Hi guys. I was just finishing up a restringing today, thank goodness I can play again, and I thought to myself “gee this has seen some better days. I wish I knew this guitars story!” So I wanted to ask, anyone else on here play any instrument, and how beat up is it? What’s the story behind the scars? This is my Guild JF4NT. Crazy good, crazy solid, crazy beat to heck. Sounds like a million bucks and looks like it owed someone a million bucks.
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Oh man, I’ll try to take photos tomorrow, and include the story 
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Most of my stuff is in really good shape. My two main basses have just some light swirling and maybe one minor love mark. My first decent bass has a lot of mojo, but even that is pretty negligible.
I guess my tops would be my early 50’s west German upright. At some point the heel was shattered and reglued and a previous owner scratched “WF” just under it. When my daughter (now 18) was 3, she pulled the bass down and popped off the ebony fingerboard, popped the top off at the lower bout, and cracked the endpin. But all that was repaired pretty easily and it plays brilliant as ever.
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Oh those are just stunning! Beautiful! It’s the saddest moment in the world when your babies get hurt. My SG is great right now but when I bumped my headstock and put my first little dent… ugh. Sadness.
I wish I knew the Guilds story. Bought it at a pawn shop for what I thought was an okay enough deal and haven’t looked back. The way I see it is people pay for their guitars to look like this on purpose and it’s all fake. Mine is 100 percent authentic wear. 
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So this is “Bessy”. A Larrivee LV03c. I sold this guitar brand new to a customer. It was his favorite guitar. About a year later he came in, pretty distraught, he said he needed to buy a new guitar. I had just done a setup on this guitar the week before. He then said that his then girlfriend thought he was cheating on her (he insisted he wasn’t). He pulled in the driveway from his day at work, and there she was holding his guitar. He got out of the car and asked what was going on, she then accused him of cheating and proceeded to trash the guitar. Full on Pete Townsend. He went out and got it out of his car, and wanted to see if Larrivee could repair it. Turned out he could buy 2-3 new guitars for the repair price. He said he was going to throw it away. I asked if I could keep it. I tried piecing it together with the pieces he had brought in.
When I got it, the neck was completely off. Super clean, which was good, actually looked like it had been professionally removed. The cutaway was completely broken off, a number of braces were loose, numerous cracks on the top. And there were several pieces that were missing, so I covered them with tape.
It actually sounds really good. It’s made numerous trips around the country, been to Hawaii and Canada.
When I got it, I didn’t have many tools. But my new shop is almost complete. I play on taking this back apart and rebuilding it again. Probably going to replace the entire cutaway side, make it a non-cutaway. I plan on leaving the missing piece under the end of the fretboard, and probably leave the hole under the soundhole as well.
I’ve got other guitars, a few from the 30’s, that have more natural wear. But this is my most “beat up instrument”.
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When I was in middle school ( mid 90s), while getting on the bus my case failed. My trumpet tumbled put so hard that it all but flattened the bell. Amazingly, a repair shop was able to hammer it back into shape. I believe my nephew plays it now. When I get a opportunity I’ll be sure to post a pic.
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Oh, my goodness that’s amazing! Crazy! Even with the tape it’s a beauty.