Hands down the most amazing retail guitar shop I’ve been to. I would have played over $100k worth of guitars today including a 1939 Martin D series, a couple of Bourgeois, Lowden cedar top, Santa Cruz models, Taylors like you wouldn’t believe, a Martin SC13e an SC10e (been waiting ages to try those), a Rainsong, several Ovations, Gibsons and a couple of nice Cole Clarks with redwood tops.
The staff were friendly and accommodating and guess what… I didn’t buy anything. I was captivated by the choice and the time there just flew.
One nice things was there were a number of high end 2nd hand guitars mixed in with all the new models.
I have to admit that I’m terrible at doing this, and same thing I’ve played some amazingly good guitars mostly way beyond my means
If I have ever been approached by sales staff asking me which one I want I tell them All of them but I ain’t got that sort of money and walk out! Even if I went in to buy I would have done the same, I consider that attitude to be rude when you’re looking at spending four figures plus!
If I’d found “the one” it would have likely come home with me. It was nice to play my daily play guitar when I got home and remember very much why I like it so much.
A number that I played were well beyond what I’d be willing to pay for them. There were quite a few that were in what I’d call my price range, but none of them jumped out at me. The staff were particularly good, happy for me to play any of them to my hearts content. The Bourgeois, as expected, had particularly good sustain.
I remember one sales guy at a guitar shop when I asked if it was ok to play a particular guitar (it wasn’t overly expensive, I think around $1500) and he responded with a surly “are you going to buy it?”. I was tempted to walk out on him at that moment, but had really wanted to hear it. Silly thing. was I had more cash than that readily available should I have liked it. But I would have looked elsewhere to not reward such poor manners. In the end, it was easy to walk out as the guitar didn’t impress me any more than the sales person did.
Thanks!!! Once we made it to Adelaide, we’ve been mostly retracing our steps. So the “big lap” is effectively done, yet we’ve got to slowly make our way home over the next 3 months or so as it’s heading into really hot season at home and our house is leased through April. What a trip it has been and today was so heavenly because as we’ve traveled around, I’ve visited many guitar shops and understandably in the more remote areas the choice of guitars was quite limited.
