I like to buy guitars.

It’s a sickness.

What can I say?

I’m cured, now…I don’t go into pawn shops very often, so I’m not tempted…but it was a constant activity a bunch of years ago.

I wasn’t going to mess up our finances to do it….but if I found something that I knew might be “flippable” at some point….something that’s worth some money….something that I could play and decide to never let go of….but that I might be able to turn a tidy profit if I ever decided that I could let go of it and sell it….well, I just might buy the guitar.

That’s the situation in a nutshell.

When I was working at the book store….back when finances were really tight and we didn’t have a lot of extra money….one of these guitars came in and went out on the racks to be sold.

It’s a Gibson ES295…..a pretty cool old archtop that is probably worth something.

(The one in the pawn shop was old and had a crazed finish….and no “Scotty Moore” signature. I think the picture here is of one of the reissues that Gibson put out….that sells new for 11,000 dollars. You have to get a reissue to get Scotty Moore’s signature….)

I never researched its value after I did what I did.

What’s the point? It’s just water under the bridge….after I did what I did.

I knew all the guys who worked there….at the pawn shop….and they put a hold on the guitar for me.

300.00 was a steal on this guitar….but 300.00 was a lot of money….so I put a hold on it so I could decide what to do.

300.00 really was a lot of money back then.

I didn’t need to be spending a bunch of money on a guitar that I didn’t need.

Later in the evening, after I’d been working at the bookstore for a couple of hours, this big, bearded guy came in with a bunch of his rocker friends and stopped at the counter.

“Are you Peter?” he said.

“Yeah”

“They told me over at the pawn shop that you worked here. I want to buy that guitar that you put a hold on. If I gave you $100.00, would you tell them that you didn’t want to hold it anymore? Could you call them and tell them that?”

I’d never had a situation like that come up….but I’d never put a hold on a guitar that we really couldn’t afford…but that was probably worth a couple of thousand dollars….probably more.

“Yeah, I could do that….” I said.

So….he gave me the 100.00 so that he could buy a guitar that I didn’t own….and went over and bought this old guitar….and I went home a little richer just for walking into a pawn shop and asking them to hold a guitar that I knew was worth a lot of money.

That was kind of a funny experience.

That was a pretty cool guitar.

I have a bunch of cool guitars that I can’t really play.

What do I need with one more?

“Money for nothing” is kind of cool, too.

“money for nothing” Dire Straits