I killed a Taylor today

[loudnlousy]

A friend of mine used to work at PPC in Hannover as head of the guitar department.
One day he told me that somekind of hippie entered the shop, grabbed the most expensive acoustic on the wall and started to bang-away on it. His multiple silver wristbands and rings scratching the top of the guitar violently.
The damage was over a grand. The guy left the shop without telling anybody.

 

[Runamok]

At a local music shop, in front of the register. Turned around to see a Hercules double stand with a Taylor Baby that had a glossy finish, something I’d never seen before. I gently took it out of the stand’s grip and asked the clerk about it, when his face turned white staring behind me. The full-size Taylor 12-string that hung on the other side of the stand was halfway to the floor by that point, then it hit the carpeted floor flat on its face, not even bouncing. I said, “I just lifted it straight up!” Store owner came over, saw that the neck had broken right behind the truss rod nut, and said, “The stand legs were not set near wide enough, it’s not your fault.”

I felt terrible anyway. Watching a perfectly nice guitar die is like watching a kid fall off a bike.

I decided to buy a guitar, any guitar, just to do something to atone, even though I did not have to.

I had seen an interesting all-walnut Big Baby Taylor (BBT) a week or so before in the acoustic room and went looking for it. I’d never seen a walnut-topped acoustic before and I had liked the tone, being warmer that your typical spruce-topped Taylor, which as a marque tends to favor tinkly trebles over boom. The BBT is a ⅞ size dreadnought and I don’t have any dreads anymore. I tuned it up, and strummed out the obligatory G first position, and WOW this thing is fantastic. It ain’t pretty, but it sounds WAY better than it has any right to sound for $599, so I bought it. Made me feel better and it sure lifted the mood in the store after The 12-string Incident. This is a modest locally-owned shop that I try to support before Guitar Center eats them alive, so this was personal. I used to be a Sales Manager at our local GC so I know what the soulless vultures at Bain Capital have done to them and how they are forced to methodically crush local shops without mercy.

Like I said, this was personal. I did my bit and so should you at every opportunity, even if you don’t have to.

View attachment 195655

Cool on the new Baby.
Maybe its an astute sales ploy, like a mousetrap.

Surely you weren’t the first person to pull it off the stand.

Isn’t there another thread here about the double stands being problematic?

 

[Bertotti]

At a local music shop, in front of the register. Turned around to see a Hercules double stand with a Taylor Baby that had a glossy finish, something I’d never seen before. I gently took it out of the stand’s grip and asked the clerk about it, when his face turned white staring behind me. The full-size Taylor 12-string that hung on the other side of the stand was halfway to the floor by that point, then it hit the carpeted floor flat on its face, not even bouncing. I said, “I just lifted it straight up!” Store owner came over, saw that the neck had broken right behind the truss rod nut, and said, “The stand legs were not set near wide enough, it’s not your fault.”

I felt terrible anyway. Watching a perfectly nice guitar die is like watching a kid fall off a bike.

I decided to buy a guitar, any guitar, just to do something to atone, even though I did not have to.

I had seen an interesting all-walnut Big Baby Taylor (BBT) a week or so before in the acoustic room and went looking for it. I’d never seen a walnut-topped acoustic before and I had liked the tone, being warmer that your typical spruce-topped Taylor, which as a marque tends to favor tinkly trebles over boom. The BBT is a ⅞ size dreadnought and I don’t have any dreads anymore. I tuned it up, and strummed out the obligatory G first position, and WOW this thing is fantastic. It ain’t pretty, but it sounds WAY better than it has any right to sound for $599, so I bought it. Made me feel better and it sure lifted the mood in the store after The 12-string Incident. This is a modest locally-owned shop that I try to support before Guitar Center eats them alive, so this was personal. I used to be a Sales Manager at our local GC so I know what the soulless vultures at Bain Capital have done to them and how they are forced to methodically crush local shops without mercy.

Like I said, this was personal. I did my bit and so should you at every opportunity, even if you don’t have to.

View attachment 195655

That is plenty pretty don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

 

[David MacNeill]

That is plenty pretty don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Yeah, it has grown on me.