Last weekend I visited an old friend of mine who now lives on Mallorca (spanish island in the mediterrainean sea). I knew he had a 450/12, always asked him to sell it to me, but he wanted to keep it - very wise ! But this time I brought a new set of RIC strings with me. He got it out of the case - and it was not in very good condition, he didn't play it for at least 15 years, the hardware was quite tarnished
So we disassembled evrything, tuners, bridge etc. polished, polished polished and brought back the baby to shine again ! This guitar is now 43 years old and it still looks amazing, everything worked and when we finally plugged it in his old AC 30 
I can't tell you how satisfying this day was, even the fact that he doesn't want to sell it ..I'm happy with him that the guitar is alive again. Here is a slideshow of a few pics , enjoy 
http://s232.photobucket.com/albums/ee27 ... =slideshow
