I Give You The Yamaha SBG500 Electric Guitar...

Maybe ten years ago, give or take a year or two, my nephew Josh and I entered into a trade. For the life of me I can't remember what I contributed to the exchange, but I do know I left with a Yamaha SBG500 electric guitar. If I had to guess, I think I traded him an old laptop computer, but don't hold me to it. I doubt even Josh remembers what he got.

But whatever it was, I know I got the better of the deal.

By a long way 

(especially if it was a ten-year old laptop...)

On Wednesday I brought home little amp (the one I had has a short in it and doesn't work well...). I took out the red guitar and played a bit. I am in no way proficient on the instrument, but guitars--like almost all musical instruments--are beautiful. I had my computer close so I did a google search on the guitar since I know little about Yamahas. In all these years owning the guitar, I never researched the Yamaha.

Turns out, my little red guitar is quite a find. 

It was built in Japan in the 1980s. Yamaha released a SBG500 B series in the 1990s, I believe, but it's always better to have an original. There weren't many of this particular model for sale on the internet, but the ones that were had a value more than I expected. In fact, I was shocked. I believe my nephew bought this guitar at a yard sale, the same yard sale we had visited. In fact, I think I saw this very guitar when it was for sale. He picked it up and I ended up with it. Since it was at the yard sale, with a price (if I remember correctly...) of around $100, I thought my guitar wasn't worth much. I was wrong.

I've blogged about my bass guitar a few times. It's a Gibson from the 1970s, a big old heavy beautiful guitar. I don't have the opportunity to play it very often. It's a shame. It should be played, yet it's hard for me to imagine selling it. Then again, if I sold both of my guitars, I could get a nice used car.

Sometimes, when I pick up any guitar, it reminds me of the Rush album 2112, and specifically the song, Discovery where a boy finds a guitar, learns to play it, and ultimately loses his life over it because possessing a guitar is against the law. Holding the guitar in my hands, strumming the wires, hearing the vibrations...I can understand why a musician would write a song like that. A guitar is a beautiful beautiful thing.