I think it would be interesting to hear about accidents that befell any of your GOOD instruments, either through accident, negligence, inebriation, or whwtever.

Back in the 60's Oscar Brand hosted a TV program "Let's Sing Out", and I fell in love with his big, blonde, Goya 12-String. So, when I chanced to find one in a music store, I shelled out $600. (a lot of money for an instrument in the 60's) and took this lovely guitar home. It had a wide classical guitar neck and was joined to the body at the 12th fret, and had tremendous tone. Loud, too. I was still a veritable beginner but could strum most of the popular songs that were around then.

Used to take the guitar to the pub where 20-30 people would gather to drink, sing and carouse on Thursday nights (place called The Pretzel Bell, long since demolished, anyone from Toronto remember it?). Being a young,struggling banker, I had no wheels, so I always hitched a ride home with someone. One particular night we were leaving the pub at 1:00 AM, and a friend offered me a ride in his sports car (I think it was an MGB). We stashed the guitar in the trunk, closed the lid, hopped in the car and away we went.

On reaching our destination and opening the trunk I was confronted with one of the saddest sights I had seen in many years. The metal hinge on the trunk cover had pierced the guitar case and the top of my beautiful 12-string. I stood there nearly crying, I was so devastated.

I took it to a repair shop and it was patched (cost me $50.00 for that, but the guitar was never the same after that. It still had great tone but little mechanical things began going wrong, such as the bridge popping off, the top caving in (slowly and gradually over a period of time), and I eventually retired it from service and bought another guitar.

Hard lesson learned !!!

Davey... (:>)