I found my D-18 at the end of a row of second-hand guitars in a country music shop. It was covered with dust, had dead strings that left no tone you could judge by, had apparently at some stage been too close to a carelessly-opened tin of beer, and had a little solidly repaired but obvious damage to the back. All of that brought it down into my price bracket (well, nearly), so I took a chance, and yes, it responded to tlc and a set of medium Newtones by becoming the star it should have been all along. The only trouble is, I can't blame my mistakes on the guitar any more.