.  You can expect the prices to keep going up until the prices on the real thing come down.

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They should just skip it all and go to "Time Machine Historic"

I still don't get it. For that price they can have any number of highliy skilled builders make them a guitar to their own specs that will look and play beautiful. Instead they want recreations of awesome, but flawed, guitars of the past.

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9 hours ago, tbonesullivan said:

They should just skip it all and go to "Time Machine Historic"

I still don't get it. For that price they can have any number of highliy skilled builders make them a guitar to their own specs that will look and play beautiful. Instead they want recreations of awesome, but flawed, guitars of the past.

I remember posted about a late 90's or early 2000's double cutaway the custom shop did with a strung through the body design. It was  killer guitar and was its own thing. Nothing like the DC's they came out with. Total PRS Killer IMHO.

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4 hours ago, Armitage said:

I always thought the Historic stuff brought in big money for Gibson. What am I missing?

Nothing really. Henry J is an idiot. They are making a NEW Reissue to eclipse all other reissues. Gibson continues to re-invent the wheel, and it's still not as good as the wheel they made when they weren't really trying to make an awesome wheel.

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