After starting to learn to play on an acoustic guitar less than two years ago I talked my wife round to the fact that we needed a new guitar.
I have always fancied a Les Paul guitar so I stared searching the net for prices and opinions. A Gibson standard was high on my wish list but my wallet pulled me towards an Epiphone model.
The more research I did the more the name Tokai kept appearing usually accompanied with heaps of praise, I decided to take a closer look.
Information was a little harder to come by but after finding the Tokai registry" and hunting around a few guitar shops in my area I had a better idea of what to look for and the sort of quality to expect.
My search for my ideal Love Rock locally was disappointing as the only two I came across were lefties (funny as I am L/handed but play R/handed).
Internet search revealed several possible sources at shops within a reasonable distance and several were advertised on Ebay at the time.
I decided not to rush into buying the first thing that caught my eye and kept my eye on the ones on Ebay. Being suspicious by nature I was very sceptical about some of the descriptions give by sellers and the lack of information that was forthcoming from some when questioned sounded alarm bells.
After weeks of sorting the wheat from the chaff I finally had a good idea what I wanted and how much I was prepared to pay so with a couple on the short list I entered my first bid.
Too low as it turned out and I missed out by a few quid.
I was not too bothered as the one I bid for was cherry sb, not my favorite colour. The second guitar I had selected was ending three days later and was a much nicer colour so I decided to raise my bid slightly as no new listings had caught my eye.
Twelve hours to go before the end of the auction and disaster strikes, my adsl curled up it's toes and died on me. I got a dial up connection working but watching a page load was like watching paint dry and the connection kept dropping.
Luckiliy a workmate told me about sniping software which would bid for you even when offline so after half an hour setting this up on my dialup connection I was feeling better.
As the auction neared an end I couldn't get the page to load so I sat in the garden with a beer, half an hour later and it was over, I reconnected and finally the page loaded.......I had won ?385 the price I was under my limit by ?50! :lol:
A few anxious days later I was unwrapping my new baby, it was better than I had hoped with hardly a mark on it and it sounded great.
I took it along to my guitar class the next evening and several members nearly wet themselves when I took it from the case and a good workout on it by my tutor confirmed it was a first class guitar.
Thanks to Ned and everyone at the forum, without the information I obtained here I would probably not have strayed from the Gibson stable and would have ended up with an Epiphone for similar money. :-?
I have always fancied a Les Paul guitar so I stared searching the net for prices and opinions. A Gibson standard was high on my wish list but my wallet pulled me towards an Epiphone model.
The more research I did the more the name Tokai kept appearing usually accompanied with heaps of praise, I decided to take a closer look.
Information was a little harder to come by but after finding the Tokai registry" and hunting around a few guitar shops in my area I had a better idea of what to look for and the sort of quality to expect.
My search for my ideal Love Rock locally was disappointing as the only two I came across were lefties (funny as I am L/handed but play R/handed).
Internet search revealed several possible sources at shops within a reasonable distance and several were advertised on Ebay at the time.
I decided not to rush into buying the first thing that caught my eye and kept my eye on the ones on Ebay. Being suspicious by nature I was very sceptical about some of the descriptions give by sellers and the lack of information that was forthcoming from some when questioned sounded alarm bells.
After weeks of sorting the wheat from the chaff I finally had a good idea what I wanted and how much I was prepared to pay so with a couple on the short list I entered my first bid.
Too low as it turned out and I missed out by a few quid.
I was not too bothered as the one I bid for was cherry sb, not my favorite colour. The second guitar I had selected was ending three days later and was a much nicer colour so I decided to raise my bid slightly as no new listings had caught my eye.
Twelve hours to go before the end of the auction and disaster strikes, my adsl curled up it's toes and died on me. I got a dial up connection working but watching a page load was like watching paint dry and the connection kept dropping.
Luckiliy a workmate told me about sniping software which would bid for you even when offline so after half an hour setting this up on my dialup connection I was feeling better.
As the auction neared an end I couldn't get the page to load so I sat in the garden with a beer, half an hour later and it was over, I reconnected and finally the page loaded.......I had won ?385 the price I was under my limit by ?50! :lol:
A few anxious days later I was unwrapping my new baby, it was better than I had hoped with hardly a mark on it and it sounded great.
I took it along to my guitar class the next evening and several members nearly wet themselves when I took it from the case and a good workout on it by my tutor confirmed it was a first class guitar.
Thanks to Ned and everyone at the forum, without the information I obtained here I would probably not have strayed from the Gibson stable and would have ended up with an Epiphone for similar money. :-?
That was a great tale! Congratulations! I love a bargain!! 8) TG
