A Personal Holy Grail is up for sale...

clarkefan

miserneil said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Very likely to be a complete fake.

While I would ABSOLUTELY be 100% behind this statement 100% of the time, unfortunately, this time, it's not.

I have coveted this guitar since I was young, it's been played on some on my favourite records of all time and that's the guitar. I even have a folder full of detailed pics of it from 10 years ago - including internal cavities etc - not taken on someones front lawn either - which document every scratch. 

So straight away their description of it being "Externally/Internally Original" is bollocks. For starters there is a filled 'swimming pool' route under the pick guard where a PAF humbucker was originally (near the bridge, not the neck interestingly) that was filled a long time ago and the pick guard is obviously not original/a repro.

F*cking typical isn't it, the ONE guitar I would literally sell every other I have to own and those two crooks are involved....

I am genuinely upset it’s currently in their hands.

Not knocking your knowledge of the guitar but would you agree if you were a good builder and with that knowledge you could copy it? Scary stuff...

That said, if it was a knockoff and the original is still actually out there I'd imagine a very pissed off owner would be screaming all over the Internet.

Bridgehouse

I heard Kirk Hammett was interested in it..

Three-ColourSunburst

Sorry to be a such a soulless misery, but buying a guitar just because it is felt to have lots of 'Mojo' due to someone well known once having played it simply isn't rational.

https://www.business.uq.edu.au/sites/default/files/events/files/karen-fernandez-paper.pdf

Voxman

miserneil said:

Voxman said:

Nope - &  although I love Mick Ralphs (RIP Mick) and Bad Company, I certainly wouldn't pay £25k for that even if I had   a couple of million £'s! 

He's not dead @Voxman...

Don't I feel sheepish!  I thought he had left us following his stroke, but delighted to be corrected!  Great player from the 'less is more' school. 

Three-ColourSunburst

bluechargeboy said:

What if Mick Ralphs flips out one day and kills a load of people? Then it will be worth less than a normal tele.

Probably still worth a fair bit though. On the other hand, popular opinion holds there are crimes far worse than mass murder. How's this for a celebrity down-valuation?

https://www.aol.co.uk/cars/2012/10/12/jimmy-savile-scandal-drives-down-value-of-his-rolls-to-almost/

gordiji

Whilst i agree Bad co is a great album the tele pictured is in atrocious condition and wouldn't tempt me to part with 2.5k never mind 25k. Keep listening to those timeless masterpieces, forget the guitar.

DrBob

I’ve seen a photo of Bad Company playing a gig at Arsenal FC (I think) and there’s a Tele on a stand in the background with a Humbucker positioned almost at the back of the pickguard by the ashtray bridge is this that guitar ?

darthed1981

25k for a guitar? Duck me!

If you have money to burn why not, if you don't I wouldn't go anywhere near that price for anything less than a house deposit.

Philly_Q

miserneil said:

OK.....so...

Here's a video I'd never seen before with some great close ups of the guitar. It's got the PAF still in place, a Gretsch volume knob and a coil split switch in between the knobs...SO....the guitar on sale looks to be less and less like the guitar I covet and more a sum of some of the parts I covet and some replacements along the way.....it's suddenly much less appealing...

There really were some great closeups!  Watching the video, I was wondering if it was the same neck because the fretboard looks so filthy, but the newer photos do seem to show the same wear patterns, it's just been cleaned up a bit.  And I'm sure you know the neck well.

Although it's been heavily modded (or reverse modded) since then, presumably that was all done under Mick's ownership so does it really reduce the appeal that much?

Sorry if my posts are all falling into the "go on, you know you want it" camp.  I actually tend towards the "you could get 10 Custom Shops for that money" viewpoint, but it's obvious how much this means to you.

fretfinder

miserneil said: you could get 10 Custom shops for that money, vintage is crap.

         ^^^  This.




       

stickyfiddle

dindude said:

Disappointed with this thread. I mean, it’s 2017 and if you want something that is massively out of reach then you simply must provide your x-factor like back story as to why it will change your life and then crowdfund it.

You owe it to yourself to have this £25k guitar, you deserve it, I mean why should you go without!

But no, instead all we see is a sensible grown-up approach. Disappointed.

Missed opportunity for a Duncan Banatyne- style “I’m out”, there. SAD.

Jez6345789

I am not really an expert on Esquires.
I think the other real test is does it actually sound good. Is it one of those he just hung onto. As he had moved on to other stuff. Think bernie marsden commented about him being a tight git when trading guitars back in the day.

having the PAF taken out to me makes it less than the guitar it was on those first two albums soundwise.

victorludorum

You could get the humbucker put back in. I'm sure that M D Phillips guy could do it for you for a couple of quid.

TTBZ

I'd rather get a Squier CV tele, esquire it and play it a lot. It'll look, feel and sound the same after a while. Whilst kinda joking I'm probably not too far off the mark I bet! Spending that much money because someone else who happens to have used it on some albums you like is just ridiculous - I'll never understand that. Not a dig at you specificially, I just don't get it.

Strat54

A vintage Esquire sounds amazing in anyone's hands....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv4bYfeG7xk

If you're serious, go try and dangle the carrot. I'm sure it would come for less. I'd start at £18k. 

ICBM

I’d start by not offering the worst crooks in the business any amount of money at all, no matter what the guitar is.

Ossyrocks

Neil, you say it’s on consignment. I would try to cut out the middle men and see what you can do.

Rob

ToneControl

I can't believe anyone would risk buying a guitar for £25k from convicted criminals who are widely reported as creating fake guitars and amps. How would you trust anything they say?
How do you know it's sold on consignment even?

http://www.davidjpym.com/page459.html

IvisonGuitars

Guys, many thanks for all the comments but you can all stand down now.

Spending 25k on that guitar was never on the cards for me, it was more a flight of fancy. I never REALLY had any intention of giving those people a penny (Had it have been 100% what I was after, I would have worked around that fairly easily), but in fact and in truth, I could NEVER afford it. I’ve got no ISA’s maturing, no long term works pension plan that will soon payout, I’m just a regular, self employed, guitar obsessed joe who works two jobs with a young family to support, who saw a guitar that he had lusted after for 22 years that helped make some of his favourite music and got a bit starry eyed...

I’m not a classic Music Ground ‘mark’, I know my shit, especially on this guitar and this “ain’t my first Rodeo, Cowboy”.

Also, due to the fact that I think Mick sold this guitar in the 80’s (he’s not personally owned it for a LONG time as far as I’m aware) and the fact that going from research the only things original to it in his time of ownership are the Body, Neck, Bridge and Tuners. I’m out.

I’m still going to attempt to go and play it, just to say I have and to appease my 14 year old self. But as for owning, no.

I still have Mick’s old R8 that was his main guitar for 10 years and was the guitar he was using when I first saw him live (and met him) for the first time so it’s not really a hardship!

Got a vintage esquire bug again now though.....
 

impmann

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Sorry to be a such a soulless misery, but buying a guitar just because it is felt to have lots of 'Mojo' due to someone well known once having played it simply isn't rational.

https://www.business.uq.edu.au/sites/default/files/events/files/karen-fernandez-paper.pdf

Shit the bed he's even coming up with cod-science to tell us that buying something just because we want to own it is unscientific... jeez. Ignore button again...