You are lucky to have all those old cheapo guitars laying around thrift and pawn shops. I went past a pawn shop here a few days ago and there was a basic Sammick for $200. That is about $120 US these days. You can probably get it new for that price--and that was in a pawn shop.

I ran into a cassette put out by Columbia Records called "Leadbelly". In it he plays bottleneck guitar! I have never heard him do that in any other recordings. The cassette comes with no documentation whatsoever. Did he use his 12 string for that? It is quite interesting. The theme of the album is Delta blues in that he either does his version of Delta classics like "Death Letter Blues" or he uses slide techniques on other pieces, including two Blind Lemmon Jefferson songs.

On some he starts out in the Mississippi style, but before the end of the song he is combining slide with Leadbelly barrelhouse. It is impressive.

I would be interested in any information about the album. It is simply called "Leadbelly" and its serial number is CBS PCT30035. I don't see any copyright date. The only descriptive material is the list of songs and the fact that it "includes legendary performances never before released". Songs include CC Rider, Black Snake Moan, Match Box blues, two versions of Roberta, Alberta...

Murray