Dumpster diving, white elephant sales, sweet dreams and flying machines.....

cupric

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I heard some stories back in the day of people finding all kinds of good stuff in the Westerly Guild factory trash. I also saw alot of Guild parts, and misc. at yardsales. My greatest find though was a few boxes of Guild stuff found at a white elephant sale. I paid a few dollars for these boxes. Inside there were many parts. There was a painted statue of liberty bolt on neck plate, many pickups, covers, bridges, inlays etc. One of the boxes was a ream of Guild letterhead office paper from NJ, many catalogs etc. But the most interesting things were a 12"x16"ish industry picture of the airplane that Al Dronge crashed in. I believe it was a picture obtained while he was shopping for it. There were also many Newspaper cutouts of Guild news, happenings, etc. There was also a few about the plane crash.
I often wonder if this stuff was Al Dronges, things removed from his office perhaps.
 
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adorshki

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I realize you're probably not out to "capitalize" on any of that stuff, but I bet Hans would be interested in at least some of it, like those Statue of Liberty neck plate covers for example and probably the pickups too.
And you'd be contributing to the pool of parts available for restoration from what I'd suspect is the most ethical source out there, especially compared to guys like GibsonDependable who parts out what appear to be perfectly serviceable/intact instruments.
Causes a lot of angst 'round here.....
And yeah I'd probably keep one of each of anything I was personally attracted to as a fanboy...:friendly_wink:
 

mavuser

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any chance u have an ebony 12-string mid-60s Hoboken (1965 F-312) bridge in those boxes? i will buy it from you if so.

also, the Statue of Liberty neck plate is on some Pilot basses, possibly other instruments as well.
 

cupric

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Yes, the neck plate was on several guitars. I put one on my blue Detonator. It looked great....
I permanently loaned much of the documentation to a Guild historian. He already had a ton of historical info himself, so it was fitting. I may ask for the picture back as a wall hanger.
I have distributed many of the parts over the years, and I still have some in storage. I will let everyone know via posting and if anyone is looking I can check.
I am not normally super lucky, but this find was significant due to my long love of everything Guild, and the fact that it had something that I am sure Alfred actually had in his hands.
The value of the documentation is now a small fortune...judging from the offerings on EBay. And some of the parts are super rare.
 
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adorshki

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and if anyone is looking I can check.
I am not normally super lucky, but this find was significant due to my long love of everything Guild, and the fact that it had something that I am sure Alfred actually had in his hands.
The value of the documentation is now a small fortune...judging from the offerings on EBay. And some of the parts are super rare.
Sounds like it's already in good hands, then!
 

cupric

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Yes, I guess "Drone" is a lot more common spelling than Dronge is. Lol. I am willing to guess that, just a few short years ago, people using the term "drone" would have been about as common as "Dronge"... unless you were into bees or science fiction.
 
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