Any "Replacements" fans here?

[JeffHaddad]

Cool! Great score (and patience!)

[octagon]

Thanks! I was thrilled to have (finally)gotten it.

[Tommy]

Isn't there always some sort of skepticism when buying a guitar that is said to belong to a well known performer? Does a piece of paper and a few dots on the pickguard provide 100% proof? Can one ever be completely sure?



By the way, here's my Hofner bass that actually belonged to Paul in the early days of The Beatles. I bought it for just 300 bucks at a Guitar Center out on Long Island. It really was McCartney's!

[rkbsound]

Isn't there always some sort of skepticism when buying a guitar that is said to belong to a well known performer? Does a piece of paper and a few dots on the pickguard provide 100% proof? Can one ever be completely sure?



By the way, here's my Hofner bass that actually belonged to Paul in the early days of The Beatles. I bought it for just 300 bucks at a Guitar Center out on Long Island. It really was McCartney's!

There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that this guitar's provenance is not legit. Too many things add up. If there was a question, this would be the forum that would catch a fake or fake claim. In this case, I'm guessing the price was market, so there is no reason to claim it is something that it's not. The guitar is going to sell regardless because it's a great guitar by itself.

[Tommy]

No, I totally agree that the Ric was Westerberg's. No doubt at all.

Just wondering about the provenance that is required for some guitar sales that I see. Just yesterday a guy posted an old '60s SG that was once owned by the guitarist from The Kentucky Headhunters. Asking price was about seven grand. First off, is a guitar once owned by a Headhunter worth that much, and more importantly, what proof would one want to be sure it once was owned by the performer?

[octagon]

Thanks for the posts! I asked Jim to write the letter for me so that I would have some kind of provenance. I talked to Jim today and asked him to fill in the blanks about how the guitar got from Paul to him. He told me the guy he bought it from is a collector and a Replacements fan who bought the guitar from another local store. I think that guy bought the guitar around 1999 and sold it to Jim around 2001.Jim sold it to a regular customer soon after he bought it and it was traded back in in 2010 and sold the same day. I was lucky to be in the store last week when it came back for the 3rd time. I said to Jim "I should get it,I mean how chances am I going to get to buy it?" Jim said "I don't know but I have had 3." lol. The price I paid for the guitar was $1799. That might be a little above the market price but that is because the the guitar was on consignment. Still,I traded some gear in so it only cost me $400 out of pocket to get this guitar.

Jim is a great guy. He used to have big collection of vintage gear. When he opened the Golden Valley store he had a huge stash of BF Fender amps for sale Below is an early Fender Esquire that is on display at the store, Fender has verified the guitar as one Leo used as a test bed for the prototype Strat tremolos(notice the 3 saddle tremolo).



Actually,Paul has been a customer of Jims store.He bought Jim's vintage Epiphone Casino. Also Jim told me that Paul once brought him a Les Paul Junior and asked if he wanted to buy it. Jim said the guitar was just a hulk when he brought it in, a body with no pickup,hard ware,pickguard or electronics.There was never any explanation about how the guitar got like this. Still it was a vintage Junior from around 1956 so Jim said it might be a better idea to restore it it with vintage parts and then sell it on consignment. Paul agreed and and Jim said he was able to get it put back together with all the appropriate parts but after he did Paul decided he didn't want to sell the guitar after all. I think he still has it now. It might be the guitar in this video.

[rkbsound]

Well, one could say a guitar is only worth what it sells for, but I would have paid more for that guitar ( not voluntarily, of course!). Any way you slice it, I think you got a great guitar at a great price.

[octagon]

Thanks for the posts! which strings would you suggest for this guitar?Gage/brand/type etc. also where do most place the octave strings on a Rickenbacker? Any advice would be appreciated. Also,did Rickenbacker make a nut that allowed for wider spacing of the strings on on older 620/12 guitars? I seem to remember there was a thread about this a few years ago. Maybe it was the same a 330/12 nut,is that right?

[kernkamp]

Cool score Mitch! About 10 years ago or so I almost bought Tommy Stinsons old Rick bass from Willies in St. Paul. It was hanging on the wall with a sign that said "pleased to meet me". It was perfectly punked out, worn a lot with a black and white checkerboard pickguard. I still regret passing it up but $1500 was a lot of money back then for a trashed Ricky with one working pickup.

I shoulda got it though. It was so cool! If I found it again I wouldn't pass it up. Love The Mats!

[Standtall]

I'm a Mats fan...
I've been a fan since like 1983-1984
I so wanted to have a band like Mats...
For me...they were what music was suppose to be about

Congrats on the guitar!

Standtall

[octagon]

Cool score Mitch! About 10 years ago or so I almost bought Tommy Stinsons old Rick bass from Willies in St. Paul. It was hanging on the wall with a sign that said "pleased to meet me". It was perfectly punked out, worn a lot with a black and white checkerboard pickguard. I still regret passing it up but $1500 was a lot of money back then for a trashed Ricky with one working pickup.

I shoulda got it though. It was so cool! If I found it again I wouldn't pass it up. Love The Mats!

Was that the bass Mark Kaufman owns?

[kernkamp]

I don't know. I'd know it if I saw it though. Do you or he have any pictures of it?

[octagon]

I know it is this one but I don't have a good picture.

[octagon]

I guess it is not the same one as the one you saw at Willies American Guitars. I read a post by Mark online in which he said :

my pride and joy is my 1972 Rickenbacker 4001 bass, in Burgundyglo. It's a work of art and getting rarer every day. The full-width sparkly inlays, the checkerboard binding, one of the deluxe beauties from Rickenbacker's golden age. This is the bass sound of middle and late Beatles, Wings, YES, early Who, the Kinks. That round, growling tone...I love it. This one used to belong to Tommy Stinson of The Replacements. He played it on Saturday Night Live...and here it is on The Old Grey Whistle Test with the old black pickguard that I replaced later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXAmzGD7Vc0
When I bought it, for a mere $150, it was nearly destroyed, and most of the original parts had been gutted and replaced with wrong and nasty ones. I decided to try to restore it, so I found all the various pieces like a bridge, a tailpiece, a white pickguard, etc, and brought it back to a closer semblance of it's original glory, and it now looks much like it did when it was new. This is it:

[kernkamp]

The one I saw was black with a checkerboard pickguard. It was also pretty punked out. Lots of wear.
Cool story on this one though.

Hoping the Replacements go on tour this year.