My new baby

I had a few guitar lessons with a lovely dude named Jake (I haven't yet taken a photo of him, but I'll add one once I take one). Anywhoo - I was deliriously happy and felt like a kid again when I was able to (stiltedly) strum my heart out and sing along. At first I just played one of Jake's guitars, but then I realised that if I was to continue with my new found love, then I would need to stop borrowing Jake's guitar (which incidentally is not his, but is on loan from his neighbour over the summer) and find my own guitar to be true to.

And so started the search for my very own baby. This consisted of searching craigslist.com, which is a classifieds database for a whole range of things (from jobs, apartments, instrument, clothes, to personal ads etc). There were a number of guitars, and since I am just starting out I was really just looking for the cheapest one (around $100-$150). I found a few - emailed the advertisers and settled on this one (advertised for $145).

The previous owner was given the guitar as a gift (or so he says) and rarely plays it so he was selling it. It was in really great condition, complete with a brand new soft carry-case, tuner and guitar chords book however when I asked the seller if there were any markings or scratches he responded 'no, it's rarely been used'. Then I get a sheepish email a few hours later stating that 'actually, I had a look and the bridge is coming off which is pretty normal in the humidity of New York and as a result I'll drop the price to $40'. Woohoo! for a budget traveler this was music to my ears! Meh - how hard can a bridge be to glue back down.

So I caught the G train to the end of the line and met with Tommy (the seller), inspected the goods and took possession of my brand new baby.



Once home I began calling repairers for quotes. The price of a replacement bridge ranged from $40 to $300!!! Needless to say I opted for the $40 option. Which, mind you, involved trekking across brooklyn a little. So in the end, I saved myself about $50 off the original price!

And today - after less than a week - I got the call. My baby was ready for collection.