1976 Deluxe 59’er, 2337DX

Coming Full Circle

This is a story about beating astronomical odds.

A friend of mine bought this guitar in Hollywood in 1976, and 9 months later he sold it to me for $250 with the original case.

He was killed in a motorcycle crash 2 years later, so this guitar has some very sentimental value to me. For the first 2 years in my band, this was my sole stringed instrument. In 1981, I bought a Strat to play my blues on. This continued until the band dissolved and I moved out of California.

Fast forward to the mid-90’s:

My family had been re-established in the central valley of California since 1986, and I had started a career as an Over-the-Road longhaul truck driver. During my hometimes, I had started recording some of my songs on an 8-track Recorder. Since I play 11 instruments, I performed all of the tracks myself.

My wife’s brother had become a heroin addict and had been stealing tools from my father-in-law (who lived next door), and he had even taken a couple of my power tools. Ultimately, he stole this guitar from my studio and sold it to a pawn shop. I didn’t find out for about 4 months. By that time, it had been sold.

For the last year or so, I’ve been looking around for that model guitar just because I really don’t feel like paying 5 figures for a Les Paul when that guitar played exactly like one except it’s 4 pounds lighter! Last week, I stumbled upon this one for sale on Reverb, and when I zoomed-in on the photos, I could not believe my eyes. All the dings and bumps that I remembered putting on my guitar perfectly matched the dings in this one, with a few additional ones thrown in for good measure! An exact match!!!

The sale price was $800, and when I put the $250 that I originally paid for it into an online inflation calculator, that seller should have been asking over $1,300! Needless to say, I bought it, and it arrived 4 days ago. The only difference is that the strap locks had been replaced with stock strap attachments. I put some new strings on her and set the intonation and stretched the strings for about 5 minutes before putting her in the new case (pictured). I finally got a chance to play it yesterday, and she is still smooth and sounds great. Only thing I’ve done was to put some Jim Dunlop strap locks back on, and I’m going to have to volume knobs pots blown out to see if the scratching noise will go away.

Yes, I beat astronomical odds, and I’m pinching myself because I still can’t believe this happened! It doesn’t matter. Babycakes and I have been reunited.

Big Mack