Very enjoyable and funny story, but it also raises some more-or-less serious questions.

John Hardly said yesterday:

"Bill D, As I understand it, only a small percentage has to be original for a piece to be considered an "authentic antique". In the case of that ax, the part of the axe that is original is the "essence" part.

I'm reminded that Martin Gibson once contended ~ seriously, I think ~ that installing a replacement pickguard on my vintage D-18 would somehow devalue it, robbing it of its "all-original" character.

That's pretty hard to accept; the 30+-year-old pickguard was curling up around all its edges, looked terrible, and posed an actual risk of catching a pick or fingernail while playing ~ hardly an "asset"! Slapping on an identical made-by-Martin replacement part not only made my guitar more presentable and marginally more playable, but surely also enhanced ~ or at least preserved ~ its value. (Not that I'm selling, anyway, but still...)

On one extreme, consider the strings on a guitar. Installing replacement strings and discarding the "original equipment" is never considered a desecration or devaluation, right? Other incidental parts are just as accidental, even though they might last thirty months or thirty years rather than thirty days before requiring replacement: the aforementioned pickguard, for one thing, as well as, say, bridge pins, nuts and saddles, perhaps tuning machines, even (eventually) frets. Replacing such components is sometimes just part of maintaining your instrument.

So, seriously, perhaps "wood does matter" insofar as its basic wooden structure is the one thing that determines an instrument's identity or "essence." You can replace most of the other gewgaws attached to this or that part of the wood without making it into a new and different instrument, but when you start swapping out tops and necks and soundboxes, well, it becomes debatable whether you still have the same "axe" (as in George Washington's legendary axe, which has had 5 handle replacements and a couple of new heads).