catalana over to The Guitar Works in Evanston to get her Takamine 12-string adjusted. I waited until Terry, the owner, finished a conversation and asked him to take a look at the guitar. He said he could go ahead and adjust it right away and we could look at guitars while he was taking care of it.Now, Erica had decided that she wanted to get a Taylor after having had a chance to play my new guitar. Of course, my guitar was a limited edition that they made in 2004, a 710 short-scale with a cutaway and the Expression system. Not that Erica really needed either a cutaway or the ability to plug her guitar in direct, but it was a nice guitar anyway.
So I handed Erica a bunch of Taylors off the wall to try. A 210, a 310, a 410, a 714 -- where she determined that she didn't like the more curved body shape (an observation I agree with personally). I handed her a Martin and she found that the fretboard was just enough wider than the Taylors that it wasn't comfortable for her to play.
I'd pulled down all of the guitars I could conveniently reach that looked promising. There was one hanging sort of high on the wall, though. I stepped back and took a look at it. It looked familiar. I could read the label through the soundhole and it said "Short scale". Naw. Can't be.
So I got one of the other folks at the store to bring a ladder and get it down. It was the same 710 model as my guitar, except it didn't have a cutaway or built-in electronics. I handed it to Erica.
Now, there's no way they should have this guitar in 2006, because they made this model only in 2004, unless they decided to run another batch of them. And Erica really liked it. And made some budgetary computations while I noodled on it.
Terry came back with Erica's 12-string, which was much more playable.
"Terry," I asked, "I thought this was a limited edition for 2004. Did they make more of them?"
"Let me look at it." He checks the serial number in the sound hole. "Nope. That was made in 2004."
"Why do you still have it?"
"I must have forgotten that I had it, so it sat in a case instead of hanging on the wall."
"How much is it?"
"Let me check."
He came back a moment later. "Retails for X, normally it would be Y, but since it's old, figure Y - $100."
Erica: "I'll take it."
Terry didn't charge Erica for the adjustment on the 12-string and he gave me a new set of strings.
And Erica now has a new guitar. We have custody of the 12-string for a bit, since she's not taking two guitars back on the train.
And here's a picture of my guitar and Erica's:
Now I really hadn't expected that Erica would be buying a guitar on this trip. And neither of us had expected to find a guitar there that had no business whatsoever having not been sold in the intervening year.
But these things happen. :)