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Spotted this (presumably genuine?) early strat up for auction and out of curiosity I asked what reserve he'd set.
He replied: £35,000!
Now can I afford it as a Christmas pressie to myself, I wonder? I think he's taking the wotsit, or is he? He has two other guitars for sale and it's interesting that all three allegedly have various bids in, but when I just looked each was currently sitting at £115.13, which seemed a little odd.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

So who's going to be bidding on this one, then?

Cheers and Merry Christmas,
Martyn

The mention of 'clay pots' presumably indicates that this is an early Neolithic Strat incorprating some very basic potttery in its structure? Mark Knopfler refers to his '54 model as 'Jurassic' but this one appears to come from an slightly later stage of civilized history. (I assume he means 'clay dots'.)

He could be winding you up. i personally wouldnt tell anybody the reserve price. I could see it going for between 7-11,000 though and even more at a conventional auction.

mike

alanbakewell wrote:I don't see a problem. The bloke has 100% positive feedback he must be O.K.

I'm not really doubting his authenticity, merely pointing out some slight anomolies, but mostly just amazed at the price anticipated for a guitar. If it had some sort of provenance, such as played and owned by . . . etc, I could perhaps understand someone wanting to own a specific piece of musical history. But my 1960s Flamingo Pink (as it was then known - Fiesta Red wasn't a paint colour name used back in that period) strat with rosewood fingerboard and single ply pleckplate, which I once owned in my long-gone youth, wasn't very good (putting it mildly) and certainly wouldn't compare well with my current mex strat in terms of sound quality or playability.

I can understand folk wanting to own an early strat for a multitude of reasons but if mine ever came up for auction I'd possibly make a reasonable bid on it purely as an item of personal nostalgia to hang on a wall, but even if it did play and sound well I'd certainly not consider paying this sort of money for it, even if I could afford to, which I can't. It's not sour grapes as such things have never struck me that way, merely mild astonishment.

If you picked up my old strat to play it, without being aware of its age etc, I doubt you'd choose it over another more recent item, which is why I didn't own it for long. Call me cynical, if you will, but I just feel some are cashing in on a mythology that in reality doesn't always bear close scrutiny or analysis. People are free to bid on and buy anything, of course.

Sorry - got a bit of a streaming cold at the moment and brain's not quite functioning properly. I've only just spotted that feedback detail - doh!

Merry Christmas to you too.

For £35,000 you could get 35 really good guitars at a grand each!