Charity shop find

ICBM

I was in one of my local charity shops last Saturday and spotted a guitar hanging on the wall behind the counter, a bit oddly face to the wall... mahogany-bodied OM size, no binding, Martin-shape headstock, good Schaller-type tuners... wow, is that a Martin 000-15?

Got the assistant to pass it down and turned it round... no. Slightly disappointingly, it's a Vintage. But there's a price label on the front and it's only £20! A quick check over and I couldn't see any structural damage, the action looked OK, and with a brief strum it sounded OK, so I bought it.

That was the good stuff. The bad stuff is that it belonged to someone who has 'creatively worked on it'... it's not only been DIY-relic'ed with sanding marks and deep scratches all over the body, they've written the note names in black marker up the fingerboard (including some bits scribbled out), written something now illegible all over the body which has mostly but not quite rubbed off, ripped the label off the inside, and possibly worst of all used most of a tube of superglue to stick the bridge saddle into the slot, leaking out all over the bridge - and put a bit more of it on the top of the nut too for some reason, including sticking a bit of red felt to it, who knows why! It looked like this...



Solvents wouldn't touch the black marker on the board - it had soaked into the wood, and even on the body it seems to have stained the finish, although most of it did come off eventually - so I scraped the fingerboard and bridge, also chiselling off the superglue. The action is fine so I took a deep breath and decided just to leave the bridge saddle stuck in - it doesn't *need* to come out. Soaked off the remains of the label and cleaned up the glue residue, polished and oiled the board, then gave the whole thing a thorough going-over with dark wax furniture restorer, which filled a lot of the surface scratches and further hid the remains of the writing. Replaced the bridge pins - they were a bit chewed up and one was mismatching - but amazingly, not the strings! Although the top E broke when I was undoing the granny knots on the posts, the others were fine and must have been changed very recently.

It now looks like this...



I had been thinking I would just clean it up and sell it on for a profit - someone will want a 'relic' acoustic, and surely it must be worth not far off £100, since they're about £180 new (it's a V300 Mahogany, I've now found out) - but it's actually really nice and for what it cost me, I think I might just keep it. I don't actually *need* it... but my only other 6-string acoustic is my Gibson Dove, which does sometimes seem a bit posh to play in some places.

These were apparently awarded the 'Best Acoustic Guitar Under £1000' prize by The Guitar Magazine, and although I'm not quite sure that's true, it does sound absolutely brilliant for the price they are new... let alone for £20 and a couple of hours work .

fandango

Well done @ICBM ;.

Moral: never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Jalapeno

Good swag !!!!

KKJale

Good find and a brave buy, the superglue might have made me leave it!

They did sound quite good, back in the day the TGM Best Buy awards were chosen from gear that had actually been reviewed by the mag in the previous 12 months, so that meant a rather small selection pool...

ICBM

KKJale said:

Good find and a brave buy, the superglue might have made me leave it!

Not that brave - the worst case with the bridge saddle was to chisel it out... even if heating it didn't work. The machineheads are probably worth a tenner even if the whole guitar was a write-off!

KKJale said:

They did sound quite good, back in the day the TGM Best Buy awards were chosen from gear that had actually been reviewed by the mag in the previous 12 months, so that meant a rather small selection pool...

That makes sense. It is good... but I'm pretty sure I've played guitars that sell for £999 that are better .

danishbacon

Nice find!

rustneversleeps

I recently played one on an open mic night,very impressed for a budget guitar.

earwighoney

What a superb find!

I'm sure you thought of it but would it be possible to use an acetone based nail polish remover on the superglue?

ICBM

earwighoney said:

I'm sure you thought of it but would it be possible to use an acetone based nail polish remover on the superglue?

I doubt it would penetrate far enough to work, to be honest - the saddle slot was clearly absolutely swimming in it, and it must be right under the saddle as well.

I'm going to leave it alone and resist the temptation to 'put it right' unless it ever actually needs to come out. (Which is very unlike me .)

Kittyfrisk

The V300 was as you say, voted best buy by TGM, but that was the spruce topped version.
I had both. The spruce topper has gone but the V300MH remains.
It really is rather nice for the price & I'd have bought the one that you have in a heartbeat.
Nice score.

zepp76

Kittyfrisk said:

The V300 was as you say, voted best buy by TGM, but that was the spruce topped version.
I had both. The spruce topper has gone but the V300MH remains.
It really is rather nice for the price & I'd have bought the one that you have in a heartbeat.
Nice score.

The V300MH is a nice guitar for the price, put a set of Martin retro Monel strings on and it’s even nicer. 

That really is a good find @ICBM

GTC

Well done! I saw a lovely classical guitar in the window of my local charity shop for £19 recently when I was on my way to the dentist and running a bit late. I came out 30 mins later and went back - and it had gone. There's a lesson there!

beed84

Keep it. It's highly unlikely you'll find a better guitar for £20 any time soon.

jonnyburgo

Excellent find, I really rate Vintage stuff.

MichaelWatts

Nicely done! There's always a good reason for hanging on to a guitar... have you thought of keeping it in Nashville/highstrung tuning?

LastMantra

Good find!

I love my wee Norman acoustic. It had a lollipop stick for a bridge. 

ICBM

beed84 said:

Keep it. It's highly unlikely you'll find a better guitar for £20 any time soon.

I actually don't think I've ever seen a better guitar for £20, and that's even going back to when I started doing this over thirty years ago when £20 was a lot more money than it is now.

MichaelWatts said:

Nicely done! There's always a good reason for hanging on to a guitar... have you thought of keeping it in Nashville/highstrung tuning?

That's not really my thing - I did have an old Höfner folk guitar I did that with because it had a very thin, reedy tone anyway, but I never really used it much.

If I keep this one it's more likely to get a magnetic pickup so I can use it for overdriven acoustic-electric sounds, which is one of my favourite non-standard things . I've already tried it with a borrowed Fishman Blackstack, it feeds back quite a lot but very musically.

Andy79

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Acoustic-guitar-Pickup-1960s-Made-In-Japan/254519319758

ICBM

Andy79 said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Acoustic-guitar-Pickup-1960s-Made-In-Japan/254519319758

Quite cool but belongs on an old Eko or something . I had one years ago... hummed like a diesel generator and squealed like a pig!

midlifecrisis

i had the non mahogony v300 which was my first guitar i bought £90 new  when i first got back into playing 12 years ago. served me very well, my daughter has it now. really nice guitars, i have several Vintage brand acoustics, great value for money.

Andy_Strings

They punch well above their weight even at full ticket price but for £20!....