Monday 12 July 2010

Naudo's guitar up for sale!

In the past I have emailed with The Master himself, Naudo; it's a bit tricky because English is his second language and I don't know any Spanish - but we managed to have a few emailed conversations. I've also emailed with possibly his greatest fan, Juan; who goes largely unrecognised but without him we wouldn't even know Naudo. Juan does all the videoing and uploading to youtube. Juan's English is pretty good, and in a recent message with him he mentioned that Naudo was keen to change to a new guitar, and they were thinking about selling his old one, signed, to the highest bidder.

Two things went through my mind: don't straight away sell it on e-bay, it needs to be out there for a long time so that enough people get a chance to notice it's up for sale and bid. Which means advertising that it's for sale, which I could try to help out with, for instance mentioning it here, and on my youtube channel. The other thing that went through my mind was: I should buy that :)

Similar to what my mate Roman mentioned in a comment on another thread, I pictured myself flying out to Tenerife, meeting The Man himself, listening to a set, shaking his hand and getting a photo of him handing the signed guitar to me. Daydreams...

Also as Roman mentioned, it would be quite a sound investment too. Imagine you had the oppurtunity to buy John Lennon's first guitar before the Beatles were formed, because he needed a bit of cash. Say you'd seen him in some underground club in The Quarrymen and you thought "hey, he's a genius, I should buy that guitar before the rest of the world realise it." I reckon Naudo is a similar situation; except that the world isn't quite like it was in John Lennon's heyday - easy distribution of music and wide variety of choice seems to mean no one person becomes famous over the whole world.

So perhaps more like Tommy Emmanuel; well known by people who know him, if you know what I mean :)

But anyway, it will be a wise buyer who hedges his bets and grabs it while he can. I know if I had it I'd probably play it a little bit every now and then, but for the rest of time keep it in a locked glass case. It's more of a historical artifact than an instrument of music! But, my missus would kill me if I bought another guitar...

The starting price was 700 Euros, bargain. I hope Juan will put up an auction spot on the internet, Naudo's blog sounds seems the right place, with the latest bid price. I suspect however he will just get it known that it is coming up for sale and then put it on ebay. In the meantime, here is where it was mentioned and for those of you who hadn't noticed, Juan has been posting a few new Naudo videos here Juan Ignaciomoreno.