10+ INCREDIBLE Vintage Guitars That Just Came In!

Transcription Summary:

This episode of “This Just In” shows recently acquired vintage guitars by Chicago Music Exchange. The speaker discusses returning from the Dallas International Guitar Festival with a collection of around 60 guitars. Chicago Music Exchange not only travels to buy vintage guitars from other dealers but individuals and collectors as well. CME Buys, Consigns and Trades guitars, basses and amps from single pieces to entire collections totalling millions of dollars. They highlight a rare Pelham Blue SG in excellent condition despite some wear, noting its unique aging process and repair history. Another featured guitar is a very rare Mosrite Dobro bass, with the speaker expressing surprise at its existence. They also describe a Fender Coronado 2 with mismatched parts, a refretted 72 Thinline with abalone inlays, a Martin acoustic made famous by Kurt Cobain, and a cherry Gibson guitar in great condition. Additionally, two 330s, a refinished Telecaster, and mentions of other guitars like Strats, Rickenbacker 12 strings, and Les Paul specials are made.

Full Transcription:
Hi folks, welcome to this “Just In.” I don't know about my hand gestures. What are you guys talking? This just… Nathaniel is back. I don't know, I'm back. We're back. So, what time is it for you right now? Right now, it's about half past 8:00, 9:00 in the evening. But that doesn't really mean anything to anybody because I don't really know what time it is. I know I've been walking around the house since 4:00 in the morning. So, right now here it is 2:30… 30? So, half past even. So, it's half, yeah. So anyway, the point is that he's jetlagged. So, I'll be fine. You look great. I'll be alright. You look great. So, this “Just In”… and Nick is out. I know that Nick is the new “Just In” person, you know, but, um, unfortunately he is out. But these things are in. Um, and, uh, they're all here together because I hope you… do you get our emails? Are “Just In” emails? Yeah? Yeah. So, I try to unsubscribe and… This is the… You can't! You're not allowed to unsubscribe! So, this is the couch. This is where, uh, you know, John, our marketing guru, sets these things up, the “Just Came In,” takes pictures, and sends emails to all of you people who are signed up for emails. And if you're not, you should sign up so you can find out what just came in as soon as it comes in. Um, but yeah, you haven't been here. So, you haven't even seen some of these things. I haven't seen like that… That Pelham Blue is ridiculous! So, I happen to have seen all of these because most of these came… Uh, we just got back from the Dallas… Let me say it right. The International, the Dallas International Guitar Festival. As you know, because you've performed there before. Yeah. It's, uh, not just a trade show where people can buy and sell guitars, but they have clinics, they have shows. They have, I mean, like full stage shows with lights and sound and magic. It's amazing! It is very cool. 

Uh, it's a… it's a great time. Uh, in fact, uh, a few years ago when we went, this always… this show always happens right around the time when it's Nathaniel's birthday, which, by the way, is May 4th. Mhm. May the 4th be with you. Yes. And we took you where for your birthday? Uh, Medieval Times. Medieval Times. Yes! Because I thought it would feel, you know, close to home.

So, uh, anyway, we just got back from Dallas. We got all these really cool guitars in and a lot more. We… It's like a total of 60 some pieces. While we were there, a very good client of ours was like, “Hey, you're in town, I want to consign some stuff with you.” So, we drove over there, which, by the way, the weather in Dallas was insane! Well, roasted. My flight there was delayed by 8 hours. I was at… I was at the airport. I got… I deplaned twice. No, yeah. In the plane, delayed. Delayed. You have to deplane. Yeah. Back in the plane, delayed. Delayed. Delayed. Off the plane. 8 hours total. Very severe storms in Dallas. In Dallas? Jeez. And in fact, going to this person's collection, it was like an hour and a half outside of Dallas. I got caught in an incredible storm. Like, gnarly. Like, just brutal.

Yes, I would love that. It was awesome. I have footage of it. I'll show you later. Of course, I filmed the whole thing. Anyway, so some of these are from that collection, and some of them are just, uh, amazing guitars that we picked up from other dealers at the Dallas International Guitar Festival. Some cool stuff here. Very cool stuff. So, since I know what these are, why don't you just grab them and ask me… Do you know? I… I will go for the, uh, the SG immediately because that, I mean, that's my favorite kind of color for an SG. Yeah, that and the cherry, obviously. But that's unreal. Yeah. When I saw it, I, um, I couldn't resist. It was, uh, you know, Pelham Blue SGs are not inexpensive. They… they are very rare. And to find one that is in such nice overall condition… it has, you know, it has its battle scars. It wasn't a case queen. It was definitely a guitar. It has the very, very typical… Um, one of the most… There's three places where SGs crack, right? Here? This is not cracked here. Okay. Here, very commonly. This is not cracked here. The third, less common place… See if you can guess. Yeah. What is it? You were already kind of… You were kind of heading down that way, weren't you? Was it down there? Yeah. So, because they have to route out this cavity for the controls, there's such little mass right here. There's such a small amount of wood right there and right there that sometimes, um, yeah, it… it can crack across here. And you can see that that has been cracked across there. It was very beautifully repaired without the need to do a lot of touch-up on the face or the back, which is nice. Only on the… on the side here. Um, but if… if you wanted to do… To crack out of any of those three places, would you choose that out of all the places? That's kind of the best place it could crack. Best of a bad bunch, you know? Just because a guitar is beautiful doesn't mean it's going to be a great guitar. So, when I picked it up and I strummed it, I was like, “Wow, this is very lucky! Not only is this such a beautiful guitar, but it's an awesome guitar.” And it feels good. As soon as I bought it, I thought Nathaniel's definitely going to do a video with this.

Also, I love how you can still see a little bit of the too in places. Oh yeah, the neck too. Yeah, the neck. That's got to be odd though for it to… So, the… So, remember this. Someone's hand is constantly rubbing against this. Yeah. So, it's cleaning all the stuff that isn't being constantly cleaned in other places. It's being worn away, right? So, the… as blue lacquer ages, it yellows. So, it becomes green. Right? But in some places here, all that yellow, which is just age, is being worn away. So, the blue is… Yeah. Okay. The blue is more exposed over here where it rubs against your chest or whatever. Over here where your arm rubs against it, you can see the blue because you're wearing away the… the age. Same here. I mean, that's crazy to see! I never knew it was like that. Obviously, I've seen a kind of Pelham Blue and, you know, of a similar cut, like seafoam or whatever. Mhm. But yeah, I mean, it looks cool, right? And when, uh, you know, when we took this thing apart, when you take this stuff off, the areas of the paint that have not been exposed to years and decades of, you know, the world… bright blue. Bright blue! Yeah. That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Very beautiful. This is great! Well, what year is this again? It's a 66, I believe. Yeah. It's… It's a thin… That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ‘Cause you guys did a full video or like you filmed Alec looking at the inside 65 pots, and it still has these knobs. So, small guard. So yeah, it's… it's basically a… a small guard with the earlier knobs and a thin nut. So, pretty much has to be 66. I do like that. I mean, that's arguably the pick of the bunch. Yeah, you kind of went for the best immediately. I mean, this video is over! Let's just stop right now! You know, let's… All right, but hold on a second. Go on then. Let's talk about this. You have to touch it. But you know what's crazy is this is very, very rare. Yeah. This, even though it's worth like a 1/100th of what that's worth, is way more rare. Oh, really? Uh, there are several veterans, uh, uh, who have been doing this for much longer than me and who are far more knowledgeable than me. Um, they were at this guitar show, and several of them were like I've never seen this or one was like I think I've seen one before. So it's a Dobro branded instrument that clearly has a you know a cone like a Drobro but it's a bass already bizarre which is cool. That's crazy! But look at these knobs

Uh, where… m for what? And look at these tuners! Dead giveaway of who makes this. Oh! Mos... Oh, Mosrite! This is a Mosrite Dobro? Oh, really? Jeez! Got Mosrite vibes. I mean, what the freak? So, you’ve never seen one of these before? No, I was like, “Dude, give me that!” Now, speaking of weird, you know, combinations of things, look at this. That's crazy! So this, as you can see, Johnny Mills had a sense of humor, or more than likely, actually, he just had a couple of these guitars laying around. And one of them was Antigua and the other one was Wildwood. So this is a Wildwood body with an Antigua neck and pickguard, Fender Coronado 2. And I think it's just… That looks good on the back. On the back, that looks great! Yeah, that's crazy. How cool is that? So, who's Johnny Mills? I don't know, but I like him. You know, my… my dad, my, uh, my dad's got a cousin called Johnny Mills. Really? Well, I think he's dead now, but, you know… Well, this is my favorite trim! That's… Do you like this trim? ‘Cause it's a love-hate thing. Yeah. A lot of people don't like him. I think it's the best trim ever invented. It's like the Mustang thing, like on… It's… It's that. It's like that but even better, dude! It's the best trim. I like the skinny arm.

That's really good, isn't it? And it's one of those that kind of begs going both… Ah, okay! Up and down. You can get away with it. You can do flutters.

Yeah. Yes! It sounds like slide. Yeah.

Yeah! I love that. That is brilliant! Yeah, love that trick. All right, I'm taking control here. Next… Oh, hang… Oh, no! Your magnets right there. Right? We go for it. We've lost it here, lads. Let's just cancel. All right, then. We just go for it. This is one of my favorite, uh, guitar… I actually own one of these. It's black, of course, on my own. Um, early, um, the… the one with dual humbuckers, the… the thin line dual humbuckers. Yeah. This somebody refretted and they put like abalone inlays on it. I've never seen that. No, no, no. Yeah, this is something that somebody did. I like it. And see, so I don't like it, but I knew… like, I know some people will definitely like it ‘cause it kind of, kind of goes with the… with the guard. It does. Yeah, I think that's probably what they were going for. But, um, this is just a… a clean example of this guitar, 70… 72. Yeah. Uh, thin line, and it just sounds awesome! When I picked it up and strummed it, I couldn't believe how good it sounded. Oh, definitely. This guitar… Now, is this the Les Paul thing or similar to it? What do you mean? Speaking of the recording, the Les Paul Recording? Oh, no, no, no. It's similar though, right? Oh, it's very similar. It's… It's an acoustic. Well, I mean, just like the J160. It's just an acoustic guitar that somebody put… Not somebody! Martin did this. This is… Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is… In fact, this guitar was made famous by Kurt Cobain. Like, he basically made these guitars significantly more… which is ironic ‘cause if Kurt Cobain, out of everyone on this planet, found out that the fact that he played a guitar made it incredibly expensive, he'd be pretty pissed off. More than just that one. Just all of them. Yeah. Um, but no, so they make a couple versions of this guitar, or Martin makes a few versions that are acoustics that they put de Armond pickups and, you know, electronics in them. Uh, and this is the D28 version. There's a D18. There's a D28. And there's actually some smaller bodies with only one pickup that I've only seen one of, really. And the one Cobain played was a D28 version as well. Was it D18? Oh, his was a D28, I believe. Don't quote me on that. In fact, I think David… A… he's not here, but he just played that. He just got back, and he played that guitar. Yeah. I forgot about that. Very cool. ‘Cause, I mean, we've all seen that guitar. We've all seen that… the Unplugged. Um, it's crazy looking, aren't they? Love these pickups! Like, they're, uh, if you stick your finger in there, you'll understand those pickups are like… they're weird! It's sharp! And yeah, they… they have… if you take that pickup out, it's a… this super overengineered contraption that has like push rods and springs so you can really adjust the pull pieces, uh, in and out individually. Um, anyway, beautiful pickups, very rare guitars. I was going to say they must be rare because I've never seen one of these in person. Yeah, they're very rare. And… and having one that has such a beautiful, straight-grained Brazilian rosewood on it… There's still some really beautiful figuring, but overall very straight grain. Very nice example of one. It's supposed to be the fancy version of it. This has the gold hardware. You can't tell, really, but this is all gold. Yeah. See?

You know where he makes that mistake in the song? Yes. That's what I meant to do there. Of course, I'm joking. Oh, it sounds… it's not like massive boom-y sounds. No, none of these… none of these guitars, both for example, the Gibson version of this kind of, the J160E… they don't sound great acoustically, necessarily. It's really… it's a… it does this one thing right. It's an acoustic guitar that can be plugged in. Yeah. Uh, and so it kind of can't sound too good because if it's too resonant, then it's just going to feed back constantly. Yeah.

That's crazy to see. Might never see one of them. Yeah. Very cool. Really… Now, you know, I did spot this. That's a good-looking guitar. Yeah. I really liked it when I saw it, and I… I really, uh, I kind of fell in love with it just ‘cause it's got such beautiful, bright cherry back and sides. Oh, wow! I mean, look at that! It's really nice condition. Really nice guitar there. Sounds good. No. 60… 60-something. It's… It's in great condition, though. Like, look at the headstock. And it's such nice condition. Yeah. I mean, this wasn't really played there, or was it maybe? Maybe it was just well looked after. Let's see. No, look at that! It has plenty of wear, like fretboard wear. So, it's just one of… Yeah. One of those guitars that somebody just took care of.

Sounds like records. Like records. Yeah.

That's really good. Yeah, I want this. You can buy it. I would love to. What else did we? So much stuff! We got two 330s. One of them is upstairs. We should have brought it down. I, uh, bought two, uh, 330s. Um, one is cherry, and this sunburst one, both, uh, with the, um, with the black plastic era, you know, in other words, the… the pickup covers are not chrome yet. They're plastic. The, you know, it's got the longer tongue. Um, just such awesome… Yeah. The dog ears. Exactly. Very beautiful guitar. And we've owned this one before. As I saw it, I recognized it was because of that. Because of that. I was going to say no to somebody whoever owned this before ‘cause you can kind of tell that, you know, the back is kind of, you know, kind of normal wear, but the front is very, you know, very clean and shiny. And it's because somebody buffed it, and they kind of went… got a little overzealous with the buffing wheel there. And yeah, but such a… I mean, so even just acoustic guitar, I mean, it's just… it's such a thin guitar, and it just projects so much. It's a… it's a beautiful sound. Love that. Now, listen, let's stop playing games here. "What's going on here? What's this? I mean, are words necessary? Clearly not. So, for someone watching vertically, they might actually know what that is. Oh yeah, sorry. There we go.

Ireland, Texas, Florida, Chicago. That's right, Chicago! Where's California gone? That's the thing. California is right here, right? Yeah, right here. The California now, it's LA right there. There we go. Anyways, yeah, I mean, this is crazy, isn't it? Were you shaking your head at the riff? If you could play one riff on it, what's it going to be? "Born in the USA." "Born in the USA." "Born in the USSR." There you go. Imagine! Now, do you know what? This looks good to me. This telly—I like the look of the neck, which is a lot of guitar. That's heavy, is it? Why is it so heavy—us or is it just me? I think… I think you're just weak. Well, this hand is weak. I did break my wrist, mate. So I know. Yeah, made you feel bad, though. It's a little… It's a little… It's a little heavy. Yeah. Lovely guitar that, um, basically it's… it's a guitar that is significantly more affordable because it's been refinished. I just like, you know, it's not a high-quality refin by any chance, but the color is cool. It's a nice blue type of thing, but somebody got a little overzealous and they really painted over everything. Landlord special. Exactly, exactly. Yes. What's the original color? Probably blonde, but we're not really sure. Um, it's got a… See, one string tree, no skunk stripe, which means it is a maple cap. Um, and I mean, because it's been refinished, it's like it's a fraction of the cost of those because '67 Tele's these days are significantly… they're… they're serious guitars. It's like, you know, and these are all original, yes? As far as I remember, yes. But, you know, don't quote me on that. Yeah, we're going to check it out. Check all that out. But one for folks to keep an eye out for. Oh yeah. That's cool! If somebody wants a vintage guitar, vintage telly with that sound from that era that will deliver it at a… at a, you know, fraction of the cost in a cool… Exactly! That's the thing. I like that. Yeah, I like that. I do like that. What should we grab next without—It's the last one—everything falling over? Yeah. And the last two that we have there are, um, and by the way, this is again just kind of a sample of, you know, that John chose for the email to go out. But there's literally four times this that we just, um, I can think just off the top of my head. So many other guitars! There's two refin Strats that we got. Pearl white one is incredible! Yeah! Oh, you're going to love that guitar! Um, the blonde '63. It's a '63 blonde hard tail. Uh, the list goes on and on and on. I mean, we've… we got, uh, some really nice Rick and Bach two. Rick and Bach are 12 strings. Yeah. That, you know, again, it's like, ah, we don't really need those, but I picked them up and I was like, "This plays amazing! I cannot buy this!" So, um, couple SGs. We got a really amazing SG standard here. We have an incredible SG special that we got. Uh, two Les Paul specials. One double cut, one single cut in TV yellow. Oh wow! Both which have had previous repairs that make them more player grade. Yeah. The list goes on and on. So, you have a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do! I mean, there's a lot of cool stuff. Yes. If I had to choose one out of all this bunch, it would probably be this. That's amazing! It's a great… That… that makes me feel good because that is not by any means a guitar that's terribly rare or anything like that. But that's a good one. Guitar.

That's great! If I had to pick one, am I allowed to pick one, or is it just Nathaniel? No, you need to pick one. I would choose this atrocity! This… You know what? I… I don't mind that! I love this! Mmm. It's just like… I mean, what a… I… I do like it!

It is cool! I love a…

I love these trims! They're just so good! Shout out, Johnny Mills! Yeah! Thank you, Johnny! Yeah! Great yourself! Did we just do this “Just In?” I think we just did a this “Just In.” Wow! Okay, cool! It's the… the… Rocky Apollo Creed! And, you know, this is the… uh… the… Huh… Predator? The Predator one? Is it? Oh, is… uh… Annie? And also, isn't it like a… uh… what's that… that franchise with the cars that drive fast and do all this crazy [ _ _ ] "Fast and Furious!" "Fast and Furious!" Yeah! I've never… I've seen Fast and Furious 11, I think. There we go. Thanks! Should we… Fast and Furious 11, I think that was the latest one that came out."