About

The idea for CoolOldGuitars.com was inspired by all of us who collect, play and trade vintage acoustic guitars and really it probably derives from much earlier, long before this writing was an annoying fleck of dust being vigorously sanded out of a Gibson Loar-era hand-rubbed varnish finish by a skilled craftsman and much further back, probably to Europe or North Africa around the 1500s or so when the guitar was just beginning to evolve from a few other stringed oddities into what would become our beloved friend out on the road and on the radio and stage and in music stores and luthier shops along the way, with devout followers who could never really play but loved looking at guitars and others simply players or virtuosos and a long history that today has inspired our hope as collectors and pickers and purveyors of vintage acoustic guitars that through this collection and yours we can help to capture and record for posterity a sort of stratified look at modern 19th and 20th Century acoustics of all styles and qualities, whether paired with endangered old-growth Brazilian Rosewood backs and sides or more utilitarian White Oak or flat-sawn Birch from the factory, whether all original hardware and checkered finish or long-since bastardized out on the road making music or just noise so much so that said "player's guitar" has achieved that mythical status of "mojo" and thus a value not to be messed with by even a pro refinisher because refinishing is clearly sacrilege when it comes to vintage guitars they say as you begin to play and study the unique craftsmanship and art of such things as hide glue and herringbone and the glow of medullary rays and straight-grained quarter-sawn tonewoods that contribute to the unique sonic voice and reverb and sustain and so many other tonal qualities or lack thereof that make American acoustic guitars and the European models they evolved from so legendary and diverse and interesting that we continue to appreciate and strive to share the beauty, history, knowledge and value in preserving such cool old guitars and the music they make for all the future.  Happy strumming.

-COG